16 year old education options

[jojo]

We have been living in France for 2 years now and our daughter attends a private Catholic run school. We decided to enrol her in the school which was recomended by our neighbour as the local school did not have a good reputation. The school has a large intake of foreign students i.e (mainly)Spanish, German, Dutch and a few English so at least we thought that she would be okay. The first year was very difficult as she struggled with the French language but she now understands everything but is not always confident enough to speak French. Last year she was in a class with new English student and naturally they paired up  and became the best of friends but unfortunately the French students became insulting towards them. This year the school decided to split them up to encourage them to integrate more but now our daughter is alone and being 'picked on' by the same students from the previous year.  Before the rentree we gave her the option of taking an apprentissage and continuing her studies at a lycee professionnel which she did consider for a while, but she wanted to pass the brevet  first so decided to continue at her existing college. Unfortunately now she is refusing to go to school at all. We cannot afford to send her to the International school at Toulouse, and there is no one that we would trust to look after her in the UK to continue her studies there. We have looked into the option of on-line GCSE courses but each costs at least £150. does anyone know if there are any distance learning courses available at a reasonable cost for young people of 16-18 who have not yet managed to to get any qualifications to Brevet/GCSE standard. Any other ideas would be very welcome.

[Mistral]

I may have misunderstood your message, but is your daughter still in the private school? Have you thought of taking her out and putting her in the local collège? Reputations are strange things, they're usually several years out of date. I'm assuming she's in 3eme, in that case the local collège should have to accept her.

I don't know much about on-line courses but it's perfectly possible to prepare the brevet through the CNED (centre national d'enseignement à distance) but she would have to take the brevet general which is written exams in all subjects instead of controle continu and three written exams.

[Lollie]

Why not look at one of the state run schools with an international section?   Here in La Baule we pay just 150 euros per year for the international section.  There is also an option to board here.   There are several throughout France, maybe there is one in your area?

Lollie

 

[jojo]

Thanks for your feedback. The weekend has been sleepless for all of us, trying to persuade our daughter to continue at her present school. At first she refused flatly to return to that or any other school in France and would only consider distance learning GCSE courses, but then realised that she really needed to pass her brevet to be able to be obtain any sort of employment in france. We then tried the CNED avenue which she reluctantly agreed to although this would not help her with the language and would not help her make new friends. With this in mind we arranged an appointment with the school principle who convinced her that this was not the best way forward. He has agreed to move her into the same class as her old schoolfriend although they will not be permitted to sit together, and the students responsible for the harassment etc are to be severely reprimanded. We have asked her to give this a trial period of 1 month, which she eventually agreed to (under protest), but she must be prepared make an effort to integrate more. Hopefully this is the answer, but I'm sure we will have more problems to overcome in the future. After all - she's a teenager and it's an unwritten law to make your parents life a misery, isn't it?[;-)]

[Wendy]

Jojo, how much was she involved in your decision to move here?. I really feel sorry for her. Many people assume a 'religious'school is the answer with regards to avoiding riffraff in the State school system but it clearly is not. I'd say her life is a misery more than yours and indicative of certain areas in this country where english-speaking people are rarely welcomed. This is prevalent in our area believe me.  You say there are German and Spanish kids...are THEY all seperated?. Poor kid.

[Tourangelle]

[quote user="jojo"]

but then realised that she really needed to pass her brevet to be able to be obtain any sort of employment in france.

[/quote]

You realised this?  From what?  Please don't be under any illusion, the brevet wont get her a job.  If somebody has told you this, they are wrong. You're right in that she needs to learn French, since she is stuck here for a couple of years.  Are you expecting her to stay here forever?  It seems hard on her not to do any GCSEs, if she does go back she will probably be disadvantaged.

[NatMatt]

Hi Lollie

I have a 15 year old son and due to the increased crime in South Africa, we are considering moving to France as the climate and way of life is not dissimilar to SA (We've been to France several times on holiday).  I know that putting my son, at his age, in a French school (even though he's taking French lessons) is going to be awful for him and we've been looking at enrolling him at La Baule.  I see that your son/daughter attends La Baule and I would be so grateful if you could give me a short run down on what subjects they offer and what experiences you've had.  Is the school in the centre of town or on the outskirts and do they have transport facilities too ?

Thanks !

Regards

Nat