Moore

Hi Can anyone tell me do I need to do anything to bring the Gerbils with us to France? Someone said today that we need Vet Certs or something? Thanks Helen

Hi, Congratulations on your role. Just been on multi-map to see where Castres is and it showed 3! One at the top, one in the middle and one in the South. If it is the one in the middle will definitely book tickets.

Hi I cannot answer your specific query on the paperwork etc. but am very interested in your ideas. We have bought a house in a village on the tourist route and we kind of got another thrown in 'two for the price of one' offer! The second house is on the main street of the village; a three room (2 facing the main street and a kitchen and loo) single storey mid-terrace. It is straight across from the Marie Office which has a large empty car park. This house only needs painting and re-wiring. I am an artist who would aspire to sell some work - given the time to practice and build a larger portfolio. I am thinking of using the little house as a Gallery come drop in tea/coffee shop and as such am hoping you get lots of advice which I can pinch! Maybe, if we both do decide this kind of project is worthwhile we could send each other some works to display in each others outlets. If I do decide to go ahead it would be a great source of stock to display and hopefully sell others work (at a commission!). As an aside to this point though; I thought work priced as high as that exhibited at the Living France Exhibition was not in most peoples price bracket. Just better say that for me this project would just be a bit of added spice - I will not be depending on it for any income - but hopefully could make enough to cover the cost of my oil paints and wasted canvas; if only by selling the odd cup of Organic Tea and a cream scone to local or passing Brits. Hope you find what you desire and that you get lots of useful advise I can pinch on admin. etc. Helen

LAST EDITED ON 29-Jan-04 AT 07:54 PM (GMT) >While I was out for a >short while today 44 people >responded to the Why? query >in the postbag. I don't >have three hours to spare >going through the responses in >chronilogical order so, like most >of the postbag nowadays, I >am having to pass! Hi Helen Don't worry you haven't missed anything. Just me having a bit of fun. >Please, please, please Eleanor - find >a method of sorting into >numerical order for me as >neither I or my server >(AOL) can cope with the >sheer quantity of mixed up >messages and it is sooooo >frustrating. Yes they do get mixed up but it does allow you to post a specific response about a specific point. But having just typed that I realise it is a bit sad when someone hijacks a really good and useful thread and it takes of at an irrelevent tangent (which the WHY thread is'nt - it needs hijacki ng!). >well, back to House Renovations Much more constructive then the WHY thread I assure you. > >regards......helen ditto: regards ... helen >PS Shame you chopped 'SatelliteTV...again' - PPS What is the 'Satellite TV thing' that keeps cropping up as a side swipe in lots of postings - please enlighten me?

>LOL, when I read something on >a Muslim forum this morning >along the lines of "first >it's the veil, what'll it >be next, beards?" I thought >they were being a bit >silly. > >But it's true! >http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3416091.stm > >What a thorny fishkettle this is >turning out to be. Hi We had the demonstrations here in London last weekend as well. The main speaker said the headscarf was not a religious thing but a fashion, cultural thing. My question to her was - what other society allows men to dictate what women must wear and what fashion kids should follow. It makes no sense to say it is fashion - so what is it truly for? I am a strong believer in 'when in rome'. I saw a news item yesterday which said that the Afgan television station had been bombarded with protest calls after they showed a 20 year old video of a women singer without her headscarf! From now on only head-scarfed women are to be allowed to appear on Afgan TV. What was that war about - much was made of getting girls educated and free? How can a headscarf be a fashion if you are not allowed in public without it? What next - who knows. Why don't the french have compulsory school uniform, say jeans and trainers then the EU will have less chance of making them reverse their new headscarf rule. Russia and Germany have both tried to ban the headscarf but were made to back down. Oh well.

What do you do with it! - roll it into balls and hang it from a tree, like an Xmas bauble, see if the birds are tempted. Let me know if their shoulders heave when they gip! - Sell it to Iceland for their '100 for 10p beefburgers' - Oil squeaky doors (or anything else that groans when it moves) - make a sculpture with it; win the Turner price, exhibit in Tate modern and sell to Sahtchi for a million - put it through the blender, store in pretty jars and sell as the latest anti wrinkle cream

hi - what an interesting post - loved readying all the replies and couldn't resist a response - Paiget: Isn't he a zoologist rather then a psychologist? This may be worth consideration since many contributors value qualifications (smiley if I knew how to get one). I think his base query was 'how do animals adapt to their envoronment' - human intelligence being considered as part of that quandry. The idea that a child needs to be at the right stage (following a genetically determined timetable) to assimilate a concept is surely why all schools - french and english - teach in year groups. The french system of holding kids back a year surely falls in with Paiget's hypothesis more then that of the english system of letting them through to the next stage whether they are ready (if one believes present learning is on an accruel basis of past learning)or not. The contributor who speaks of an adaquate sleep quotient as a facilitator of learning I think makes a very valid point - whom ever he heard extol sleeps virtue. If he had studied that theory at uni - the only added info he would have been able to impart would be the name of researchers - which would not validate his comments for me because the university of child rearing is all the proof I need to agree whole heartidly! Some of the contributions to this topic brought to mind the BBC2 series 'The nations favourite read'. M;ost books (excluding the Jack. Wilsons et al that the youngsters of today voted for)appeared to be in the top 100 due to their study as 'O' or 'A' level study books. Why the link - just that some comments to your posting - appear to be based on 'what I learnt at uni - a long long time ago'; and haven't been updated since. Just for fun - a two lined poem I once studied at school - went something like this:- Scottish Education I telt yer I telt yer still makes me smile.

Hi, Can anyone tell me if French schools hand out homework schedules and/or diaries? I ask because I was trying to work out how I know what and how well my daughter is doing at school in each topic on a daily basis. At first I just thought it was because I drive her too and from school and we chat but then I realised that she probably only tells me, during the journeys, what has excited her most that day; last Tuesday it was biology - birds and bees with real people! in real colour video! getting out of bed starkas and walking about to give them a good look! - Dad said I hope he didn't cook a full english breakfast - ouch! Back to my original chain of thought. At junior and now secondary school we were told how many homeworks would be given each night and how long they should spend on each - so even without a diary we would have known what she was supposed to be doing. She was also given a year diary - each day she had to write, at the end of lesson, homework set and when it had to be handed in. Each week parents have to sign the diary(as does the teacher) and there is space to add comments. As such, not only do I know what homework she has to do(and therefore what she has done in school that day) I also have to check it is done, how well it is done etc. (and occassionaly help out). I'm reasoning then, that I don't need an end of year exam or parents night to tell me how she is doing academicaly - I know already through the homework system. Will the system be the same when she starts french school? By the way, when the video got down to the nitty gritty the characters turned into cartoon animation 'and they did it - yuk - you and dad must have done that in November 19## yuk'! 'No darling, in the old days, video hadn't been invented so we wouldn't have known how to get you that way, but there was a bird called a stalk and ........' Merry Christmas

hi Great to hear you and your children have had a possitive experience integrating into a french school. I am really pleased you took the time to post this good news - please let us know how your children settle? Helen

If a posting says it has, for example, 50 postings but only shows 25replies how do I get on screen the latest 25 postings?

hi, we are moving to France in the spring with our 11 year old and have given your topic much thought. An earlier response suggested that how a child settles depends on how they felt about the move in the first place; I agree with that comment. Through family discussions our daughter can see many advantages in moving to France; seeing her dad more often (luckily she loves his company and wants more of it!), doing more as a two parent family, having the space and time to have a dog and cat ...... She has changed location before so she knows there is a Poppy, Amy or Annie in any school - they just have a different face and name! I don't think it takes them long to work out which of their new classmates will make good friends. We all accept that our language skills will be a barrier to settling in France but being forwarned is half the battle won; I think. We put a french channel on TV the other night (Sky 825 TV5) and we were certainly forwarned of what her first day in the classroom could sound like if we didn't do any preparation. We have decided to move to France during the easter hols. but not to enroll her in school until September. Hopefully this will give us all a chance to learn some language as a family group before she has go it alone in the classroom. We accept, that in the long term, each family member will learn a vocabulary to service the enviroment in which they operate. From babes our speech has been learnt by mimicry which is hopefully followed by understanding then reasoning then writing followed by spelling and grammar. We have reasoned this with our daughter so she will know to expect her grades to fall while she learns to speak, think, read and write in french. We have found with our kids, whatever their age, that their driving force, whatever the situation, is to learn what they need to operate in their peer group. Wanting to fit in with their peers is what I think helps them to learn much faster than adults. I think the fluency discussion - while entertaining - is mis-placed in this context. Surely we would only become fluent in a topic, in whatever language, if we operate/specialise in that field? Our school age childen, hopefully, will become fluent in the language of the classroom and due to the array of subjects taken will learn a wider vocabulary then their parents?. I for one will never be studying physics again in any language! How fast they will learn will surely depend on their ability to learn anything. If 50% of children learn a topic at the same speed as their peers, 25% will have more difficulty and 25% will learn faster. We know where our daughter fits into the range for each subject in her mothertongue so our expectations for her, to learn a subject taught in French, will we hope be based on realism - the same as it would be if taught in english with both hands tide behind her back! One additional problem our daughter might have is 'boys'! She has always gone to an all girls school - any comments? We decided to make the move before discovering this forum based on issues we were aware of at that time. Reading the forum topics has been very useful - you don't know what you don't know until you know! I hadn't thought about corporal punishment as an issue until I read the discussion on the forum yesterday. I told my daughter that some teachers smack in french schools. Her response was surprising 'they do in the book I'm reading - but they can only smack not bruise - whats for tea? I've just re-read my ramblings above; grammar, what grammar and I got my degree in my mothertongue??????????? So am I wrong to be optomistic, to think our kids will cope just fine if our expectations of them are realistic and we are there to slap on the elastoplast when they hurt?