Life in collège?

[SaligoBay]

Rentrée for Boy in 6ème of local collège yesterday.   What a timetable!

8.30 to 5 every day except Wednesday, which is 8.30-12.30.

I thought there would be more free/étude time with such long days, but only Friday, before and after lunchtime, after which he has Sport till 5.

Tell you what - glad we're moving nearer the bus stop, there's no way I'd want him carrying all those books every day!   His bag is going to be very very heavy indeed!

And for anyone budgeting for a new life in France with collège-age children, the bus is 95 euros per term, and the canteen is 155 euros per term (can't pay-as-you-go).

Happy rentrée to all :-)

 

 

[Jo53]

What is it with the French and these long school days? Do they have longer attention spans than the AngloSaxons, or have they just not cottoned on to the idea that people can only learn and perform effectively for a certain period at a stretch? It's certainly one or the other - I personally can't hack the APEL meetings that last from 8-11.30 pm on a Friday night, for example. How many adults are expected to work from 8.30 to 5, with a bus journey on either side, and then come back and do homework?

My children are only in maternelle/primaire, and I can't see how, with a 4.30 finish time, there can be time to come home, chill out a little/go to an activity, eat a meal, do homework and get to bed at a reasonable hour (8.30 ish). Haven't had to try it yet as they're not yet getting homework. I guess it's the chill-out/playing time that is expected to go. How do others find the evenings work out?

Best

Jo

 

[Teamedup]

When my eldest started CP he used to fall asleep on his home work. He'd be looking at it and his eyes would start to droop and head nod and gently go forward until it was touching his book and he was gone. He was always in bed early and ate a well balanced diet. And you are right. Children here have no better an attention span than kids across the Channel.

 

SB, could you please weigh the cartable at it's fullest and heaviest and let us know that and the weight of your son. Isn't supposed to depasse 10% of the body weight. I suspect that even at it's lightest it may do that.

[Dick Smith]

The attention span of anyone is their age as minutes, plus 10, limit 30 minutes. But that just means that you break up the activities during the school day or individual lessons. I do think that English schoolkids have an easy time in terms of hours per day (average about 6 including breaks but not lunch).

[Mistral]

When I compared my niece's year 7 timetable with my pupils' 6eme one, the amount of lessons was about the same. The big difference is in the length of those lessons. French pupils are supposed to cope with hour long (OK 55 minute) lessons. And of course, my niece had no perm. The other differences are that most French schools seem to allow an enormous amount of time for lunch (sometimes 2 hours) My school has 400 pupils going through the cantine and they complain that 1h30 isn't enough. My niece's school puts 600 through in about an hour.  And French schools always have an afternoon break (my UK school had removed it after discussion with the families) Then there is always the fact that there is no school on Wednesday afternoon (or Saturday depending on you region) All this adds up to long days.

A pupil in 6eme should have 4 hours of perm. There is a maximum number of hours of lessons they are supposed to have a week. I think it's 23, but I can check. I worked in one school which decided to give all the 6emes Wednesday morning off, It meant they had a break in the middle of the week, but it also meant that all the other days were blocked solid.

Re heavy bags: Check and recheck with him that he hasn't got books he doesn't need (this happens, I've known 6emes so traumatised by the terrible warnings of what will happen if they forget things that they don't dare take anything out) you should have a meeting in the next few weeks,  this is the time to check with each teacher whether or not they allow pupils to share books (the externes bring them and not the demi-pensionnaires) and if thay have got spares in the classroom. I have 15 of each book in my cupboard. So the pupils leave their books at home and use the ones in class. (don't bother asking the school to provide this- they have barely got enough money to buy books for every pupil, ours came from the conseil general) But they won't want to buy new ones for 6emes this year-the programme is going to change soon.

Professional interest: what English book has he got?

[Jongleur]

Our son has moved up from 6eme to 5eme this year and seems to be happy with his timetable.

His standard day is 8am to 5pm, which includes a 2 hour lunch and breaks in the morning and afternoon. He only works this day on a Tuesday and a Thursday, he starts at either 9am or 10am on a Monday - depending on whether he has 'vie de classe' or not, he finishes at 11am on a Wednesday and at 12-30pm on a Friday.

His bus costs us about 36 euros per term and lunches are 2.50 euros a time.

At the start of the college year all parents get a form for a 'bourse' - this is for financial aid with dinners, etc., and is dependent on family income. 

We live in department 16 - Charente about 3 miles from the college.

When he first went to college last year he had an enormous bag for his books, it didn't take him long to get into the habit of only taking the books necessary for that day! He used a lot of loose leaf folders and would take paper rather than the folders. This way he was able to use a small backpack. He also had a locker at the college in which he was able to leave stuff he didn't need.

The only thing we are apprehensive about for this year is that the method of paying for the dinners has changed.

Last year we paid at the end of each term, the drawback was that we had to pay for meals even if he was not there to eat them.

This year we pay in advance, he has a swipecard onto which we put money to cover his meals and can keep 'topping up'. Each time he eats at the cantine he swipes the card and the cost is deducted, so we only pay for what he eats. The problem with this is that there has been no explanation of what happens if he loses his card and whether this will mean that any prepaid money is lost along with the card.

Oh well time will tell.

Jongleur

[SaligoBay]

Jongleur,

This collège has an electronic card system too, but you have to pay at the beginning of each term, on either a 3-day or 4-day a week basis.   In fact, you can pay as you go, but it works out quite expensive, at about 4 euros a go, and you get left till last, after the prepaid people have had their lunch.  Lunch break is 90 minutes. 

And the bus, we're only about 5 miles from the collège, so I don't know why it's so expensive.   Bus works on a card system too, so no pay-as-you-go, it's the whole term or nothing.

8 classes of about 26 pupils each in 6ème, which people say is a small collège.  Still seems like a lot of youngsters at throwing-out time! 

 

[SaligoBay]

To answer q about weights above:

Weight of Boy  -  34kg

Weight of Bag  -  8kg

 

English books, Mistral, don't know, he has to do German.  But I will find out, once all the little darlings have settled down a bit

 

[Teamedup]

Thanks Saligo, shouldn't go past 10% of body weight in a growing child, or should that have been growning child. There again what do the back specialists know.

 

(TU, who was amoungst many who had to take their adolescent children to such a specialist and buy a very expensive orthopedic mattress and has a 22 year old who still has back problems.)

 

[SaligoBay]

There's a lot of talk just now about schools providing two sets of  text books, one to take home, one to stay in school.

Doesn't seem to have materialised yet.......

[Teamedup]

And they were saying that in 1992 and 1993 and so on and so on. Even then there would be the odd school that tried to make things easier for kids, but this was always anecdotal and of all the post primary schools my sons attended made no effort (seven in all, including private ones). And as for taking just feuilles to school, what a suggestion, absolutely no way was that permitted.And my kids never ever used more than 100 pages in the year, in these 200 page foolscap books and the books were never transferred from year to year.

[Mistral]

We ask for 150 pages. We tried 100 pages one year and most of our pupils had to buy a new cahier in about March and then we had to work out which lessons needed transfering and then check that they did it. We tried 200 the year after but that was too much and too heavy. 150 seems about right.

All collèges in the bouches du Rhone (and I mean all) were given the money by the conseil général to buy double sets of books for LV1, French, maths and Hist-géo about 6 years ago for 6eme and then 5eme the next year. Obviously when we want to change the book, we have to think about that. As I said, collèges just don't have the budget for it. Last year we got the money for 4eme and we're hoping for 3eme this year. This was because they lent a laptop to every 4eme and so they had to provide spare books and lockers as well.

Our cantine has the switchcard system too. With the top up version for teachers and the set amount of meals a term/pay in advance for the pupils.