Harold, I'm going to respectfully disagree. This is *exactly* how french immersion should be. My wife has taught in both NB and NS and in Immersion and English. I graduated from the very first late immersion program in NS, so I'm well versed in these programs.

The current situation of Primary entry is a bad move all around. My wife sees it every year. Kids entering at age 5 are not grounded enough in their first language. They need a better foundation in english before moving to french. Your new system does this. By the time grade three rolls around in the current system at least 10-15% of kids flunk out and need to switch to english. This has a *devastating* effect on them. They lose the friends they have been with for four years, they feel like failures and worse still, they are now completely useless in both languages. Most will catch up but it will take them until Junior High or even later.

As a parent of three pre-schoolers, it will be very hard to make the decision to put our children into French Immersion. The current system is broken. There are no resources for teachers. None. My wife translated everything.

Intensive French is a better choice. See what the kids can do first, switch them later. They will perform better. I can almost guarantee it. I wouldn't be surprised to see all other provinces following NB's lead on this. There are lots of teachers here who would push for this kind of system.