Who is to blame?

[Val_2]

My son has just arrived fromLycée with this story. Today his english teacher from last year sent for him to give him some help. They have had an english girl "dumped" upon them for education at Lycée level but this 16 year old does not speak ANY french at all. The Lycée are worried they cannot educate her to the level expected and will not give special coaching during class hours because the other students must be given priority over this case. I personally blame the parents for bringing her to France about 18months ago and not keeping her hard at it to learn the language or else they should have waited until she had completed her english exams. The problem is at 16 most french students are choosing their chosen careers and this one unless a miracle happens, won't stand a chance in finding any decent employment without some sort of qualification. What do other forum members think about this and irresponsible behaviour from parents living their dream but forgetting their children have to live here too?

[opas]

i feel so sorry for this girl, her parents have obviously not thought about her future. I am not one to bleat on about getting a good education, but to take this girl from UK system and plonk her into higher ed in a strange country without knowledge of the language is just bizare. I felt terrible the day I took our youngest for her first day at french school aged 5 years and felt like a fish out of water just filling in a few forms.

We always said that if we hadn`t found a place to live in the area we wanted by the time the eldest was 10 then we would stick it out in the UK untill our 2 had finished their education there, fortunatly we did and they are both doing fine after 2 years......but would not have wanted to do it at a later age.

Mrs O

[Tourangelle]

I think this is awful, and totally irresposible. I wonder whether the lycee was obliged to accept her as she is 16?

[Chrisb]

How on earth could the poor girl have been in France for 18 months already without learning any French at all.........hasn't she been going to college? She really doesn't stand a chance, does she. Have the school suggested to the parents that she have intensive private tuition? (I read that if you pay French taxes, 50% of the fee can be offset on your declaration). Also, can students go to Lycee without a Brevet or equivalent?

Chris

[Fantine<br><br><br><br>Susie]

Incroyable !

[andyh4]

Don't be too hard on the parents about up-rooting her at a particular stage of her education.  We do not know the background.

Maybe it was an enforced company move - 2 choices move or resign and loose all/any company benefits.

 

Like others however I do not understand how after 18 months in France she undertands no French.

[Val_2]

Expect to hear more on this problem today when my son gets to meet this girl and find out what is going on with her and whether or not he or the Lycée can do anything for her to catch up (10 years worth). The Lycée is obliged to take students but I cannot understand how she managed to register as you need so much info and know what course you are doing for your BAC,BEP,CAP etc beforehand.

[Lori]

If she has been in France for 18 months, she should speak some French.  Her parents or guardians should be faulted it they did not enroll her in French language classes the moment she arrived.  It is true, we do not know the family situation - could be anything, but no matter what the reason, the language lessons would have been vital for this child's well being.  She must feel absolutely terrified and this is just the beginning.

Your son is very nice to try to give her a hand.  Perhaps not what he would like to be doing, but at least he is helping someone in need.  I do hope she will give it her best.

Where did she arrive from?  Wasn't she in school during the 18 months she has been here? 

 

[alencon]

I expect there must be more to this than meets the eye, it would be difficult to imagine a teenager resident in France for 18 months and having no knowledge of French. My 15 year old has elected to to do a further year in troisième to improve her chances of success at lycée.  She is fully conversant after a year at collège but wanted a full year in troisième where she was able to complete all the work at a good level and achieve good results at the end of the year.

There is no way I would have been happy sending her straight to lycée with no French.  Why not suggest she attends a collège for a year if it's possible?

[Val_2]

As a followup on this thread my son sat and spoke to this particular girl last week and this is what he discovered. The family have been living in France for two years now and this girl was completely against coming here in the beginning due to her age,leaving friends and coming up to UK exams so there the fault lies with the parents who I think are just plain selfish. She also disclosed that she has no intention of learning french and just goes to school so that the parents don't get into trouble but as soon as she is 18 she will be off back to the UK if she can. My son found out too that they have stuck her in the 3eme redoublement classe where it is mostly no-hopers biding their time but as to a career course, no one wants to commit themselves to teach her at this late stage and therefore probably no hope of a french education qualification in the next few years. I really don't understand why the family have done this,surely they could have just bought a holiday home and waited a few years to live here instead of condeming their daughter to a life she dosn't want or understand.

[Russethouse]

Its very difficult to judge as we don't know the parents side of the story but I feel desperatley sorry for this girl.

Some years ago at a family party (at my home) my god daughter and her father fell out big time - they were a family who had moved several times (within the Uk)and all the resentment that the daughter felt for the upheaval in her education and constantly making friends and then losing them, spilled out. It was not a pretty sight.......

I often think of that day when I see posts on here about young adults moving with their parents, happily it works for some but others ? ?

[Teamedup]

Val2 if she is over 16 then she hasn't got to go to school anyway. No way will her parents be in trouble. Maybe your son could tell her that and she wouldn't be wasting anybody's time.

 

 

TU

[Lori]

Good point Teamedup - although, it sounds like if she wasn't attending school, she might have to stay home with the parents she is so unhappy with..

Sounds like a terrible situation for such an impressionable age.  Even if this girl has given her parents tons of trouble over the years (and I have no idea whether that is the case or not), the parents still have a responsibility to her well being.  I wonder why she might not have been able (or be able) to stay with another family member or even an adopted family in the UK until her graduation??  Someone should be thinking of her future.

Sad

[Mistral]

I think TU made a very good point, obligatory education is up to 16 (which does make me wonder what the family was doing with her for the last two years)

If she no longer wants to go to school, then her parents have to uninscribe (does that word exist?) her, she can't just stop coming.

What a sad situation

[Val_2]

Apparently the parents speak no french either and seem to have no idea about anything here, hence they have sent her to Lycée because she is unemployable  without any language or education that is required and they obviously don't know about unsuscribing from the system either. I expect they will muddle through but at what cost I wonder!

[Jc]

Why must there always be blame?

And cost to whom?

[Teamedup]

Sounds like this girl's prospects are now lousy and she is suffering, aren't the parents to blame? I would say that they were.

TU

[Miki]

Sometime ago we talked about why people came here and many said that, among other things, it was because of the education and I posted about how some parents brought their kids here "kicking and screaming" (sorry for using that phrase, it just seems kinda right)purely because of their own desire to live here.

We also wanted to come here a lot earlier but our family circumstances, meant we had to wait a while until eldest son was at Uni and then spoke with him about our hopes to finally move to France. He said no problems (but has said in recent years how alone he felt at times, that was a bit of a heart wrench)we arrived with three kids, one went back a year later to be with his Grandparents and return to UK education. The other two (who were in Primaire were settling in OK ) went right the way through to Lycée and now it is just Daughter carrying on in French edu. The others much prefer the UK, eldest especially is enjoying a career that he would have had no chance at all in doing here.

We feel perhaps we got it a little wrong sometimes, looking at how it has panned out, so goodness knows how we would have felt to bring kids here at an age where it is as good as impossible to forge any future at all and to be sort of marooned on what might just as well have been Jupiter !

In this case, it has to be the parents to blame surely? Obviously parents should have a life but certainly not at the expense of offering not even a slight glimmer of hope to ones kids.

[Lori]

Well said Miki

[Val_2]

As a follow up to this thread I posted, we learned recently that the family in question have removed this pupil and gone back to the UK just before xmas. Best thing really for that poor girl inthe circumstances so she can now have a chance at making something of her life instead of benefit payments here eventually when she would have been eligible but no hope of a proper job without the language skills.

[Lori]

Val 2 - thats good news.  I hope the girl can be happier there (family too).

[Wendy]

Well I am not going to jump on this family's back but I'd be interested in knowing which area they settled in...or tried to. They chose a country which operates a rigid and inflexible education system.  The French have to face the fact that more and more foreigners are coming to live here and that NOT all of them will speak french or have the opportunity, prior to arrival here, to learning it to fluency. I come from a multi-cultural society where newcomers arrive with no english whatsoever and there is a system to cope with non-english speakers. To exclude them is, simply, discrimination. I have also spoken to teachers from the UK who talk about new pupils arriving on a Monday morning who speak no english at all but there being a system in place to deal with them. I have also spoken to people here, teachers in fact, who are amazed that not everyone around the world are taught french!. It was my understanding that after the age of eleven french in the UK schools is compulsory so it comes as a surprise that this girl had no french skills at all. However I feel for this family as they would have had all the right intentions when coming here. I have also found that alot of smug Brits feel that your choice to be here is only validated if you speak fluent french and don't buy baked beans. The French simply have to change some aspects of the way they do things here and acceptance of, and coping with, non-french speaking people is an important one. In alot of ways the recent riots speak for themselves. The rest of Europe is at its doorstep. 

[Hoddy]

I think it's a second language which is compulsory. It doesn't have to be French, it could be German or Spanish, for example.

Hoddy

[Opalienne]

Isn't the point that the girl and her parents were in France for 2 years and still couldn't/wouldn't  speak any French?  How can anyone say that they had the right intentions in coming to France if that is the case?   I have come across too many people who move to France expecting the country to adapt to them rather than the other way round.  And this is not being superior or having anything to do with not eating baked beans, before anyone says so, it's just common sense (not to mention showing kindness to your children).

[Dick Smith]

Years ago when our kids were at secondary school we toyed with the idea of upping to France, but the boys' reaction, and our concerns that they didn't speak French and would take so long to learn meant that they would likely be through the system without ever being fluent. They were against the idea because of leaving friends etc. We went no further with our plans, and as someone suggested, later bought a hoiiday home. Which the boys love.

If you can do it that seems to be the ideal situation, but we don't know if it was an option open to this family.