No state education for over 16s arriving in France?

[Berlioz]

Hello All - I am new to the forum. I have read with interest lots of the Education Forum postings in particular ones relating to integrating older children into the French system but cannot find an answer to our particular problem.

 

We have two daughters who will be 16 and 11 this October.

We are hoping to move to Herault (34) next summer for work and health related reasons and know the area quite well.

My husband lived for many years in France and is fluent in the language. We had decided to wait until our 16yo daughter had taken her GCSEs next June. She is an A student in French but we do not kid ourselves that this is enough for Lycee.

Today himself telephoned 'Acceuil des Eleves non-francophones nouvellement arrives en France' and was told that

11 year-old, not a problem.  Cours de rattrappage available (catch-up lessons) in French language at whatever college we want to send her to.

BUT 16 y-o big problem! Policy is not to 'scholarise' newly-arrived non-French-speaking kids after their 16th birthday.  They suggested that the same was true everywhere. We question this...

I assume this is because education is only compulsory until 16.?

 

So is our only option to look for state funded private (Catholic) schooling?

Choose another Dept Aude (11) or Gard (30)?

We had planned to base our house hunting criteria around the schooling issues.

Any help/info/ideas gratefully appreciated

[Val_2]

Have you spoken to the Dept of Education and/or the prefecture as they would have the say about this. Take what you have been told with a pinch of salt as some fonctionnaires just cannot be bothered with out of the ordinary requests here in France and as usual, foreigners have to fight tooth and nail to be heard.

[Tourangelle]

As you rightly assume, post 16 education is not obligatory, and therefore the state system does not have to take your daughter. Individual schools can refuse a post 16 student, even if they live in the catchment area, however you might find an ameanable one. I would say you probably rang at the wrong time, it is the end of the first week of school, frankly, nobody is thinking about next year. I would leave it a few weeks, try again, and if you don't suceed in getting a satisfactory response, do like the French, write to the recteur : his word is law, basically. I think one of the reasons foreign families have to fight tooth and nail is because they don't know who do ask. Do not deal with the person sitting on the front desk! However, if you are unsuccessful, do not panic, private school does not mean expensive here. There are two types of private schools in France, the expensive kind, and those that are state subsidised, which cost very little. You should contact the diocese to find out whether they will accept your daughter in one of the state subsidised private catholic schools.

You are right, though, GCSE French is nowhere near enough for her to do well in a French school. Part of the problem is that French children have finished studying French grammar, more or less, by the time they reach the lycée, so she will have to catch up, and she will find it very hard. If I were you I would prepare her right now for having to repeat seconde (year 11)

[Sprogster]

I would way up the risks very carefully of moving your daughter into the French school system, at such a critical late stage in her education.

At sixteen going on seventeen time is running against you, as unlike a younger child, going back a year can be more damaging to a teenagers self esteem. Therefore, less aceptable to them.

When my twins were sixteen last year I took the view that for the last three years of their school education, stability was the overiding imperative.

I suppose if a teenager is very bright the risks may be less. But if it did not work out, the  potential implications for the teenager and feelings of guilt that will fall on the parents could be sobering.

Good luck in any decision you make.

 

[Debra]

Hi Donna,

It might be worth considering your daughter continuing her education via distance learning/home schooling rather than trying to switch to the French system at this age.  I don't know much about home schooling for this age group but I'm sure there are people on this forum who do.  Could she maybe continue with what she would have done in the UK but meanwhile have lessons in French, with the aim of joining the French system a couple of years later?  If joining later turns out to be impractical there is always the OU. 

[KathyC]

Hi

Apologies if you already know this, but not everybody does. Had you thought of using a state boarding school for her last two years' education? They have a very good academic reputation and as you only pay the residential fees rather than tuition costs they are very affordable.

[Val_2]

Have you read my thread on the english girl  dumped at my sons's Lycée this week and who speaks no french at all? That is what you can call lunacy on the part of the parents at that age to uproot her.

[Berlioz]

Thank you for all for your answers.  The person Himself spoke to was from the Beziers contact for new arrivals listed in http://www.ac-montpellier.fr/casnav/nouveaux_arrivants/dispositif/documents/livret-francais.pdf

It does say on page 7 that it is a condition of entry to speak enough French.

I think we will investigate the diocese Catholic Lycee suggested by Tourangelle and perhaps try and visit/contact the recteur when we are back in Beziers in a couple of weeks time.

We have also heard that it is possible to have her 'incribed' by interview BEFORE her 16th birthday in October provided she is 'lodging' in the area and they would have to take her after 16. Does anyone have any experience of this?  I assume that it is instead of Brevet? It all sounds a bit iffy to me.

Home schooling isn't really an option, she would feel very isolated and un motivated on her own.

Kathy, No I did not know that State Boarding Schools existed, I have found the main web site and will spend some time looking into the individual schools and our budget.

Thanks everyone, plenty of homework for me over the weekend!

[Berlioz]

Yes Val I have read your post re the poor English girl dumped into the Lycee. It is indeed lunacy.  If we cannot sort out the education issue then we simply will not move until she has finished her A levels and gone to University in GB, but then she will never feel that France is her home and her sister will be 13 and have to settle in alone.

[Anastasia]

DonnaD, I am analphabetic about French schooling system but you might think this way: you daughter does A levels first (getting a knowledge) and than comes to France – there are courses of French language within universities that last whole year (not cheap) but get them ready to start to study within a year. This is what is usually done here in 67, even by those who come to study only (without parents). Here is a list of schools for language http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UQQWlGbVmDQJ:www.cidj.asso.fr/Viewdoc.aspx%3Fdocid%3D692%26catid%3D3+Strasbourg+intensive+French+classes+UNi&hl=en 

[Tourangelle]

I certainly hope it all works out for you! I was wondering how your daughter feels about the move, it must be quite scary for her, plus with it being her GCSE year she must be pretty busy. I had a look at your link, it does only say that potential pupils need to have a good enough standard of French. If she is enthusastic about the move, perhaps she could have intensive extra French lessons for a year, but she will probably still have to repeat a year. Do you know about séction europeenne? It means that one subject is partly taught in a foreign language. It is often, but not always, history and geograpy. You could look for a school that does this in English.

[leray]

In answer to your basic question, I have to say that we had no problems getting my daughter into Lycee, this is in the Morbihan 56. Though we were already part of the community. She got her A* in french and you are right,nowhere near enough,  the first three months everything just went over head. She did however go straight into premier, and not seconde, she took the BacL, which is the Languages and Literature Bac and though she would have had to repeat premier had she stayed, she decided to return to England for further education.

I have to say that our situation was different, it was only a years experiment, gap year if you like at 16, husband stayed in UK while we were in Morbihan. We would have stayed if she wanted to.

The biggest problem for her was the culture change, lack of mobility, french kids dont have the means to go out and about as freely, transport being the biggest problem and during the winter months nobody does anything or go anywhere. That was our experience. She did try, she signed up to continue flute lessons, theory lessons, joined the orchestra etc. But in our case 16/17 was too late for a teenager to move to France. She is now at a school here (UK),  The Anglo European at Ingatestone, doing an International Bac, the IB group is about 40 strong, and 80% of her french class are fluent, 90% of the kids have a european background and she has a real zeal for her school work that I havent seen in the past year, and just as importantly she started her Saturday job this week in a well known 'sensible' shoe shop! Something which French kids aren't able to do without a Bac+2 (opps I didnt mean that!)

Good Luck if you decide to take the plunge but both kids will need huge amounts of support to keep their self esteem going which I am sure you will give them.

elaine

[AlisonWAlisonW]

This has got me worried as we are planning to move to France when our eldest is 16 after he has taken his GCSE's.

Does anyone have teenagers in a school near Limoges, Cussac or Chalus?

Has anyone else had experience of moving a teenager to France at this age?

Many Thanks

AlisonW

[Berlioz]

We are going to visit the International School in Toulouse next week. Does anyone have children there? If so which are nice villages/towns which do not have a long  school run  every day? (a list of the not so nice useful too)

We don't know the area at all well, I think the closest we have been is Castlenaudary and it was raining that day!

At 16+ our daughter is  too old to go into the French system (even if they would take her) without seriously harming her education and her future University plans.

All of the members comments have really helped point us in the right direction, thanks

 

 

[AlisonWAlisonW]

Does anyone have any useful web addresses for schools in and around Limoges?

Also web address for the International Schools ie. Toulouse?

Thanks

[KathyC]

If you Google "International School Toulouse" it will get you the website address. This also works with schools.

[Berlioz]

The web site of the International School in Toulouse is down at the moment, I phoned them.

http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-education/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=96  details of International schools and links to Lycee with International Deps that do the Bac with International Option (some subjects taught in english)

List of education Depts

http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-education/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=99

I opened the french version, and also had the translated version open

http://babelfish.altavista.com/  will translate French websites, not totally 100% but you can get the gist although some of the links don't work (so you need the original French site open too)

Hope this helps

[BJSLIV]

Looking at the the annual fees for the Bordeaux International School :

Age 11-16   10300 Euros

       16+     12400 Euros

Boarding Fees 4600 Euros

It seems to  me that anyone downshifting, but proposing to enrol their kids into such establishments, needs to be moving down from a pretty high gear!  It would certainly needs more than the odd weeks gite income to cover that lot.

[Berlioz]

We may to have scale our ideas down from a large to a small chateau

 

[AlisonWAlisonW]

Thanks Kathy and Donna for info.

[thelimetree]

We came here last year and my eldest daughter had just finished her GCSE's(she got an A in French). She had to go into year 3, which is the last year of college before going on to lycee, 2 years below the year she would be in the English system.  We had planned for her to stay in the French system for a year to learn french and to be part of our new life here and now she has gone to the UK to do her A levels.  She is at a UK state school and lives with family there.  It is not ideal, but she comes home every holiday. Her french after her year here was still not good enough to go on to do her Bac, so she would have had to do that year again, which would not be fair to her.

Good luck with you move and email me if you want to know any more

Sarah

www.thelimetree.org

 

[Berlioz]

We looked round the International school in Toulouse and will almost certainly send our 16yo there, then Uni in England later.  If our move goes ahead. Our 11 yo will hopefully go into the international (english) section at the local college. It is rather frightening the assumptions made about how 'easy' it is to get kids into the french system I am really glad that I made my original post

Education was always going to be the key issue for us,. Thanks again for everyone who helped so much. We can't live in the region we would have chosen for a few years but better this than children who  fail to reach their potential.

Sarah I have sent a PM.