Finally, a school in Spain

When "the husband" first arrived in Spain (back in March) it was the very last day available to apply for places in primary education, and he dutifully filled the form and we forgot all about it when we're told that P. did not get our first school of choice (the one in campus).Out of desperation, I guess, last week we checked to see if there was a second choice of school that the secretary at "the husband"'s lab filled in. There was, thank goodness.

It's a school in the nearby village called Cerdanyola (the village not the school). Sort of out of the way from here and at least 30 minutes from us by bus, but close to the University campus. However far it is, it has a good reputation and P. has a place in it so... at least he has a place in a school. Although is miles from home and he's not going to be able to play with his classmates outside school hours as I hoped.

So we called them at the eleventh hour and explain the situation; they were really kind and P. is still expected to attend school there so... there we went.

As soon as we arrived in the school, very early in the morning and with everybody else, a lady approached us and she asked "are you P's family? welcome to the school!". She was the headmistress on the lookout for new parents and even got my son's name right! They weren't sure if we were able to speak any Spanish and was a bit of a relief that we did. She then introduced us to the English teacher who was there to be with my son the whole day so he'd be able to communicate and understand what was going on during the first day.
How sweet of them!
Of course, P's fully bilingual and to the teacher's apparent relief he could joined the class and understand all what was being told in Spanish (here they called it Castillian), so she needn't stay with him.

Spain has a big incoming migration "problem" and most schools are used to have at least a couple of foreign kids in each class and they have vast experience in dealing with children who don't speak Catalan. They even have some state support in the form of special tuition in Catalan as a foreign language, one or two hours a week.
However, statistically most new immigrant children are from Latin American countries and they have the advantage of being able to speak Castillian, thus the teachers are able to communicate with the children in one language while they learn Catalan.
There's a minority of children from the Arab world, Africa and Pakistan who don't speak any Castillian and they take longer to adapt.
So, while I was aware that the support is there, I never heard of a child having a teacher who can speak his/her language accompaning them in the first day. I can only explain this by the fact that English is a high class, good reputation language that is actually taught in most schools and even the teacher was eager to practice her English with a native speaker.
In fact. P told me later that all the kids were really friendly and that after the teacher introduced him to the class as the new child from England, they all jumped and asked him to say something in English and were very impress when he did so. (although it was cheeky of him that he said: "why do you want me to speak in English if you don't understand a word that I say?"). Latter during the break they asked him loads of question about his country and some asked him if Bristol was anywhere near California and Hollywood.

I wander if this happens with every foreign child and somehow I don't think so. There's a peaking order in everything in this world and P's very lucky that he was born in the country with the dominant language of the times, plus that he speaks the 3th most spoken language in the world: Spanish. Now I see as my duty to keep his English going, so we reversed the rule that we had in England, thus: at home we speak English here (and he's allowed two DVD per week from the local video shop, because we can set the language and, let's face it, most movies are from Hollywood).