education

[timmy]

We are considering moving to the Aveyron with 2 children - one is 9 years old and the other is 7 years old.

We are worried that the 9 years old will not be able to adapt to the French educaionnal system and will get very upset and derooted.

He already speak a bit of french as I am french myself living in the UK - I do know how unsettling it could be to move to a different country - have you done it ? Please share your experiences with us.  Thank you.

 

 

[Teamedup]

You know how the education system works then Timmy and are probably best equipped to know what changes there will be for your children. I doubt it has changed much since you were at school.

[Hilltopshot]

Hi Timmy

We moved here at the beginning of September with our 9yo twin boys and 11yo daughter.  The boys have settled fantastically and really love school, the only drawback for both of them is that they have to sit next to each other in class .

Our daughter would have been in the final year in primary this year but because the school year runs from 1 jan - 31 dec (which we weren't aware of), she found herself in the first year of college .  At the end of the first day she sat in the car and disolved into tears because it was such a culture shock to her (her primary school in the UK only had 45 pupils) and that she hadn't understood a word.  However, once we explained that nothing other than absorbing the language would be expected of her for the next 3-6 months she was much happier and she has some lovely friends who are really looking after her.

End the end of her first trimester her report revealed her average of 14.8 out of 20!!  Her mark for her French was much higher than the lowest mark given to her year group (yes, newly arrived and she got a better mark than some French pupils !)  Her comments were very encouraging from her tutors and she's feeling much more confident now at the start of this new term

Moving to ANY new school is a big deal, but our experience is that the excitement of starting their new lives in France made a huge difference for our children

As TU says, you already know the system and that not much changes very slowly, and you've already given your children a kick start with the language.  Children are resilient, soak up the language easily, are mostly good mimics (I can't shift my Lancashire accent when I talk which leads to some puzzled looks ....), unselfconcious (is that a real word) and are natually gregarious. 

HTH

 

 

 

 

[Hilltopshot]

sorry about the formatting, not quite got to grips with these emoticon things! :-)