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Starting French school mid-year vs start of year?


Daft Doctor
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Hi, I have a little dilemna, and while I know there isn't a right answer for every school and every circumstance, I thought you kind people out there might have a view based on knowledge and experience of the French school system.

We are emigrating to France next year. We could go in April, but for a few reasons I won't bore you with, July may be more practical. If we go in April, my 9 year old would join CM1 for the summer term, then join CM2 for the full year, then (as long as he doesn't redouble CM2) go on to college. If we go in July, he would start in CM2 so would miss a term of French primary school education, but would finish off his school year in the UK.

I wondered if anyone has a view of how important from an educational and language point of view to my son this summer term in CM1 might be, as opposed to the benefits of starting a new school year afresh in CM2? He will be getting private face to face tuition in French for at least 6 months before we go, but obviously language will be a major challenge.

I know the obvious answer is the earlier he starts the better, but I don't know how the school curriculum is organised and whether joining for the last term would be extra difficult. As I said a July move has other practical benefits for us but how soon and how easily my son settles in to his new life is of course vitally important. I'm just trying to guage the pro's and con's of each option. Thanks in advance

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My children started their schools just after easter . I am glad that they did start then though it was by accident rather than design. Firstly it gave the an introduction into the school and language for just long enough without them becoming exhausted. I don't think adults always appreciate how mentally tiring it is for children to be immersed in french for 8 hours. Secondly, the school year is coming to an end and the school day is often more relaxed, very different ambiance etc to September.

Personally, if you could do a term before the summer holidays, I would do it.

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I have educated a number of my children/charges in France, one of them is a son who started in CE2.  My thoughts are that there would be little difference, socially or acadamically, between a September start or an April start, unless it is the beginning of a new school for everyone e.g. the start of 6eme in a secondary school (when it is better to start at the same time as everyone else).

Starting at the summer term does have the advantage that it is a short term with lots of bank holidays - May Day (in 2012, a Tuesday), VE Day (also a Tuesday in 2012), Easter (Monday), Pentecost (Monday) and Ascension Day (always a Thursday).  Remember that in primary school, your son gets Wednesdays off and so he will have several short weeks if he starts in April 2012.  The term finishes at the end of June.  Not a bad way to 'break' into French schooling.

As for tips, there is very little that you can do other than be there for support when he comes home.  Although tough for him, don't forget that it is a secret of desire of most children to be able to speak another language (remember speaking double Dutch when you were little?).  So the will to succeed will be inside him.  I have been amazed how my brood have adapted to being immersed into French schools.  One of my children has severe learning difficulties and even she is excited about speaking another language.

You mention about taking the CM2 year again (redouble). My advice is to resist this, if possible, should the reason just be because he is British.  French teachers hold regular conseil de classe where they all get together and take decisions about your child.  I find that, because most teachers have limited experience of teaching 'foreign' children, they can be negative about their progress.  An example of this is one of my daughter was refused entry to a Bacc even though she had 13.9 out of 20 for her Brevet.  I fought against this very strongly (PM me if you want to know how) and the Head overturned the decision of the teachers.  She has succeeded in her Bacc.

It is very hard standing by and watching your children go to French school.  Your involvement will be more restricted than in the UK (French parents are left very firmly at the school gate compared to the UK) but the reward is a fully bilingual child with far greater opportunites than he would usually have.  You will have read the posts on this Forum from some parents, who have been disillusioned by French education.  I am not one of them.  I have had my moments but now that some of my children are coming out of the system with bilingual (and trilingual) skills, I am pleased.  It is not for the faint-hearted.  Bon courage.

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Cathy ,picking up on your comments about avoiding 'doubling up' if possible in CM2 . Well. this was pricisely what I was hoping would happen for my son when he reaches that stage. Only because he is the youngest in his class and I can see the age difference. He was 7 in late November and a lot of the children are already 8 . I feel he would be 'more' confident to start college if he was one of the oldest in his class as he will be feeling vulnerable being british and hopefully this could stop any future bullying. If we were in England he would not be starting secondary school until this age anyway. However, at the moment he is doing very well (CE1) and his latest school report was very pleasing to read.If he carries on doing well would they allow him to redo his last year just because of his age ? I know I am thinking ahead but what do you think......
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My daughter is going to 'redoubler' CM2 next year.  My son redid CP last year.  She was 9 when she first went to school (my son was 7) - they spent the most of the first year simply getting to grips with the language. My daughter also had many problems with her maths which didn't help. Now they have cracked the language pretty much,  and she's averaging 15/20 in maths, and they are now learning maths/french grammar/ history etc at the same time and at the same rate as their French peers.  In fact my son is doing so well, they are now talking about him skipping a year so he we will be in the 'right' year for his age.

We were involved in making the decision to redoubler - we had meetings with the enseignantes, the directrice of the school and the enseignante reférante for the area.  It wasn't a surprise!  I am glad we made the decision to do this - they are both settled, reasonably unstressed, they do not feel they are playing 'catch-up' all the time, and most importantly they are happy.  There is no shame in re-doing a year - I know of parents who have insisted that their collège-aged children re-do years in order to increase their score averages so they have a better chance of doing the BAC of their choice.

My children are not geniuses, they are average-bright with occasional flashes of brilliance, and this has worked very well for them.

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Hi, thanks to all for your insight.  My son has a December birthday and strictly speaking should go into one term of CM2 next April then on to college from September.  That would be a disaster IMO, so we are going to ask for him to be held back and start in CM1 as I mentioned in my original post.  That way he will be the eldest in CM1 (excepting those who are or have already redoubled a year).  That will make it much easier for him and even if he also subsequently has to redouble CM2 it won't be a disaster.  As someone who re-sat my A levels and started medical school 2 years late I can honestly say it did me no harm.  Hopefully he will eventually do well, he is a bright enough kid and has a very good memory, so here's hoping! 
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I ought to clarify that I don't think that doing a year again is a problem at all, but only if it is done for reasons other than the child is 'foreign'.  I have two examples in my immediate family when

family members re-took one year for different reasons and I agree that

it did not do them any harm.

I think that, in particular, if a child is not ready for secondary school, it is really useful to be able to stay in primary school.

However, if the only problem is that a child has not mastered French, I think that making him or her repeat a year is inequitable.  They continue to learn French year by year and by the end of the third year, they will be more-or-less on a par with French children.

Crickey, being a mother is hard.  I had a professional career before accidentally becoming a guardian to a lot of children and it was far easier.  We all do our best.  Sometimes I think that French teachers don't take into account the "guilt process" that mothers (or fathers) go through when making decisions about health and education for their children.

Well done to Daft Doctor for trying to make sense of a system in advance and taking steps to make it easier for her son - he is a lucky boy.

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[quote user="Cathy"]  I had a professional career before accidentally becoming a guardian to a lot of children and it was far easier.  .


[/quote]Crikey, Cathy, that's some accident you had. [:-))][:-))] On balance, I'll take the lorry driver.

Sorry to interupt a serious topic, DD.  Good luck to your kid, whatever you decide.  I changed schools 10 times (I kid you not) during my education, and countries twice.  I'll leave you to judge whether this left me mentally scarred for life or not.[:)]

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My brats are on their 3rd country - UK, Netherlands and now France.  They may be a little confused at times (in Holland you shake hands with your teacher as you leave, in France you don't, but you do get an occasional bisou!, and in the UK you get a little wave if you're lucky), but they are still in touch with their friends from the previous countries, and, with a lot of jiggery pokery from the parents, get together once in a while, can only be a good thing.

And Cathy, you are soooooo right about the ongoing guilt-trip of being a parent - dogs are so much easier!

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[quote user="Fi"]

And Cathy, you are soooooo right about the ongoing guilt-trip of being a parent - dogs are so much easier!
[/quote]

Can't agree about dogs being easier.  They are equally capable of making you feel guilty.

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[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Cathy"]  I had a professional

career before accidentally becoming a guardian to a lot of children and

it was far easier.  .

[/quote]Crikey, Cathy, that's some accident you had. [:-))][:-))][/quote]

A very long story, Coops, for the next itchy feet tour.  I am much better now and nothing will stop me from joining your next pit stop.

[quote user="Daft Doctor"]Now then Cathy.......who said I was a she??  [;-)][/quote]

Mmmm.  The advantage of being a doctor, perhaps?  I have often wondered what it is like to be called Chris or Robbie or Marion or Charlie or Leslie/Lesley or all those names that are uni-sex.

OK, Daft Doctor, so you might be a bloke but your son is still lucky to have you.  [Www]

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  • 4 weeks later...

We moved to France when my eldest was 9. He started school in the March and did a term and a bit of CM1 then CM2 before going on to college. He didn't have to redouble which I was happy about as he was very mature for his age. I felt that socially it was better that way. He had a chance to make new friends and could hang out with them over the summer holidays which helped his French and his confidence. The holidays could seem very long and lonely for him, especially if he is a sociable sort.  Bearing in mind that French children start school around 3, by the time your son starts school he will have missed 6 years of French schooling. If you think about how a foreign child would fare in the UK having missed out on this amount of schooling, it should give you an idea of what to expect. It's not just the language skills that are missing but knowledge of the country and it's culture.  They will have no knowledge of things that would be second nature to a British child.

Extra language help for non-Francophone children is very patchy and ranges from regular one to ones to none at all so that is something you need to look into.  We didn't put our children into school immediately. For the first 3 months they had intensive language lessons with a fabulous teacher who taught them French for school, in other words, all the French they would need to know to be able to understand the teacher. They will spend the rest of their school life conjugating verbs so they did very little of that. I think it worked well.

I don't personally think there is any right or wrong way to do it as so much depends on the child.  Both of mine took to it like ducks to water but equally I know people that had years of problems getting their children to settle in school.  Picking up the language will take varying lengths of time but in my honest opinion they are not fully bilingual for years, if ever, as they are not exposed to the same variety of language as their peers who are surrounded by French 24 hours a day.  I remember asking my daughter what a  'nosebleed' was in French and she didn't know because the subject had never come up. We'd been in France 3 years at this stage.  As they get more immersed in French life their English language skills start to suffer. I had another friend who has lived in France for 30 years, has brought up all her children there, they had married French partners and now barely speak English. Their own children speak no English at all.

We moved back to the UK last year and my son is doing his GCSEs. He is now suffering from having missed 6 years of English lessons as he has missed some of the cultural references and language despite us having worked hard to keep up his language skills.  Another friend who moved back after 10 years in France discovered that her very bright children who read in English and watched English TV actually have quite poor language skills and, of course, limited knowledge of British culture and history. Much is made of British children being bilingual but I think it depends on your definition.

Hope your move goes well.

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