Debnfamily

How much is this 'savings cushion' and what kind of interest is paid on it?  It seems silly keeping savings in the current climate when only a few percent in interest can be earned when credit card debt may be costing between 17 and 20% in interest. Have you tried Virgin (changed from Alliance and Leicester as I think they may have stopped!) or Egg, both of whom offer to transfer credit card debt with an initial transfer fee of 2.5-3% and then give a year's interest free credit (as long as you don't use the card!)? I don't think its easy to mortgage French property in the UK but I will suggest contacting Barclays, as I know they lend in France on French property based upon UK income so there might be a chance..... Don't wait until you move to France, as though French banks will give you a mortgage based upon UK income, they won't let you use it to repay UK credit card debt, in my experience - though they will give a consolidation loan or mortgage to clear French debt, at a good rate compared to those given in the UK (6-8% unsecured and 3-4% secured, depending upon the term).

I complained about the fee we are going to pay on some land we are buying (58% of net vendeur prix) and the agent said it is the minimum they charge on any property.  I pointed out someone already bought part of the land and they charged the same fee for that part, and was told it was the same amount of work if they sold it off in separate parcels so everyone who bought a parcel would pay the same minimum fee.  Nice work if you can get it!

SD - this burd has decided it is way too complicated and since the consensus seems to be that it is unnecessary to change my licence until 1) it needs renewing (not until 2013) or 2) I commit some offence which means the French will want to apply their rules and therefore need me to have a French licence and assuming that the gov.uk site is correct and I don't need to let DVLA know about my change of address since I've moved abroad (which does seem a bit odd) - I'm going to leave well alone for now and just get the car registered!  (Feel free to scream at me if I've interpreted all the threads about this subject incorrectly!).

Actually, my marriage certficate shows my previous married name, so does that mean I also need a copy of my decree nisee (not sure how that is spelt)?

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Debnfamily"]Why did you need your marriage certificate?[/quote] French admin recognises the name you were registered with as birth as your official name. If, like Puzzled, you use your married name, you will be asked to supply your marriage certificate to link your official name to your married name if you use it. [/quote]I sort of know that because my birth name is on the house deeds, but since my passport and driving licence both show my married name, and not my birth name, I don't see how the marriage certificate will help?  Do they figure out my birth name from somewhere else?  Even my carte vitale shows my married name. 

But how do you get around the address being wrong on it then?  Its ok if you still have a UK address but it feels a bit dodgy once you have tenants living there, who may not forward official looking mail!

[quote user="puzzled"]A short form to complete, they photocopied my passport and marriage certificate whilst I filled the form in , gave me a receipt to use in lieu of my licence and I left them a SAE envelope and can expect to receive my new one between 2- 4 weeks and it was free![/quote]A timely topic for me since I need to do this tomorrow and I'm hoping to get my French car (just bought) registered and change my UK licence at the same time.  Why did you need your marriage certificate?

If you haven't been resident for the previous 3 yrs, wouldn't you treated as a foreign student and have to pay fees?

    ooer....

[quote user="baypond"]Rather than getting rid of you birds, why not consider putting up a tarpaulin or corregated plastic cover where you park the cars? That way your cars are free of muck and the birds can still nest...[/quote]We have both birds and bats and we've left the first floor of the barn as it was (ie no netting or grillage) so they can all stay up there.

We had swallows every year too but didn't have anywhere to move everything out to, so we waited until they had left one year then removed all of their nests and blocked all holes in the barn walls and doors with half inch wire netting.  Now we have a bird netting curtain over the main doorway we use as we prefer to keep that door open to the gardn during the day but don't want the birds dive bombing us - seems to work so far.

[quote user="cooperlola"]@the other Deb! you should ask the centre for non residents in Newcastle - they alone can give you a difinitive answer. [/quote]I'll certainly get my husband to do that to check what his position would be, when they are open.  I was just trying to get a bit of info quickly because of other pressing matters which bring this one to the fore.  There probably will be some sort of minimum time or payment amount to have full entitlement, somewhere in the small print - or maybe not. Gosh the posts are coming fast now (just got ernie's via email).  I still beg to differ - an E106 is an E106 is an E106, even if they might be issued in different circumstances or in your case by the sound of it, by different offices.  The point is, I think, that the reason of issue would determine whether it would be overriden by taking up an activity in France which involved paying contributions.  So in your case, or a temporarily posted worker's case, it might not, you might just acquire insurance with France on top of that you have with the UK (ie so you could get a pension and other benefits from France as well as the UK but the UK, where your main contributions are paid, would presumably still be considered your country of insurance) but for someone who wasn't still paying insurance in the UK, the French contributions would take over and that would be their current country of insurance.  I think that would be my position because I'm not still paying full contributions in the UK.  What I'm trying to figure out is if France became my country of insurance, would it be the country of insurance of my whole family - including my husband, who would remain inactive.  But like Will and Deb said, this probably isn't the place to ask. edit to reply to will's bit: yes, that all fits in with the way I'm reading it.  I'm glad you can see why I'm worried!  I need to generate some extra income somehow, rather than go running back to the UK to avoid exchange rate nightmares and be under the safe umbrella of the UK social security and health system, which is sometimes tempting, believe me!  I have a few ideas but don't want to do something until I understand what will happen.  Property isn't selling very well anywhere at the moment so getting cash that way is out and so starting work in some way is the only way to go.

[quote user="Will"] Deb - to he honest I think you are trying to dot Is and cross Ts for a scheme that is still in development, having only been in operation for a very short time and asking 'what if' questions that even the people whom you should be asking - i.e. French officials - are unlikely to be able to answer, let alone people on this forum. I certainly cannot help you any further.[/quote]OK - thank you for your help and opinions.  Just in case anyone else can help, please chip in! 

OK - thanks Ron.  Trouble is, do I really want to ask to see his insurance now, half way through a job, if its only my problem if I KNOW he isn't insured???? Its a bit dangerous asking questions about this subject on here as people seem to assume that anyone wanting to use the new scheme is using it as a way of entering the health care system, rather than genuinely using it for what it is intended for.  Next, there will be messages telling people they shouldn't come over and set up a business under this scheme, but wait years and meanwhile work under one of the old, more expensive and less suitable schemes, so as not to be thought of as taking advantage of France in some way.  What is the point of all this European legislation to make it possible for people to move within the EEA, whether working or not, if the people concerned are going to be harassed about doing it - more so by people who have moved from the same country than from either other immigrants or the natives, it seems! I think one of the reasons this scheme was introduced was to get more people to get up and do business activities, however small, which will involve them paying contributions into the system - money that wouldn't have been coming in before.  People who might not have bothered before (or might even, shock horror, have worked on the black) because it was too complicated or expensive.  Maybe some of those French people who have left to go to the UK because of easier conditions might return to France now that things are getting less complicated.  I don't think the government can turn round and say 'By the way - we want your contributions but don't expect them to cover you for anything for X amount of years.' but who knows, we'll see!

Ah - just clicked about what you meant about the worker's E106 - you mention the E101 form, which is issued along with an E106 (the same E106) to people who are working temporarily (less than a year - which can exceptionally be extended to two years). 

 OK - the E106: I don't think there ARE two types at all.  You get the E106 if you have the necessary contributions in the country you are moving from and it covers you and your dependents for a limited amount of time.  If you've already been inactive in the country you left for a certain amount of time, you wouldn't get it, I believe.  However, if you have got recent enough contributions to get it and you move and then if you start work in the country you moved to it (the E106) stops and you. and your dependents, are then insured under that country.  If you don't start working, you have the E106 until it runs out and then have to sort out health cover - for yourself and your dependents.  The E121 however, does have two different forms - the IB related one and the pension related one.  Dependents are covered on either of these but I believe that they are only covered if they are not covered in any way in the country of residence.  I thought the general rule of all the EC regulations was that you are only insured in one member state and if you are insured in your country of residence then that insurance takes priority.  Once one of the dependents on an E121 starts working and paying contributions in the new country of residence, that country becomes the country under which they are insured.  So I think that my children would have to be insured via me and not my husband because they could.  Since the E121 holder could then be considered as a dependent of the worker, wouldn't that mean that the worker's insurance in the country of residence would take priority and therefore th E121 would be superceded? Even if this wasn't the case and my husband could keep his E121, what I'm also not sure of, even after re-reading the relevant leaflets and EC regulation 1408/71 (and the new 883/2004, which still isn't current because it's implementing regulation hasn't been ratified yet, as far as I can see), is whether if a new business under AE didn't work out, we (me and the children) would be covered in France because of the contributions paid by me, would go back to being dependents on my husband and covered for health under his E121, or have to get private health cover.  The thing is, this rule about being self sufficient for five years - is this regardless of whether you have been employed and paid contributions that way or self employed and paid contributions that way?  In other words, if you are working in any form, are your contributions being paid to France for up to five years with no benefit to yourself or your family because under the 'self sufficient' rule, if you lost your job or business and became unemployed, you still could not claim any help in France because you had been living here for less than five years?  Or is this five year rule only relevant for non-active people?  Maybe I'm getting confused because a lot of the posts on the forum do seem to be aimed at non-active people and their situation.  Would you be covered for all benefits after working and paying contributions in the new country for a certain amount of time, regardless of the amount of time you have been resident, and the only thing not clear here is whether this minimum amount of time is either waived or hasn't been thought about or documented in connection with the new AE scheme?

Will, I'm not sure I understand your response.  I read the info, as best I could in French and then again in the PBSS translation, and I understood it to be a new way of starting up a small business, for anybody - whether as your sole activity or a sideline and whether you are a student, already employed, unemployed and wanting to start a new business or retired and wanting to have a sideline with a simple way of accounting for your income - without the usual high levels of paperwork and cotisations.  People paying 'grossly unfair....usual high cotisations' could transfer to the new scheme, as Judie has.  So what is the problem? My concern is that I have a few small business ideas but I have a family whose health cover (and mine) is provided via my husband's E121.  I see what you are saying about British people not being treated any differently than French people but I don't know how a French person (or any other European) would be treated in this situation either.   I asked cooperlola because she seems to be an expert on this topic.   I am not entitled to an E121.  My husband is.  I, and our children, are covered as dependents on his E121.  I understand that this fact seems to offend some people but that is the way it is.  If I started a small business under the AE scheme, I'm thinking that the fact that health cotisations are paid would mean that I would no longer be classed as a dependent on his E121.  If this is the case, our children might then be classed as my dependents rather than his and be covered along with me.  The cotisations paid in France might (normally do for other E form purposes, not just the E106, which covers you when you first move over, even looking for work, doesn't it?  not just if you come over and don't ever intend to work) take precedence over any E form - including the E121, where dependents are concerned.  Perhaps my husband would still have his E121 and only myself and the children would be affected, I don't know.  Perhaps he would be deemed to no longer need his E121 and be covered via my business activity.  Whichever, its something I need to be sure of before I do anything.  I can't just rush in.  At the same time, I don't want to be 'inactif' just because my husband is.  I don't want to be tied to being 'inactif' because of worries about what would happen if my small business didn't work out and I couldn't afford private health cover and had lost any right for me or my children to be dependents on my husband for health cover purposes or had even lost him his right to be covered via his E121. I don't expect anything I've come up with so far to exceed the huge bands that the AE scheme covers, so its interesting that some people seem so hung up on this idea that this new scheme is only for people wanting to make pin money with a small sideline! Ron Avery just made another post while I'm typing this one, so a quick response to that too:  I don't think the guy fixing my roof is in any way 'using' the AE system to gain health care.  Quite the contrary since his understanding is he isn't covered for a year!  That was my understanding (from him) and that was why I questioned it - that he had to pay for private health cover because he couldn't be covered under the AE scheme yet and couldn't be covered via an E121 (he is past UK retirement age; his son working with him isn't) because he is working and paying cotisations in France.  As to the insurance thing - I have no idea!  I have seen his siret form and understand he is legally working via the AE scheme and thought that was all I needed to know.  Are you telling me I should have asked to see his insurance documents before allowing him to work on my roof?  I've never asked to see such documents before (the French chimney sweep ran about up there too) either here or in England.  Is this a thing you need to worry about here in France, Ron?

OK - I read it and I'm back!  So to test if I've understood it correctly, here goes.... Under the first category I can sell something I've made, for instance, or rent a house (furnished - unfurnished also?) and pay 12% of the amount I sell my goods for, or 12% of the amount of rent I receive, which covers me immediately for pretty much everything (including health cover).  I can then, if my total family income does not exceed €25195 per family part, choose to either pay another 1% of either the amount I sold my goods for or my rent received as a flat rate of income tax, never to be revised, OR I can choose to have the profit (those amounts less a 71% allowance)  added to the rest of my family income and taxed.  The pay as you go option doesn't take any direct detailed account of any expenses such as cost of materials to make my goods or mortgage on a rental property.  The other option allows 71% of receipts as expenses.  So which option I choose for income tax would depend on my expenses. The main thing is that it seems to be the case that I could be set up immediately and in the system and covered for health. Have I understood the above correctly? If so, what would happen if I later fell out of this regime, for whatever reason (say because of no declared turnover for a year) within 5 years of arriving in the country - what would then happen about my (and my family's) health cover?

Thanks, Will - by the way, it was cooperlola who I was asking if she understood the question, as she didn't understand it when I asked it the first time and so I had to clarify my gibberish! So you seem to be confirming that it would take a year to get health cover then?  I'm not sure what you mean by 'one declaration' but I'm probably being really stupid so I'll go and read the leaflet about it..... I would have thought if the E106 was affected then the E121 would be also, but if one of you had one of these forms and the spouse was covered as a dependent, wouldn't the fact that a dependent spouse worked under the AE scheme (or in fact any other scheme) mean that not only would that spouse have to become covered by cotisations but also the situation would switch around and the spouse with the E form would lose it and become a dependent on the person paying the cotisations by whatever method?  If you consider it an anomaly which will have to be closed then other people probably will too, which means it might be a bit risky to go there - especially if you have a whole family whose health cover is in jeopardy!

[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Debnfamily"]    Cooperlola, does that mean you think the waiting a year for cover idea is wrong? [/quote]Sorry to be thick but I don't quite get the question![:$] [/quote]In my post just before yours, I explained that the guy doing some work for me said he is under the AE scheme but he thinks he isn't covered for health cover for a year.  Someone else says you're covered for health under the AE scheme from the start of paying (any) cotisations.  On TF I asked the same question and someone just replied saying that under any scheme in France you have to earn a minimum of the equivalent of the SMI amount for 15 hours per week to be covered for health (though they don't say if this is every week for a year or what).  I'm just wondering exactly how this works because I'd be reluctant to give up E form cover to start a small business if it meant I wasn't covered for health in France because my earnings from the small business were too low - do you see what I mean? (and understand the question?!) This is presuming one has to give up any E form coverage once one starts working under the AE scheme - so would you have to get private health insurance for a period until the cover from the small business kicks in and if so, do you have to get it again if your income drops below this threshold within your first five years of residence during which you are supposed to be self sufficient, or once you have been covered once by cotisations are you covered under the CMU scheme somehow?

    Cooperlola, does that mean you think the waiting a year for cover idea is wrong?

The guy fixing our roof was talking about this the other day and what he said doesn't match what has been said here.  His understanding is that he is in the system as an AE doing general property maintenance (which he was advised to put himself as rather than specifically a roofer) but that he won't have any health cover under this scheme for the first year.  Has he been misled or misunderstood?

I don’t know what Ron is on about with the TF comment – the thread there started off the same as this one (I was needing info urgently and so posted on both fora) but ended pretty quickly once the situation was resolved.  This thread went on and I provided further info about my other son and tried to explain that there were two sons involved, one who had been physically thrown, with witnesses (and a few other incidents which weren’t clear or didn’t have clear witnesses so I couldn’t really complain properly).  The younger son hasn’t had a problem other than the teaching assistant shouting at him and upsetting him and being scared by what he saw happening to his brother.  I thought Ron had gotten mixed up between the two sons and therefore I clarified it.  Perhaps there was no point as he is just out to stir up trouble, as Deby says.  Anyway, hopefully the info may help other people in future. As for the whole village knowing what happened: two parents, who are quite good friends of mine, have thanked me for complaining because their own children have now explained what was happening and also that everything is now ok, since we had a meeting with the teacher, when they actually knew nothing about it before because their own children didn’t tell them (that the teacher had thrown them about the class and slapped them).  Those children of those parents have also thanked my son for standing up and complaining because they now have an angelic teacher who no longer pushes and shoves them about and they are actually enjoying school.  The situation hasn’t been mentioned or discussed by any other parents that I am aware of and there are no problems at the school.  The teacher has this week introduced a new ‘contract’ between the children, the parents and the teacher.  It lists rules and expected behaviour for both the classroom environment and the garderie.   She has also introduced a new procedure whereby the children assess the behaviour of their classmates.  There is a questionnaire which starts ‘Today we are going to discuss the behaviour of ‘X’……’ and then there is a list of questions which she asks the class and they all vote on the answers.  I thought perhaps a bit worrying from the point of view that it could be a bit humiliating for some or may give the opportunity for an unpopular pupil to be picked on but I’ve signed to say I agree with trying this out, along with all the other parents.  The teacher has also reissued a notice she issued in the first month of this school year which states that if problem behaviour is not effectively addressed by parents then they will be called to collect their child from school.   It seems to me as if the teacher has calmed down and is implementing other ways of controlling the children, or rather effecting improvements in their behaviour, by methods other than fear. Incidentally, she has also contacted me to let me know that my son’s work (the one who had the problem with concentrating and being tidy) has improved in both content and tidiness and the suggestions I have made to him to help him be more organised have worked.  I do wonder how much of this is also helped by my suggestion to my son that if he doesn't knuckle down, his younger brother (by two years) may end up going to college ahead of him!  All looking good to me.  The children are enjoying their last week before the holidays, making Christmas Crackers and learning 'English' Christmas Carols for the end of year spetacle and looking forward to the Christmas party.  Fingers crossed for the New Year.  

[quote user="woolybanana"]Good luck and don't be upset by GOG. [/quote] I was caned but in senior school and it made me rebel rather than conform.  I don't think it does any good.  What is GOG???  I'm a little tired after typing the following in response to Ron's comments, so perhaps I'm being a bit dim! ************** I really don’t understand why Ron is making all these assumptions.  I have three children in this class.  The class has rows of children who are in CM1 and rows in CM2 but they are all in one classroom.  My children are doing well on most tests.  The teacher considers the tests to be very important and indicative of progress, even if Ron doesn’t.  The elder two of them failed geography marginally, along with half of the class.  My younger son passed that one.  In fact, the younger son hasn’t failed a test yet – though he has had the odd low mark in an informal spelling test, usually when he’s forgotten to tell me he has a test so I haven’t practiced them with him (he gets the same spelling test as the older children).   My older son is not normally badly behaved and the teacher only mentioned this supposed fidgeting and lack of attention when I complained about HER behaviour.  Prior to that, at parent’s evening, she said he could be a bit of a day dreamer and keen to get into the playground to play football but she considered all of this normal for his age group and he was doing well in his work (though a bit untidy at times).  Suddenly she gives the impression this has escalated and tries to use the escalation to excuse her behaviour.  The other two children don’t think he has behaved any differently than normally.  I have given her the benefit of the doubt and searched for reasons he might have been more fidgety than usual or less attentive than usual and tried to address them.  I made him apologise to her and promise to try harder, leaving her behaviour aside as a separate subject, he needs to know he has to concentrate in class and be tidy in this work or he may have problems in college.  Anything he can do better to please her will hopefully lessen her explosiveness with him.  However, I don’t think he has been bad and I know for a fact that there are far, far worse behaved children than him in the class who are far more untidy and less attentive.  Ron – do you think possibly she was trying to excuse her own behaviour by complaining about my son’s?  As far as I was concerned it was irrelevant to the subject as I could not agree with her behaviour.   The son who was being shouted at is my younger son.  He is in a class which is held to help those children who are behind the expected norm in French.  These classes are a new innovation this year (in all French schools) and are held to help children behind in French and maths.  He also gets extra help with French vocabulary when the other children are busy doing English.  My eldest child stays in the English class to help the teacher with pronunciation.  The younger two go into the French vocabulary lessons – which is when my younger son needs his dictionary.  The older son (who is the one Ron seems to think is disrupting the class because he needs help and doesn’t understand) is actually there to help the younger son and the teaching assistant understand each other.  My younger son feels it is unfair to compare him to the older son.  I agree.  He is less confident with French because he was younger and more shy when we first came here two years ago and the teachers in the other school let him off with a lot, saying ‘he is young and timid – he will catch up later’.  He isn’t as behind as he would have been because I disagreed with that attitude and made him do extra work at home. There are French kids in the ‘extra help’ class who are getting worse results than my younger son and who can’t use a dictionary at all, so the teacher is ordinarily quite happy for him to use one – it’s not a problem.   In fact, they have recently being doing dictionary exercises in class that have helped him speed up.  The level of French they are doing in the normal class is actually quite in line with what my children need.  In one way they are lucky: they are learning it correctly from the start whereas the French children have learned how to speak the language with no idea that the words they are saying are spelled in different ways depending on the tense or context or meaning, even though they may sound the same.   Maybe another reason the language is at a good level for them is that a lot of the children only learn French when they come to school, as they speak Occitan at home.  My children can communicate well with the other children and write as they speak, which is apparently normal for the other children too, and is what the teacher is trying to teach them out of, if you see what I mean!  Writing as you speak in English often works quite well, but with all the differences between spoken and written French it doesn’t work well at all.  My children are learning these differences along with the French children, but also along with learning/expanding their spoken vocabulary, so I think they are lucky in that they don’t have to ‘relearn’ written French as much as the French children do.  This is probably why they get full marks for spelling tests and the French children don’t. As I mentioned, our children first came to France and started school here two years ago.  They spent six months in school (the other village school, which houses CP, CE1 and CE2) and then we had to return to England.  We returned in April this year and they all rejoined their old classes, now a year further on.  In September, my younger son skipped CE2 and joined CM1, because the teachers didn’t feel he needed to do CE2 and would be better off joining those in his own age group and redoubling CM1 later if he had any problems.  The older two stayed with the class they had originally joined, who should be a year younger than them but are in fact of mixed ages as quite a lot of them have redoubled in the past.  One French child who is in CM1 and also one in CM2 are to ‘triple’ this year (it has already been decided).  My younger son’s only complaint is that he is the only boy in CM1.  I’ve told him he probably won’t mind that when he’s a bit older!  I don’t think my son will need to redouble CM1.  I think his language will improve over the year and especially next year when the older two leave and go to college and he has to manage on his own.  The teacher has already said that both my older children are already expected to go to college next year (from their results so far) but the formal tests are in January and February.   At home, when they have energy after the huge amount of homework they get to do,  my children study the curriculum using the ‘tout savoir’ range of books.  We do this with them to see that they catch up on the history and French they have missed and also keep up to date with maths, in case any language difficulties cause them to miss the point on anything.  This gave them good language practice at first too as they often needed to translate the questions into English to work out the problems and then translate them back into French to give the answer.  This works well for the eldest child and younger of the three but the middle one (the fidgety one) hates using his dictionary and so makes silly mistakes because he doesn’t understand the question or makes an incorrect assumption.  I’m going to make him do some translation work to speed up his dictionary usage.   As for speaking the language at home, we’ve been told not to bother.  We’ve been told it is best to speak English at home and make sure their first language is kept up (when the pressure is off, later, they will take up English lessons).  The accent my husband and I have learned and speak with is different to the local one and is not the accent the children need to learn.  When they hear me speak French they mutter corrections to my accent – which is quite irritating!  The children find it hard to understand our neighbour, who is from Paris, whereas we find her easy to understand and the locals really hard!   The teachers advised us to put the children straight into school rather than put them through a course at home first, because of the accent issue and because they said there is no substitution for the intensive experience of having to learn French in order to communicate whilst at school during both work and play.  The children were advanced in all subjects except French language and history.  It was no problem to allow them this time to catch up on those two and let the other subjects go or give practice at home where necessary.  The teachers agreed with this and did not foresee a problem in class.  There still isn’t one.  My children by no means ‘steal’ attention from the others in the class! None of this will convince Ron, I am sure, that my children are anything other than badly behaved English hooligans who have come to France to disrupt the education of the local children.  I wasn’t going to post this message and have retyped it, but then I thought what the hey – it might help other parents considering moving to France appreciate some of the problems that may happen.   There is another English boy in the class who is one of the loudest to shout ‘NO SPEAKING ENGLISH ALLOWED!’ if one of mine slips up in class or in the playground.  I suppose if mine do that to a newcomer it will be a sign that they have fitted in, but I hope they won’t – I hope they will remember how upsetting it was for them and try to help the new child, not make them feel like a pariah for not being fluent in French.    

JR I tried to quote your post but it went horribly wrong! He didn't actually use the word 'conditonal', he said "I felt as if she only meant she would keep her promise to stay calm and not hit me as long as I kept my promise to pay attention".  He possibly could be too bright for the class ordinarily but he needs the language acquisition so he needs to stay where he is, for now. I didn't insist she should treat my children differently - I insisted it was wrong to hit or in any way be physical with any of the children.  However, I can only make an official complaint about her treatment of mine.  It seems she has stopped doing this with all of the children for now - even the really difficult ones.  I'm now worried, after what boiling a frog said, that I have no grounds to insist she doesn't get physical!