Jump to content

Mistral

Members
  • Posts

    570
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Everything posted by Mistral

  1. I buy seeds in the local bio/health food shop. They are unsalted, not roasted or anything like that. I use aldi pain multicereal mix to make granary bread. i prefer it to francine.
  2. I was at a meeting yesterday about what used to be called the projet d'etablissement. It's now called a PAP-et and has to be planned to fit in with the PAPA and the PAP. The headteacher seemed to delight in telling us that we would have to take into account the PPRE, ATP, ARE  and IDD to say nothing of the CECS. Finally someone gave up and asked her if she could translate what she was saying into French  
  3. I was interviewed for the temps partiel because there weren't many places but not for the full year job when I was at uni. I know that they've been cutting down on assistant jobs for ages now. Very few collèges have them any more, it seems to be either lycées or primaries and in that case you aren't so much an assistant as a teacher.  When my school asked for an english language assistant a couple of years back, we were told that we couldn't have a native English speaker but could possibly get a german who "spoke very good english"  
  4. [quote user="Tourangelle"]  but with the British council you need to have done two years at university to be eligible to be an assistant. [/quote] Unless you do the assistant à temps partiel thing which specifically for post A level students (that is, if it still exists, I did mine 20 years ago)  
  5. If you are in the UK, then you will probably need to get in touch wih the central bureau for educational visits and exchanges (part of the British council I think) Many years ago, when I did it, there was something called an "assistant à temps partiel" which was only available for people between 18 and 20. You did 10 hours instead of the standard 12 and were paid a lot less but the school had to provide accomodation. If you are in france, then you will need to contact your local rectorat to become a locally recruited assistant. This site is for Amaerican assistants (with a different recruitement system) but there are some british assistants there too. http://www.assistantsinfrance.com/
  6. She will probably need to wait until she is 18 to apply for french nationality. As TU says, it is the tribunal d'instance who deals with it. They will probably refuse to give any answers about dual nationality because it is beyond their competance. They only deal with French nationality acquisition. As Clark Kent says, both France tha the UK allow their nationals to have another nationality as well, so in taking french nationality she just accumulates, there is no need to make any declarations about her UK nationality at all( either that she wants to keep it or renounce it) I have had French nationality for the last couple of years, it is a mostly painless experience and not much more complicated that asking for a carte de sejour (with the added big surprise that the people at the TI were friendly and efficient and the list of paperwork they provided was exactly what they wanted) I also have kept my bristish nationality. This is the best link for info  http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/N111.xhtml?&n=Etrangers+en+France&l=N8
  7. [quote user="beryl"] women teachers regardless of age, marital status or rank would all be called 'Miss'.[/quote] In france it's the opposite, we're all "madame". But on the timetables my collège gives out to pupils it's written madame or mademoiselle. All the male teachers are monsieur. I have to admit that I copy the ones I'm supposed to give to my class and retype them so that all women are madame. I really don't see what our marital staus has to do with our teaching. I remember feeling a bit miffed when the ticket inspector on the train used to call me mademoiselle (that was a long time ago) I felt that there was an insult in it, that I was young didn't deserve adult respect (OK it was usually when he was telling me to take my feet off the seat, so maybe it was justified.) Nowadays, I'd just be flattered (or more probably surprised) It's interesting that the Miss/Mrs fight that happened years ago in the UK, has only just got to france.    
  8. I'm prof principal in 3eme and I have to deal with situations like this quite a lot. The whole professionel system has a very bad (and in my mind almost totally undeserved) reputation. A lot of pupils get to the end of 3eme and have had enough of the "classic" educational system but at the same time, they aren't ready to go out to work (even if that were possible) nor are they really looking for an apprentissage. they may welll have the brain to get the brevet (not that that means much  at the moment) and go on to lycée general but they don't want to. they want to do something more practical. something that leads to a job and not another 5 years worth of studying. For most of these students, a lycée pro is the best idea. 14 hours a week are on basic core subjects so they aren't losing out on academic learning and the the other 14 hours are in atelier learning a profession. They also have about 3 weeks of "stage"  per year. At the end of 2 years, they have a basic qualification (BEP) This is enough to find them a job. It  probably won't be a very well paid satisfying job, but most of the professions studied for BEP are the kind where you can progress through ability as much a qualifications. About half of BEP pupils stay on to take the bac pro (a LEP teacher once explained "for BEP they can repair an electronic circuit, with bac pro they can create it) this is a Bac, just like any general bac, with the added advantage of being immediately use-able and theref ore more sought after tby employers. One of our local LEP's has the local businesses poaching pupils just before the bac pro (they can pay them less that way) Most LEP's offer a mini-stage in one or more of their filieres. And most have portes ouvertes (although you may have missed them, they tend to be in march) my 3emes get a brochure from ONISEP which lists all the subjects and where in the academie. The best places to start is the local CIO (centre d'information et d'orientation) and the ONISEP website,  http://195.214.240.73/national/accueil/html/accueil.htm especially the regional part. The professeur principal should know the filieres in the local LEP's as well but not the odder ones further away unless he has already had a pupil do one. (like I had a pupil do MSMA at eurocopter 2 years ago) There are no catchment areas for LEP's,  and you can ask for up to three filieres/LEP's in the public sector and as many as you want in the private.
  9. [quote user="SaligoBay"]   Anyone you know discuss Sartre and Derrida and BHL?[/quote] Yes, [8-)] Not BHL that much because he is too mediatique to be taken seriously. When you change schools, it takes a while to find the others in the staff room who discuss football, films with plots and music you can sing along too.....
  10. In all the collèges I have worked in, I have never heard of a list of striking teaching being given to parents. Most teachers would explose if they heard about this. Whether or not they strike is a personal matter and as far as I know publishing a list of strikers is illegal. In most schools the CPE discretely asks teachers and then tells any pupils who ask and most teachers will tell pupils if they ask politely and at an appropriate moment (memories of  "now who can tell me what Mrs Rogers was doing? Yes, Anthony..?" "Madame, vous faites grève demain?" come to mind) Although some won't tell because they haven't yet made up their minds (they do have until the start of lessons on the strike day to do that) For the same reasons, schools won't tell parents when the phone in either.  This does mean you have to rely on what your child tells you and they don't always get their information directly from the teachers. If a friend says Mme X is absent, they are going to believe it, or if they hear that Mr Y usually strikes, they can interpret it as being certain he won't be there. One class told me that because I wasn't striking they would have 5 heures de perm. So I went through their timetable with them. It turned out that only the teachers before and after lunch were absent (so that did make 3.5 hours without a lesson) but of the 7 hours of lessons they were supposed to have that day, they were only missing one hour of art and one hour of sport. All the other teachers were there. They were as surprised as me with the result. Nor can a school refuse any absence signed by the parents, regardless of the reason. Absence justifié means that the parents know the pupils was absent, accept the reason and sign the absence slip. Nothing more. What you should have done is sent your daughter in with a signed absence on Wednesday in the same way you would have done if she had been ill. Most parents write "grève" but you could always write "absence de professeurs". I still don't understand how Val's son's school can refuse strike as a justification. If it's signed by the parents, they should accept it. Schools do need to have these absences justified, even if it's for a strike. They are just making sure that you are aware that she wasn't at school on Tuesday. That she wasn't skiving. My CPE doesn't check absences on strike days, the pupils know this and there are loads of pupils who are dropped off at the gate and somehow fail to get any further. They spend the day with friends wandering around town, while their parents think they are at school. If they were my kids, I'd want to know.
  11. You must be so relieved. Down here things aren't so cheery. On Wednesday morning the lycée was blocked, but the gates were cleared during the morning. By yesterday afternoon, the wheelie bins were back in front of the gates (alon,g with the chains and the barricades) Tell your son to keep his guard up. A friend's daughter's lycée was re-opened on monday, Tuesday was the strike, so it was closed but it hasn't re-opened since. This morning a goup of pupils tried forcing their way through and it ended up with the police being called (not to open the lycée, just to stop the fighting) and if  you want to believe the rumour, the proviseur ended up in hospital (not sure I believe that one but you never know).
  12. As far as I know, there are no state primary schools in Aix with a bilingual/international section. But I think there are a couple of sous contrat private schools. There is the international bilingual school of provence, it's private  but I don't know to what extent. http://www.ibsofprovence.com/ On the other hand, the state collège Mignet has an international section. I think they have "normal" English lessons when the class has English and I think history/geography is taught in English too. you'll find more information here http://www.clg-mignet.ac-aix-marseille.fr/   There is also at least one private sous contrat collège; St catherine http://perso.wanadoo.fr/saintecatherine/college/  This leads on to the lycée Duby at Luynes http://www.lyc-luynes.ac-aix-marseille.fr/ All the state schools will need your daughter to take some sort of test to check her English ability. From what I've heard, most the pupils in the international sections are native English speakers.
  13. There is no law that says that french people have to have an ID card. They have to be able to prove their identity. The ID card is the easiest way (and now it's free) Of course, you can get into problems for things like applying for a driving license if they ask for a photocpy of an ID card. On the other hand, the list of ID's that they accept for you to vote is amazing. I've used my passport as ID in france before, but I prefer not to. First I don't like wandering around with my passport and second, it confuses people when I write a french cheque and then use British ID. They don't know what numbers to copy on the back. If I hadn't got a French ID between times I would have applied for a new TdS when my last one ran out, even if it isn't obligatory.
  14. I remember coming to live in france for 6 months when I was 18, straight after studying it at A level. I didn't understand a word for 2 weeks! After, I got used to it and found I could understand more and more and communicate better and better. I went on to study it at university, but I can't say whether it was the studying or the frequent trips to France that helped me improve (probably the latter when I think of the pittiful state of my German) Living here and only ever speaking French outside of the classroom (and I don't think "where is Julie's hat? it's on the floor." really counts as English) has done the rest. I can also remember the hours spent learning the subjunctive and the past historic. Since leaving uni, I don't think I've ever written a single past historic, although I come across them in reading. And I seem to use the same subjunctives all the time. Maybe it would have been better to have only learnt être, faire, venir and aller to start with.
  15. [quote user="Val_2"] Anyone travelling on tuesday should think twice.[/quote] Or wanting to send their kids to school. The teachers' unions are joining in . http://www.snes.edu/snesactu/article.php3?id_article=2034    
  16. [quote user="SaligoBay"] Well, I have to say I was shocked to hear that sex education is done in French schools in 4ème.  That's the 13-14 year olds.  Isn't that a bit late?     [/quote] To make things worse, a lot of SVT teachers prefer to teach it at the end of 4eme. Of course, if they leave it until June, then half the class won't be there (and probably the half that most needs it, although for them it is probably  too late) I have one very difficult class of 4emes who have a particularly wet SVT teacher. She must be dreading the sex ed part of the curriculum. As far as I know FGM is illegal in france. Probably under the mutilation laws. A couple of years back they prosecuted some families who had had it done to their daughters in france. They was talk of prosecuting families who took their children back to their countries to get it done. That would be good idea although difficult to impliment
  17. Yes, I thought 17.5 was very high too. But I found it on several websites (official gov type ones) Even taking into account the fact that most people lie when they are asked questions about sex (but would they be adding years or taking them off?) it surprised me. Apparently it used to be higher (in line with catholic "latin" countries) but has recently come in line with more northern european countries. I have no idea of the age in the UK. Recently I came across a "when was your first time" type thread on a french parenting forum and most people seemed to be going for 14/15. That sounded  closer to what I would have expected from talking to my 4emes and 3emes    
  18. [quote user="Tresco"]Now I fully expect someone to come along and tell me for boys the age of consent is 13 or somesuch.[/quote] No, it's 18. Boys had (have) to wait until their majority while girls could be "disenfranchisée" by their parents at 15. Technically, that meant they were majors and could make their own decisions. But obviously, this wasn't what happened. It was also possible for a girl to amrry under the age of 15, if the president (no less) allowed it. As far as I know the age of consent is that same as legal marriage age. Maybe somewhat surprisingly, the average age for the first sexual experience is around seventeen and a half.
  19. [quote user="Tony F Dordogne"] the sort of thing de Gaulle may well have have done 40 years ago.[/quote] I'm guessing you didn't necessarily mean that as a compliment [;)] But for a lot of French people that would be a reason to vote for him
  20. This discussion came to mind this afternoon in class. We're studying an extract from "and then there were none" by Agatha Christie and we got to a point where a lot of pupils recognised the book and exclaimed "mais c'est 10 petits négres!". I then had to explain that the book's title had changed over the years to be less insulting. They thought that was perfectly understandable, but at the same time none of them suggested the french did the same.
  21. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news again, but there is another strike planned for next Tuesday (28th march) It's a mass multi union "grève general" so obviously the teachers will be involved. How strongly it will be followed, I don't know but I would think that quite a few will feel the need to support the students and lycéens. I would imagine the private schools won't be concerned but it's not certain as it's against a general law and not something specifically "fonctionnaire" So far, we've been told that youngest child's carnaval has been pushed back a week but not if her teacher will be there. More info here http://www.snes.edu/snesactu/article.php3?id_article=2015
  22. I asked the other half (as my token french person) how he felt about the word. As far as he is concerned it is a technical term (along the lines of "negroid" ) and he would only bother to use it in terms such as "traite des négres" or "négritude". He doesn't see it at all as the insult it would be in english. I'd better add that he teachers hist/géo so he may have a different point of view to most french people. I decided not to remind him that his father (an unpleasant opinionated, arrogant man) tends to use the word négre quite a lot to (in my opinion) belittle black people. He uses "nana" in the same way to talk about women.
  23. So much depends on the teacher for things like outings (well for anything interesting really) My son's class is going to visit a goat farm (and why not?) in a couple of weeks and two days later one of my 5emes is off to wander around in the local countryside and discover their provencal roots. Both trips take into account parts of the curriculum but it's getting more complicated to organise trips and the responsibilty is frightening. It's a sad thing to say, but one the teachers organising is still quite young and hasn't had the "keenness" worn off by the system. Another sad thing, both teachers have had to justify these outings to parents who wanted to make sure they were pedagogically sound and that their kids wouldn't be missing too much in other classes. I don't like IDD's. Back in the bad old days, there was something called PAE (I think- the initials get confusing) In 5eme and 4eme schools could ask for extra hours to build projects (up to 2 hours per week per class) and really inspired teachers used this possibility to give kids extra, more interesting things. Quite often a couple of teachers from different subjects worked together on the project. Unsurprisingly enough, it was a success. So the ministy, in their wisdom decided to make it obligatory. And part of the curriculum. The first texts were interesting. You were supposed to offer as many IDD's (at the time they had another name) as there were classes, then the kids chose the ones (two in a year) they wanted to do. The contents had to be part of the curriculum and at the same time nothing too important as not every pupil would do it. it had to be taught by two teachers from two different subjects, but both doing their curriculum. So they were all supposed to have IDD at the same time and of course the discovering Germany IDD was going to be as popular as the learning to use the internet one. These hours were contained in teachers timetables, so instead of it being volontaires, it was people and subjects that needed a spare hour to make up their hours. Next year our principal has decided that technology, Hist/géo and physics are doing the 5eme IDD's and physics, technology and English are doing the 4eme. (I'm trying to find something that can work as a cross over in English and physics- since I'm pretty sure which poor mug of an English teacher is going to end up doing it) This is why so many IDD's are dull and uninspired. My husband planned one with a French teacher. (chivalry and the knights of the round table as seen in films -any excuse to watch monty python) They chose to do it, asked for the hours, spent  most of the summer term planning it and threw themselves into it from september. but in most schools, teachers find ouut that they have got an IDD and with which subject and which teacher in that subject in september, 2 weeks before IDD's start.
  24. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that my children complain about the length of the school day (8.30-4.30 in  primary and maternelle 8.00-4.30 for collège) They were born in france, they have never known anything else and, as you say, they find it normal. It's just that I personally feel that leaving home at 7.15 coming back at 5pm and then starting homework makes for a long day. I'm professeur principal to a class of 3eme and it was our conseil de classe yesterday. For so many of them we had to say how tired they had been this term.  
  25. 3 rest periods sounds good. Is this primary or secondary? My kids just have the two standard breaks, in primary/maternelle it's at least 20 minutes but in collège it's 15 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon (not long enough to cool your coffee down) The primary/maternelle two have 2 hours at lunchtime and the collège one has 1 hour 20. I once worked in a collège with a 2 hour lunch break. it was sooo long (the reason was it gave kids who lived a long way from the school time to walk home, have lunch and then walk back- the idea that they might have to stay to lunch wasn't considered) The day started at 8 and ended at 5pm, then they had to go home and start on their homework. The working time may not be any longer than in the UK calculated over a week (especially if you take Wednesday/Saturday half days into account) But the days are long. For those who stay to the cantine they can mean 10 hours out of the house.  
×
×
  • Create New...