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College and teachers


mitsi
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I'm getting increasingly frustrated at my daughter's college. She is in 6eme and finding it boring, it seems more like a revision of primaire. I have been told next year she will be more stretched. My biggest concern though is the amount of lessons that are missed because teachers are absent, either on stage/reunion/ teaching a different class/classes are split so one half does technology making a robot the other has to do etude. The amount of etude my daughter has in a week can be as much as 10 lessons due to teachers not turning up. Is this normal? She keeps missing sport (which she doesn't enjoy anyway) and then gets a low mark for something she has barely had time to give a go, which of course affects the moyenne.

I have also found out that the college is one of the weakest in the whole department. I'm very disillusioned by it all and in the mean time my daughter gets bored and less inclined to do any additional studies at home. She has given up horse riding and I'm now sensing a very bright child becoming very lazy and unmotivated. Any thoughts?

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Hi Mitsi

I have exactly the same motivational problems with my son.  He is VERY bored in school and has gone from being a bright happy child to one who hates school and has to be pushed to do anything.  I have decided to go back ot England because of this.  My nieces came flying out of school when I was last back in England full of what the day had held and really keen to show me all of their project work.  I sadly realised that my son has never come out of french school in 6 years with anything like this level of enthusiasm for what they had covered, perhaps once when they made a bird box.  They just do a round of poems to learn, dictee and french verb conjugation, week after week.  I want science and history and geography in his mind, I know he needs the other stuff but just feel it lacks so much.

I really do feel the work is dull beyond belief and if you have a  bright child you run the risk of turning them off of school completly. 

You have to do what you think is right for your daughter, my son is still in primary and so the decison was easier for me.

Panda

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Hi Mitsi, sounds very similar to the college my children attend. My son is in 4eme and hates school as most lessons are so boring. My daughter is in 6eme and is also very bright and not being challenged at all. In fact, we have made the same decision as Panda and are returning to the UK after nearly 4 years. (Just need to sell the house!) I have given my son the Key stage 3 course books in main subjects from the UK and he has found them very stimulating, particularly geography, which here he has had 3 years on population growth and no physical geography at all- he now thinks he might like to study geology at university! I don't know what the answer is for those who are staying here, French friends seem to sugest private college as an alternative. Both my kids miss loads of lessons due to staff abscences, my daughter had no french for 3 weeks before easter as her teacher was away ill. I seem to spend all my time collecting one of them from school due to lessons being cancelled ( we live near the school so they come home if possible). Sorry to be so negative and I hope you can sort something out! Joy

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very sadly the French system rewards teachers for being good at theory/exams - and not for being good teachers - with the results you know. I so hope you find a way to stimulate the children - the problem is the school day is so long and homework plenty (and boring) - so not much time or energy to stimulate them with outside activities. I do wish you bonne chance.

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Hmmm Odile, not much in the way of homework at my kids college!! My son in 4eme seems to average about 20 hours at school per week (on a good week when not too many teachers are away!) and only ever have about 20mins homework a day!The problem is my son is very lazy and the lack of teaching hours and homework means he spends most of his time "playing"- not so good for a nearly 15 year old! can't wait to get back to the UK system with a 30 hour school week and lots more homework, i have warned him life will be much tougher for him in the UK, but he really needs the discipline of longer hours and more homework and less of the coming home after a 3 hour school day!! Perhaps teaching varies across France, but the college my kids are at is considered the best in the area! Joy

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Hi

It's interesting the homework thing, my son gets loads and he is in CM1 primaire.  It can take 3 hours for his weekend homework and on the last holiday he had something of at least 30 minutes duration for every day.  It was all boring stuff and the thing that really annoyed me was when he had worked hard at getting it done (and so had I worked hard helping him) the teacher did not collect it in and did not mark it!  He was upset by this and now feels whats the point of doing homework 2ho can blame him?

Panda

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Hi Panda. My daughter had loads of homework in primaire, especially in CM2. She frequently spent up to 2 hours a night doing homework- supossedly in preparation for starting college!! Now she is in college she has very little- maybe 3 hours a week! None of the homework is ever collected in or marked, the teachers just check the book during the lesson to see that it has been done! Joy

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Hi Panda. We still need to sell the house yet, been on market for 2 months and had 7 viewings so far. We will be returning to the West midlands as we still have lots of friends and family there. We don't regret moving to france and think the kids will have benefited from living in a new culture and learning a second language, but feel the time is now right to move back. The french education system is not for us, our son is very bright (daughter is too) but he is just not achieving in the french system, this year his moyen has dropped from 15 to about 11 and he seems to have lost all interest in school. We have spoken to his Prof principal but there seems little can be done to help re-motivate him, most of the teachers just want to get through the curriculum and are not interested in finding out why a bright 14 year old is going backwards so quickly. Our son loves computing but  has only used the school computer faccilities about twice this year, and then only to copy type some text, hardly very inspiring for a boy who considered a career in computing! I just hope he can catch up in the UK, he should be starting his GCSE courses this september, but it looks like we'll still be here and he will have to go down a school year in the UK once we finally return.

All the best with your move, Joy

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Thanks Joy, good luck to you too. 

We are renting our house out so don't have to wait for the sale.  It's not ideal but as I have a job lined up it's the best option for us.

Hope it goes well, 7 viewings are a lot in this market so fingers crossed!

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  • 2 weeks later...
I could have written all these posts myself about the college my children attend (one in 4eme, one in 6eme). I can't honestly remember the last time my children had a full week at school. It was months ago. While the number of etudes does get less as they get further up, the number of staff absences, strikes, etc doesn't. Homework has become non-existent too. And all this in the one of the best colleges around.

My son (4eme) has gone from being a bright, motivated and eager to learn child to one who can barely raise the energy to do what homework he gets. He finds it boring, unmotivating and it has completely crushed his spirit. French school has been a disaster as, as far as I can see, it is only suitable for those who enjoy rote learning and regurgitating what the teachers tell them without ever having to understand what they are learning. My children aren't like that. Perhaps that could be seen as their fault rather than the system but, I mean, it's the 21st Century and they don't even learn IT!

Like some of the other posters, we've decided to return to the UK. We've managed to get our children into a school with an Outstanding OFSTED report, 90 different after school clubs and societies, fantastic sports facilities, no 3 hour lunch breaks and they finish at a reasonable hour.

I honestly feel that if we stay here they will never reach their full potential. Even being bilingual doesn't really seem to be any benefit here as I have dealings with loads of bilingual departments of French organisations and I've yet to come across a single one that employs a native English speaker. They all employ French people who speak English.

We are also renting our house out, which isn't ideal but I simply can't muck up the children's education any longer.

We're moving to the Wiltshire/Somerset border.

Good luck Mitsi, I wish I could offer something more positive.
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I have had three of my children in French private schools for a number of years and the schools have NEVER been closed due to strikes or absent teachers.  It is worth investigating private schools - they are much chepaer than you would think.  The cost of my son, for example, in CM1 is about 50 euros per month and most of that is for his (excellent) lunches.

The teachers care for the pupils and seem to go 'the extra mile'.  At the war memorial ceremony on 8th May, they all turned up (none of the local state school did).  My children all adore their teachers, who have tried very hard at helping them integrate, one even telephoning me from her home in the evening.

I often ask parents in the playground why they attend our private schools rather than nearby state schools and they all reply more-or-less that they have deliberately chosen the private option because of the caring ethos.

 

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Yes, private schools are generally not allowed to go on strike. However, that doesn't unfortunately alter the inherent problems with the French education system as mentioned by several of these posters. I don't know what ages yours are but I had no problems with primary school at all and, it being a single teacher school, if she was sick, a replacement was provided. College, however, is a different matter altogether.

It is also worth noting that private schools exist to take those pupils that cannot fit into mainstream school therefore many pupils, and I'm not suggesting this is the case with your school, have serious social problems.

I wouldn't send a dog to our local private school, never mind a child. It's definitely a last resort rather than a first choice and 'caring ethos' is not a description I would use about them. This is a school, after all, that went on a school trip (the entire school) and left one child behind unsupervised as he hadn't finished his work.

France, is, unfortunately, just as much a postcode lottery as the UK and probably anywhere else but I'm glad to hear that you are happy with your school.

IMHO one of the best summations of the French education system can be found on this thread.

www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/5/1210280/ShowPost.aspx#1210280

Scroll down to the post from Richardbk
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  • 4 weeks later...

I have watched a quarter of it (the first) Norman, I will have to do it in a few tranches as a work break beckons!

First impressions: it reminds me of my schooling in the 70's except we had 2000 pupils and the teachers did not even know each and every other and could in no way have sat around a table.

The discipline and comportment seems very different to the Lycée proffesionale that I am involved with.

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I have started to watch the documentary - I shall return to it tonight when I have more time.  Thanks for the link, Norman, it looks really interesting. 

Can someone explain to me more background about this documentary as my French is not that brilliant?  Is it to be aired on mainstream TV?  How many episodes?  Was it filmed recently?

JR - when you say the discipine and comportment is different - do you mean for the better or for the worse?

 

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On the film far worse, thats the main thing that reminded me of my own education!

But to be fair I have only watched a bit of it and both the pupils and staff would be behaving differntly in front of the cameras, what I really wnat to see is how motivated or demotivated the teaching staff are, at the Lycée proffesionale whilst the overall discipline is present within the schoolgrounds the pupils react very differently to different teachers once inside the classroom.

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I believe it was a series of 6 episodes, made in 1994 which I am

ashamed to say I didn't realise when I posted the link. (on the site it

says at one point that it was 'publié en 2008')

I have to say that the discipline is very similar to that I saw when I was working in the late 1990s early 2000s

The rest of the series is available for a fee to download from the same site.

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  • 5 weeks later...
I've just found this thread, and , like a couple  of you said, it could have been written by me! My daughter, having just done a year in 6eme, and experienced many  of the things you talk about, has changed from a bright cheerful girl to one who can't be bothered to do anything at all and is starting to refer to herself as 'stupid' because that's what she's been told.  We're also moving back to the UK in the next few weeks but  I think it's a real shame that we feel we have to. Good luck to all of you who are making a move..

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Best wishes Sunshine girl. Hope your daughter settles in well in the UK. We are still trying to sell the house, 4 months 19 viewings! Thought we had a sale but they pulled out on day 7 of the "cooling off" period grrrr!  Our 2 kids will have to go back to college here in september, 3eme and 5eme. We hope to move asap! Our son should be starting gcse's this year, but if he misses too much ( and he seems very behind from the english key stage 3 books I've given him to look at) we will have to see if he can be put back a year in the UK. Joy

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