FAQs

Children may arrive from 8.30 to 9.30 am and school starts at 9.30 until 3.45pm.

The BAPS garden is large and surfaced with non-slip material: it is possible to play outside just a few minutes after a rain shower. Moreover, on sunny days, school activities are often taken into the garden, that is considered a beneficial area for learning and teaching.

Children are offered the opportunity to attend numerous after-school activities: dance, football, judo, music and theatre.

No, you do not need to be.

No, they do not have to.

No, children have an innate ability to discriminate between language and non-language sounds. They have no difficulty in learning the sounds of two or more languages. First language acquisition takes place before the age of three. After this age the child’s brain plasticity enables them to learn a second language - with correct pronunciation - without any confusion between first and second language.

The best age goes from birth to pre-school. To grow up bilingual, it is important to expose the child to both languages as early as possible: the longer you wait, the bigger the risk to miss the cognitive benefits that bilingualism gives to the child’s brain, which is highly plastic in the earliest months of life. In other words, children are able to manage multiple languages from birth.

It depends on different factors, including individual characteristics. Various studies show that it takes children in bilingual programs about two years to develop verbally, and from 5 to 8 years to implement their second language skills academically. Infant bilinguals have an advantage: they can speak their second language without an accent. For this reason it is important to expose children to both languages as soon as possible. This is why it may be limitative to start a bilingual path and interrupt it in Year 5.

Bilingualism must be gradual rather than forced upon a child. To ensure that all the children understand English, teachers use visual aids, gestures and images. Body language and other appropriate strategies are also important to support communication and learning.

Sometimes children do mix languages. However, this tendency, which is normal in second language development, will disappear in time. This phenomenon, known as translanguaging, is frequent in young and adult bilinguals and it is not a problem.

Bilingualism represents a kind of enrichment because it enables a child to move between cultures. Being able to communicate in two languages gives advantages also in the workplace. Bilingualism has positive effects on attention: bilinguals are in fact favoured in situations that require an ability to focus on relevant information. This ability might be due to the fact that bilinguals have two simultaneously active languages in their brain.

Parents do not have to be English speakers to foster their child’s learning. Children can simply be encouraged to teach their family some words, to read some stories or to sing in English with them. Most of all, parents can show enthusiasm for their child’s language development. Teachers can help parents find suitable ways to support their child’s language development.

Teachers provide parents with an updated feedback. Besides, parents often realize that younger children start to use their second language when they play independently or with their siblings.

No, speaking two languages early in life does not affect academic learning. When people speak about children’s learning however, it is advisable to avoid making comparisons as every child progresses differently. Scientific studies demonstrate that bilinguals tend to outperform their monolingual peers, both academically and linguistically. Bilingual children become as competent as their monolingual peers in both languages, without any problem.

Children link the use of their second language to the school environment and the teachers who speak that language: if parents ask them to speak their second language at home they can be shy, discouraged, less prone to share their experience. It is better not to put children under pressure: parents interested in seeing their child’s progress are advised to participate in the school activities.