daughter/schools

[Cjb]

Surely people should speak openly about their experiences but avoid generalisations. There are good french and Irish schools. As a teacher I'm surprised about your comments about Irish education as the OECD report puts it way above France (which lingers alongside the Americans midway in the table). My advice to anyone considering putting their child into an International School, if the school's not a bilingual one, seriously consider putting them in a french school for a year or two before changing and also try to ensure that they take part in as many sporting activities etc... outside of school that are conducted in French so that they become fluent French speakers.

[sikhim]

When you talk about International Schools, are you talking about private/fee paying schools which follow a non-French curriculum or state schools with international sections, where students follow the French curriculum and also Enseignement National?

In my son's school in Lyon, there are anglophone, portuguese, japanese, german and spanish sections. He has FLE (french as a foreign language) and Special Maths and is being integrated into the normal French education system as his knowledge of French progresses.

He also follows four hours a week in English, English Literature, French and Geography and will sit the Brevet with Options Internationales, and then hopefully the Bac with OI

There are fees payable because there is no reciprocal agreements betwen the UK and French governments, so we pay about euro 1500 a year.

There are such schools in and around Paris, for example, http://lyc-balzac.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/accgb.htm

a small list is available at http://www.cois.org/Directory/Gen_Schoolsearch.asp and I am sure there are others in Paris.

Dominique

 

 

 

 

[Cjb]

The considerably larger fee paying type!!

[Jo53]

Don't forget, Missmonkey (sorry to call you that, but no alternative) that 'ecole prive' in France does not mean private school in the British sense. Most ecoles prives are actually catholic schools that run parallel with the 'ecoles publiques', and charge only nominal fees (a few euros a week). The religious aspect is generally pretty light, not like catholic schools in Ireland (my OH was educated there by the Christian Brothers). So don't ignore those in your search. Sorry if you knew that already.

Yes, there is negativity on this forum, but that is because the French education system, whatever its strengths, also has some serious problems that sit particularly badly with British and I daresay also North American cultural values and attitudes to children and to education.

Jo