godwinsj

You may find that the Catholic schools in the Mayenne are more receptive to and more willing to help English children. I also think that there is a big problem with small village schools (particularly state ones) in that they have neither the skills or the inclination to teach foreign child ren or those belonging to the gens du voyage. In the Mayenne we are lumped together with the gypsy kids as a big problem! The other worry is that the village schools are not big enough to have separate classes so the children are all put together which is not a good learning situation. Ecole Maternelle should have 3 classes and it is an ideal opportunity for children to acquire the basics. Although children are not legally required to go to school before their 6th. birthday, they cannot leave CP until they can read & write so it is best that they start much earlier.   

Thank you, Mistral for the practical advice! Having gone down the acdemic route myself, and coming from a very academic family it is hard for me to adjust to my son's outlook on life but you have made me see that there could be another way for him. I know that Max is not unusual - I guess I just thought he would be like every one else in my close family! 

I am going through the same problems as well! All mine wants to do is coast through troisième then join the army as that is what his friends are doing. As his main enjoyments are drawing & reading I can't see how this is going to suit him and am worried to say the least! He too is totally turned off school & hates his teachers and although quite capable of getting his Brevet, he has let his average in quatrième drop so low that he does not stand much chance of getting it unless a miracle happens & he decides to work seriously hard. The answer would be to redouble & start the whole course again but he says he would rather die! There are various Lycée Professionnels around where he could do a Brevet professionnel but does this actually lead to any sort of carreer structure?  Any ideas & advice would be greatfully received!

Just to say that I have known French vets to be very wrong on occasion. For your peace of mind, might it be better just to check with DEFRA that the rabies jab is still valid?

I like this expression; gleaned from a report in Ouest France where a Mayennais police spokesman said that before the advent of speed cameras trying to stop the Mayennais from speeding was like 'fishing in the desert'.!

Can  I just say that I feel how a dog develops is more complicated than just mere socialisation? For instance, a puppy that is born first often finds the best teat (they stick to the teat they first find), becomes the biggest & is therefore more dominant in the litter. This is often the puppy the mother is sure is going to survive & so she puts all her energy into him, especially if the envirommental conditions are not conducive to her rearing a largish litter. Often we have noticed if left to their own devices these dominant puppies & the mother will push out smaller weaker ones which are then in danger of fading away. It is also these puppies that are usually first out of the bed etc and the leader in the litter. They are obviously going to be quite a handful! Conversely, we have had tiny puppies (usually bitches I may say - males are the weaker sex it would seem) that defy all expectations & live. Our record is a Parson puppy that was 116g. at birth (normal weight for a terrier puppy at birth is 170-200g) and she has lived with only being bottle fed in the very early stages. The reason why she has survived is an incredibly clever & attentive mother but also she is very determined and clever herself. One of the things we noticed about her was that she always wriggled under her 4 brothers & sister to stay warm in what has been a very cold winter & to make sure she was never pushed out. She too, is not going to be an easy puppy and will need a lot of sensible handling. Other factors make for even more complications. Genetic inheritance is as important in dogs as in humans - different breeds have their own characterisitics, and within those constraints parents hand on their particular genes. For instance a Coton du Tuléar is always going to be timid & suspicious of strangers & no amount of socialisation is going to correct this. A Border Terrier is always going to be inclined to sneak off & get up to mischief & no amount of socialisation with other dogs is going to stop a Parson Russell terrier from picking a fight if it is jealous. In the end I think the situation is just as complicated as it is in humans and there are no easy answers. Perhaps in the end, you just have to accept things as they are & works round or with them? www.parsonrussellterrier.com

VEGEBON is French and we get it from Gamm Vert. It works very well on the Border Terriers who are inveterate nervous chewers. Labradors are bad for it too - I used to have a yellow one that chewed massive holes in herself no matter what I did! My vet at the time used to give her a cortisone injection when she got really bad, but in the end a topical appication of something seriously nasty tasting was what helped the most!  www.parsonrussellterrier.com

Puncture wounds need to be kept open so they heal from the inside first & don't abcess which means washing them out with salt water and squeezing regularly to make sure there is no build up of pus. Once healing is on its way, we find that VEGEBON is very good for stopping nervous chewing as it smells & tastes disgusting. It is primarily for treating cows so you can find it in any good agricultural merchants. You shouldn't use to much antiseptic cream as this actually deters healing after a while. www.parsonrussellterrier.com

Our youngest goes to the primary part of the big Catholic school complex in Mayenne which goes from Ecole Maternelle all the way up to the Lycées. It seems to me very well funded - for instance the kids go by coach to the town swimming pool; they don't have to walk like the state schools do! I have been very impressed by the teachers so far - not only are they all smiley & make an effort to say hello to me which is a bit of a novelty in the Mayenne, they have taken a lot of trouble with Joseph and keep me informed of his progress at all times. I do a bit of conversation work there also & all the kids appear to be happy and confident. For us it is definitely a case of bigger is better, and the school philosophy of keeping parents involvoed and treating the kids like human beings has certainly been a welcome change to what we have experienced elswhere.

Hi I'm am actually in my first year of passing the BAC with the OIB at Lycée Grand Air at La Baule. It is an extremely interesting BAC and i enjoy it alot. It is also a good BAC for those who want to study sciences as it allows a very big range of subjects to do, much more than in the normal filière S. It is going fine for me at the moment, i am in 1er ES and i am having no trouble in either English Literature or with the History and Geography, the teachers teach in an english way and not at all like the French teachers which is very refreshing!For my years BAC which we will be passing next year, we are studying 6 books for it in great depth and many of my friends in the scientific BAC enjoy enormously these lessons because it allow room for scope even if we all have to admit that there is a lot more work, but it is definitely worth it. Yours sincerely daughter of godwinsj Holly

When I was employed by the state as a teacher on 'vacataire ' rate I was getting 10 euros an hour after cotisations and thre are plenty of students offering their services for 10 euros an hour or even less I'm afraid. 

It is good to see such a well thought out and expressed assessment of moving children out of their country & culture. There have been many times when I have felt SO guilty about moving my 3 & changing their lives so thoroughly.   

This is bizarre - look at you all! Aren't we all in enough trouble already, struggling to pay our cotisations & facing losing all our savings, marginalised and isolated often enough without descending to this sort of drivel? There are a lot of mornings I wake up worrying how I am going to pay the one of the kid's extortionate lunch bills - surely we ought to try & be supportive of each other rather than trying to humiliate & denigrate people all the time.  [&]

I am not sure how much thngs have changed behind the scenes though I have never heard of a martinet but the kids come back from school with some fairly appalling stories of how their friends are treated. For instance electronic collars are still widely for sale in supermarkets, animaleries & hunting shops for training dogs. If they are prepared to be this barabaric openly towards their dogs, what are they prepared to do to their kids behind the scenes? I don't think kids being better behaved in the streets is because they have (or not) been brutalised at home. Indeed, bullying produce bullies. I think it is because of responsablité civique - i.e. you cause any damge you or your parents have to pay for it!

hey Viva lighten -up! This is what is wrong with these forums: someone asks a question and they are given an honest reply. However, if this reply is not agreed with then they are shouted down in a rather illogical manner! Emma asked:- comments/suggestions/advice on english speaking children settling into french schools, in particular schools in this area. And I thought I answered her!

It is worrying however, although I do agree that you can only do your best for your children. For me the sorrow is that unless things chnage I can't see any of my children staying in France unless they want to take over the business! My daughter is hoping to go to Paris to study law after her Bac & her History teacher told her she would be in her 30's before she would find a permanent job, going by present day statistics!

I think it depends on how determined you are to get into the teaching system. With a PGCE & MA. ED I was offered 6 hours a week by the Academie de Nantes (which covers the Vendée?) and I think with time I could have built up a reasonable amount of hours. I did hear of someone who after 4 years had built up her hours considerably. But because I didn't have the CAPES exams I was paid at a vacatire rate which amounted to 10€ an hour after cotisations & I was travelling 90 kilomètres thre & back to get there, so it was not worth it.  You could get lucky & pick up a couple of part-time posts nearby though. I am afraid that there were quite a few teachers on the staff at the collège who were having to do this anyway, even with French qualifications.   

I don't want to get into an argument here, but to be honest I find your insinuation on this post and your other post elsewhere that all French Primary state school staff are somehow racist to English children and that all private Catholic schools are wonderful, quite offensive I don't wish to be offensive in any way. Emma asked about the schools where we live & have experience of. I am just describing what has happened to me, my family & other people who have lived/live in this area. I am not even putting the Catholic schools over the state ones but it does seem to me that the Catholic Education department  in the Mayenne is more committed to an English style approach to teaching & teacher training than the Academie at Laval. Believe me, when the secretary at the Mairie of the village where we have just moved to expressed relief that we wouldn't be taking the youngest out of Don Bosco to put him in the village school; I didn't feel particularly happy about it. Do you think I am lying or do you think I should just not say anything but let some poor family land themselves in as much unhappiness as we have had to undergo in the Mayenne?   Small village primaries struggle to cope with foreign kids or gens du voyage. Their staff appear to have neither the requsite skills or the committment. I have seen for instance a young gypsy kid dragged kicking & screaming across the playground by his teacher - he was 3 at the time. I have also seen her chuck him on the ground when he tried to hold on to her leg. Another gypsy family - the teachers just refused to teach them and all of them ended up being statemented and were heading for SEGPA. I used to talk to their mother who said she wished she had my determination to stand up for her kids but felt beaten by the system. I have had to confront a doctor brough in by the school to try to statement Joseph because he is left-handed!  It is surely no coincidence that the majority of kids from these categories are in the big Catholic school in Mayenne, which is why I recommended it!  I used to teach in the Mayenne but  gave up on the collège after overhearing one of the other teachers in the English department telling my next class that they didn't have to do anything I said as I was only English.  

Viva - do you know of any schools in northern Mayenne that are happy to receive English kids & treat them well?  I have heard/read that the collège in Ambrières la Vallée seems okay but I would be happy to find out about others, especially the lycées.

Hi Emma; we live nearby and make the effort to take our youngest into Don Bosco in Mayenne. There is another English family in the primary school, and one I think in the collège. I am not saying it will be easy for them but it is a good school with a sympathetic director.  However, there is a lot of prejudice against the English in the Mayenne and if you are considering coming then you ought to go round the local schools and see what you think first! Ask the director whether they would be committed to ensuring your child has an education & will not just be ignored at best or bullied and victimised as has happened to ours. I couldn't find a state primary to take the youngest in Mayenne, Jublains or Aron. The directrice in the big primary in Mayenne told me that she had enough to worry about having to to take the 'gens du voyage' children without having to put up with an English child too! I know that a family went home because their kids had such a bad time at the Grazay primary and another person I know was looking to go home as his kid had such a bad time in the schools at Le Ham & Le Horps. What I would say is avoid the small village primaries & go for a Catholic school! 

There was a law passed in the late 1800's forbidding physical punishment in schools in France. If you can't get the director of the establishment concerned interested then you must go to the gendarmes! They sell electronic collars in the supermarkets for shocking dogs into obediance. Just because it exists it doesn't mean that this is acceptable nor does it mean it works! We took on a chocolate lab that had been driven mad by an electronic collar, poor girl.   As for teacher training - an Inspector for the Academie de Nantes told me once that they did not train teachers to teach in a child-centred way like they do in the UK. From what I have seen amongst colleagues & the children's teachers there seems to be a lot of emphasis on presenting the class with information which has to be learnt by rote & is then tested ad nauseam. Little seems to be explained in a fashion that means knowledge can be broken down, assimilated & understood nor does there seem to be any provision for teamwork or the sharing of knowledge. There seems to be little support for the nurtering of a 'healthy scepticsm' which is what I feel good teaching should be about!  

Tourangelle - I have taught in the UK 11-19 from 1976, & have an M.A in Education & I have taught in France as well and it seems to me that the French teachers I have met have very little idea of actually HOW to impart ideas, information etc or how to organise & control a classroom of kids. Obviously there are dedicated teachers who by their commitment & charisma make a real difference. I am very happy that my youngest came across one in CE1 or I feel that we too would have joined the trek back to the UK. He is left handed and the village primary wanted him assessed & statemented because of this! As for SEGPA I would advise any parents NEVER to accept sending their kids there. It has been described bu surveillants & teachers alike to me as for 'les enfants perdus'.  

There are definitely no easy answers! What I can say is that the Catholic (private) system is more PC & more caring than the state one & is more supportive of foreigners as of course this is part of their philosophy & mission statement. Chillingly enough, state schools are run by the state to produce a people that are brainwashed by indifferent teachers who are trained to be civil servants & have had no actual input in educational theory at all.  Our family have had some very bad experiences: for instance the village primary bullied the 2 boys unmercifully & told me if I wanted an education for them to take them back to the UK! The oldest, who came into the primary in his final year was pointlessly held back a year & then I was told he had to go to SEGPA which is a sin bin run on the lines of old fashioned Borstals for non-achievers & kids with learning/behavioural problems. This means for instance that a deaf child is in the same class as a poor boy who has suffered gross brain damage in the same accident which killed his parents and a bully who is always in trouble with the police. My eldest son had been diagnosed with problems with his short-term memory although he has an IQ of 141. The Inspector for Education for the Mayenne with whom I spent a very trying hour informed me that he belonged in SEGPA along with all other English kids as he considered they were so handicapped by not having French as amother tongue. It was only when a social worker told us with about 4 hours to go to the end of the summer term that it was up to us whether he went to SEGPA or not that we dashed into the local collège & registered him there! The youngest was not taught a single thing during his 3 years in école maternelle but is now in the local BIG Catholic school and is a year ahead. My daughter has worked harder than I would have though possible & has profited from the system: she is now doing an International Bac in 44. I think however that she is one of the very few who have come at 12 and managed to adapt and get on. What I would say is:- Go to the nearest big Catholic schools avoid village state primaries use the extensive system of private tuition that exists in France from home tutors to summer schools. (This is what the wealthy people do to help their kids!) learn French yourself or find someone who can speak it fluently and take the teachers on! I did - it is possible to answer back to the French establishment! find collèges & lycées that offer European/American/British brevets & bacs. This means that your kids will be able to use their English skills to their best advantage

We have a Parson Russell Terrier bitch looking for a good retirement home. She has a good Kennel Club pedigree, has been house-trained & loves people & children. She is 5 years old, (chip number 9680000000085120); conditions of transfer of ownership are that she must not be bred from and cannot live with other bitches. Comes from working lines so she would work. Ring 02 43 03 20 94 or 06 72 11 93 35 for more details & photos.

The important thing is that the vet has a centrifuge and gets the blood to the lab within 12-24 hours. Obviously different breeds tend to react to the vaccine in different ways but after much trial & error we have found a specialist vet who has had a 100% success rate with all our dogs so far. Indeed the majority of them are off the scale at 7.92+ ! Once the blood test is done (only a single vaccination is usually needed unless it is a very young puppy) do remember to do the booster within the 365 days. One day over & you will have to repeat the whole process. Stephanie Godwin 53