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To keep child in French school or move to International school?


Jammy
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Thanks Cathy, and yes, good luck  Jammy and family. My intention was never to upset anybody, and if I did I apologise. I too have brought up a family and taught 1000s of children, and I DO realise how difficult it is - and that conflicting advice is soooo frustrating and confusing. But if my 'playing devil's advocate' has made anybody rethink to some extent the often isolationist attitude of SOME Brits (Germans, Swiss, Americans, etc), then it was worth it.

Bonne chance a tous

After 37 years in the UK, we will be moving to Switzerland, 250m from the French border- in an old 1587 vicarage/farmhouse- as soon as we have sold our house here! I have started a new folder for East region- to find out if any other Brits are in the Jura area, and there has been no replies - so thank Goodness dear husband now speaks fluent French.

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It would be totally unnatural to speak to your child in a foreign language. Most families, regardless of nationality, who live in a foreign country, will speak their mother tongue at home. My children went to school with a French family in the UK who only spoke French at home and no-one would ever have suggested they did otherwise!

There has been an interesting debate on another forum about how the French system 'fails' the brightest children (the words of a French teacher) as it's stated aim is to help the disadvantaged children and less able children, not the brightest who are considered to be more advantaged (is that the opposite of disadvantaged?)

If your child is very intelligent then she may be better off in an International school which offers a more varied curriculum and may challenge her more. If you are possibly going to move on in a few years then the dreaded 'integration' isn't such an issue. Our son was on the Gifted register in the UK but the lack of stimulation in the education system here means he is now failing. Consequently we are moving back to the UK.

I was totally educated at International Schools around the world and couldn't recommend them highly enough.

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I would not worry to much. I had the same thing with my daughter when she started school. We had only been here for 2 weeks before i enrolled her in a french only speaking school. She was 3yrs and 3 months. The first few months she was very nasty to the other children. Pushing and punching was a daily thing. The first school report i had  of the teacher was not one that i was pleased with. The end of year report was not much better with a whole section  croosed out saying that they can not mark it because she will not communicate at all in french. I was thinking what have i done.

However this school year has changed for the better. She is nearly the youngest in her class(not 5 until August the 22) but has excelled her self this year. She plays with her dolls etc in french and never english. She has been invited to 4 birthday parties with her class friends and i have just received her school repport for the year. Each box is filled in and the grade has either been an A or ECA, not that i know what it means but the teacher said it was very good. The comments made gave me a hugh smile saying that she is well liked and her french is nearly as good as a child 2 years older then her. She will talk to the locals in french and will speak to anyone after a little time together. She is normally a bit shy first of all but then you cant stop her talking away. She is now correcting me when i try and speak french and sometimes and i mean sometimes she will explain to me what others are saying.

 

Having said that it may be different next year because she is going to a new village school because we have moved. I just hope she continues as she has been.

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Good it is all going so well!  "A" means acquis, she can do whatever it is, and ECA means en cours d'aquisition, she is on the right road.  However unless something very odd is going on in your neck of the woods and all the kids in her class were born in the first eight months of the year, she is not the youngest in her class, the kids are put in classes according to their age January to December, not September to September, so they are all born in the same civil year.

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Thank you for leting me know about the gradings. I did try and translate it but it was not making sense. I know that the age of classes are normally  Jan-Dec but she is the youngest in her class. They also have another class in her age range where most the children are born between the months of June and December. It is quite a popular school she attends and the classes would be too big otherwise. I know there where 23 pupils in her class and i think around 20 in the other. 
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Thanks to all who have posted since my last post - our computer broke down and it took an age for the shop to fix.  We finally made our decision and it was to send our daughter to the International School after the summer.  As my husband works for an International company, there is always the possibility that we could be expatriated within the next 3-4 years where the schooling available may be more likely to be in English rather than French.  I should point out that our daughter was born in France and up to the age of 2-1/2yrs had a french-speaking childminder (as I worked part-time when we lived in Paris) and all her friends are French.  All our neighbours and people we know are French.  We do speak English at home and always have done.  She had been at the local school for over a year and her behavioural problems hadn't improved during this time (we thought they might).  It may well be that her behaviour may not improve even after changing to a school that teaches in her mother tongue but time will tell.  We recognised that she needed to be challenged, as she seemed to be spending most of her days drawing and colouring in at school and after speaking to the "directrice" of the local school it became clear that she wasn't going to be challenged if she stayed.  Once we had advised the local school of our decision, the directrice spoke to us and said that she had thought we'd made the right decision for our daughter (take from that what you will)!!

We did not want to force speaking french with her at home because the last thing we wanted was for her to retreat within herself due to her reluctance to speak with us in French.  We do however manage to expose her to French through Dora DVDs, Muzzy, etc; and by doing exercise books in french (i.e. vocabulary, puzzle books, etc).

We hope that by going to the International School, the pressure will be taken off her to speak in French and that she will do it naturally when the time is right for her.

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