Charlottetown schools ready for 400-plus French immersion students this week

Two Charlottetown schools are set to welcome French immersion students this week as Island children begin classes.

West Kent Elementary School will welcome 165 new early French immersion students, while Birchwood Intermediate School will see 240 new continuing and late French immersion students.

Classrooms were prepared, materials ordered and teachers hired over the summer, while $58,000 in provincial funding was invested in French-language materials for libraries, classrooms and literacy labs.

This funding also went toward the purchase of fiction and non-fiction books, 30 Chromebooks to support digital intermediate science textbooks, levelled books and resources for individual and small group literacy instruction and professional learning resources.

More than $40,000 was invested in the new French immersion program at West Kent to meet the needs of K-6 students who receive 75 to 90 per cent of their instruction in French.

Eleven new French immersion teachers start at West Kent this week.

More than $16,000 was invested in materials for Birchwood Intermediate, which will welcome 100 new continuing immersion students, 140 late immersion students and nine new French immersion teachers.

Intermediate students receive 50 per cent of their instruction in French in continuing immersion and 75 per cent in late immersion programs.