I've lived in France for 8 years now, i'm with a French guy and we have a 2 year old daughter together. Next year she will start pre-school so i'm considering my/ her options. While there are many things I love about France, the education system is not one of them,not only because of the long hours, but also because of what I think are old fashioned and negative teaching methods. As there aren't any English schools (i'm from Manchester originally) and i don't want mia to go to a private school (we live near aix en provence so there are a few international schools) our choice us limited to 'normal' french public schools OR a public international school which is 20 mins away in the car, in Manosque. This would eventually mean having to move house and ideally find a job (i'm in between jobs at the moment but boyfriend works in aix) nearer the school.i feel like this next few months is 'decision time'. We are bringing mia up to be bilingual and i'm concerned about 2 things which I think would be less of a problem if mia went to the international school. 1. English language and culture being lost in all the French language and culture, 2. Mia having to go through a school system which has never heard of constructive criticism, using negative marking systems and the dreaded BAC followed by an elite higher education system. So i'd like to know your opinions about thé french system, your experiences and any tips and advice about bilingual kids. Thanks a million. Laura
Nigel, even if it is with a 2 month delay because I did not see this post earlier, I would however like to comment, (since you name Fonty) that you are comparing an English private school with a French State school...and also that a lot of the buylling I have heard of in "Inter" actually came from anglophone students b/w themselves as well as the "chatting, fooling around, insolence or generally poor behavior" you mention...so there are pros and cons, like everywhere...but in my experience of the French system, things are definitely not as dark as you describe them...My eldest was shocked by the binge drinking in the anglophone unis for exemple...but I do not conclude that all anglophones are drunkers...and every cloud has a silver lining, no ? Otherwise, the choice for our children would be either to become a zombie in prepa or a drunker in an anglophone uni :(
Ah ouf, I thought you were talking about the ENS...there is still some hope then :)
Hi Nigel, agree with your comments. I'm having a dickens of a time getting my uni students to think. Most of them aren't interested in their studies and their general knowledge is apalling. There are many who are disruptive in class because they don't want to engage. I try to encourage on an individual basis in the hope i might turn a few around. My French boyfriend (retired dentist) says just let them them fail because they are not intelligent enough to be at uni-otherwise they'd be at a Grande Ecole, but your comments make me pause.
The conditions of my debt-ridden uni are not much better than a hut in deepest Africa. Most of the time I have only a tiny stub of chalk someone left behind and a blackboard. I was telling myself I wished I could teach English at a Grande Ecole because at least the students would be motivated to learn and the teaching conditions would be better. Er, was I dreaming? I like teaching students who want to learn but where are they?
Am about to pick up a copy of Sorbonne Confidential which gives the low-down on this very problem and why truly anglophone teachers are discriminated against in France.
Yes it is.
katherine laRochelle ... i have the displeasure of reading some of your other posts and rudeness is something you should know a lot about. What places have you actually lived in France to come up with so many anti France / French attitudes. I am not a member of the American group but you seem to spout some very strange ideas. Good luck with the therapy -now that is rude I agree
Hi Holly,
Thanks so much for your reply. I’m still no closer to deciding but i have a couple of years at least as a buffer. I hear various stories, some good. Some not so good. Mia is a tough cookie so i’m sure she’ll do just fine whatever we decide but i’ll certainly be keeping an eye on her when she starts ‘school’ next year. Good luck with your little boy when he starts.
Hi Laura,
Just one more comment please. My son is not quite two, but we're hoping to get him into school next year at 2 and a half if spots are available. I am American and my husband is French. I speak to my son in English and my husband to him in French. So far, he can understand commands in both languages and says some words in both English and French.
My husband and I have had the conversation of where he will go to school. As I teach English at the lycée and college levels at an International school in Valbonne, my son would be able to go through the section there as well provided he passed the exam to get in. The thing is, we live in the Var. For now, because we live in France, we think it best for our son to learn the French language and as he IS young and education is taking place in the form of play for the most part, he might very well be better off in the French system. Also, he will make friends here, close to where we live which is a good thing for him (and for us as far as driving to different friends' houses and events are concerned). For those who say to go abroad for education, we plan to stay in France and I will not send him elsewhere alone, so later, when he begins collége, we will re-evaluate his schooling. If we find that his English is suffering or that he is not getting as much as he could out of the system, he'll be making his way to school with Mom where I can keep an eye on him and can talk one on one with his teachers.
Every kid is different and I think that many of the schools in France are different as well. I've heard horror stories about some and have heard that others are excellent. Do your homework about the schools near you, keep your eyes and ears open when your child actually DOES enter school, and go by Mia's behavior and your gut instinct.
Dear everyone,
Thank you so much for all your replies and for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. There are as many different expériences as there are teachers. I am an English teacher ( mostly TEFL) and teach adults and kids, I have taught in public schools, private schools, I have taught lawyers, civil servant(robot central), i have worked with people who have been to 'Grande Ecoles' (in my days as a cadre in Paris in GE) and the most striking and the saddest thing is the lack of imagination and dreams and ability to 'think outside the box' (a concept i have been trying in vain to explain to my students recently). I have a Thai neighbour (I teach her 2 children English) who has just spoken to me about an ecole associative (a non-profit private school where teachers are paid EVEN LESS than other teachers) which uses the Montissori and Freinet methods. She also passed this link on to me which is an absolute must-see from Ken Robinson.
In 1996 we were in France for ten months and the children, boy then 6 and girl 9, went to the local primary school. The teachers were very nice and our daughter was loved and after 6 weeks of tears of frustration bedded in well, made French friends and was working with others her age (in French) and stayed in that year class the following September. Our son was put in a remedial class with another English boy of the same age - he had refused to show he could read and write in English and would not speak to the teachers. That is just a gender difference on the whole.
Everyone kept saying "why are you going back to England" when they education is so good in France. My answer was I wanted the children to have a British education. Our son needed more freedom, far more activity at play time (no more kicking a newspaper ball around a fenced concrete playground - in the middle of a village surrounded by fields!!). Both needed a much broader curriculum involving science, art, sports, theatre, computers, music, singing etc. all of which were on offer in the UK at the state primary school. Above all I objected to the bullying and abuse (smacking as an unnecessary punishment for trivial offences) by both pupils and teachers (and by parents in the car park on even younger children).
Have things changed? I doubt it, after all, it was only 17 years ago......
Hello,
You have a lot to think about. I won't too much more. American-French at home. 4 kids-aged 7,9,12,14. Kids in French private schools. Started off in public school-disaster. My two oldest in college with a SIA (Section Internationale Anglais). They like doing English with anglophones, and are happy to meet kids just like them.
I don't like the negative parts of the French system that have been mentioned by other commenters. I don't think my kids do as well as they could in the French system because of the negative parts-but I try to balance at home as much as possible-and they are 'surviving.'
Will see what the future holds, the golden goal is university (bare minimum) in the states.
I would highly recommend the international school for your daughter, no rush-unless it is hard to get in there. She could do maternalle near your house and switch over at CP.
Good luck.
Hardly rude....and it was funny.
Perhaps I have a biassed view, however here goes. We came from Wales where education has been entirely restructured by their government, thus different to England. One of our children is special needs (SEN there), I was also a school governor and seriously involved with running the school. I got a very good insight.
At present the standards in England (Wales to an extent) are slipping thanks to the present government and the peculiar notions of Michael Gove. Our problem thus was when we arrived our SEN daughter went into a CLIS and went backward instead of forward. After three years here she began to catch up with where she was. I come from an age of unimaginative teaching in England, 1950s and 60s, but went on to remarkable higher education. My wife comes from the Swiss education system, a little more like the French but certainly with far more Germanic influences and, in her case, some from her Italianate culture. She, like me, has been a university teacher. For us the litmus test is the quality of undergraduates. Neither of us has taught properly in France but we have had plenty of contact over the years. French students generally lack the intellectual versatility UK students had until recent years. Nonetheless, four or five years ago when still teaching in the UK I was wondering how on earth students got into university. I remember one student I was supervising whose essay puzzled me so much I asked him what he wanted to say in it. One of the things that came out in his 'talk' thereafter was that in Delhi, the capital of Africa...! I had to stop him and ask him to repeat that, which he did and then discussed it. He simply thought he remembered Delhi being in Africa and seriously believed that continent has a capital. I wondered how he would score in history or the sciences, but did not venture into that. What I see is that whilst they learn a bit automaton like here, no student will leave school with such a lack of basic knowledge. Knowing England and Wales have slipped since then perhaps it is hard to even try to compare. So we all also need to remember standards change everywhere, there are good and bad schools everywhere and teachers likewise. The curriculum in France is less wasteful, in England an awful lot of excess baggage is taught to pack out GCSEs and 'A' levels but not so here in my view.
Even in primary school they do ease off and encourage thought as the years progress. My younger daughter faces college next year and I see how she has gone from a far more disciplined type of class earlier on to doing lots of imaginative things that are opening up her learning capabilities. Like me, she profoundly dislikes school but is permanently one of the top of her class because she loves knowledge and learning. A teacher friend told her that is fine and he never liked school particularly when he was a student, so on balance let us take the supposed good with the bad, accept the differences and when it comes to weighing up the pros and cons in reality, to be truly objective we must wait until their school or even entire education is completed before we can see.
Wow, that was rude!
I'm married to a Teacher who teaches at C.P. I help out at the college . In our opinions, the fears and criticisms are correct. The International or Private options are the best we think .
Shame you found out after the move here .
to me that says Cote d'Azur
Annette, I 100% agree.
Everyone I know in the Cote d'Azur who can afford it, French or not, puts their children in a private or International school. I would guess that the 2 different private international schools that we have had our 3 year old daughter in were at least half French people. To me, that says a LOT, especially considering that this is Maternelle!!
Bizzare reply "I have also noticed that English children in rural area do not do so good at school.... " . Are you doing marketing for International schools per chance ?
Victoria --
I think the variations of opinion based on experience are fascinating but I must take issue with you on a couple of points, Veronique.
We've been here 20 years, the girls arrived aged 5, 7 and 10 and went through the French school and onto to Fac and Engineering school. They get very offended by anyone who tries to say that they aren't completely bilingual. They are, they all swop from one language to the other without thinking, they read in both languages (they all prefer English), they write fluently in both languages (admlittedly one spells badly in both English and French), my dyslexic daughter who arrived here before she could read or write makes the same mistakes in both languages, writes poetry in both languages and writes novels in English. Most importantly they are equally comfortable in either tongue though they prefer English comedy.
I also beg to differ about your comment about English children not doing well in rural schools. Mine went to rural schools - you can't get much more in the sticks than the edge of Les Landes!, and I know plenty of other English children at rural schools. With the exception of an American boy who arrived aged 17 at Lycée with no French and three English boys, ageed 12 - 15, who frankly came from the sort of family where they weren't going to be encouraged to do well at school who also had no French and were dumped in collége as if it was a holding pen, all the English children I know have done pretty well. In fact more than that, they seem to be near the tops of their classes. I've heard this is often the case with bilingual children, using two languages seems to sharpen their intelligence.
Horses for courses and all that, naturally. Some rural schools are rotten, some English children just aren't very bright or are failed by the system but it's certainly not always the case.