Special Needs

[tgentry]

I am planning to move to France (Dordogne) with my wife and two little 4 year old girls, one of whom has cerebral palsy and learning difficulties. I have read much on the internet on how French schools must now integrate childern with special needs into mainstream school with the aid of classroom assistants (much the same as we do in the UK). Does anyone have experience of this?

 

Thanks in advance

Tim & Jane Gentry

[Mistral]

In my last school we had a section (a UPI)for visually impaired pupils, they had a few of lessons a week with a specialised teacher and the rest of the time they were in class with the others and a classroom assistant.

In this school we have a pupil in a wheelchair (he has other disabilities but I don't know what) and he too has a classroom assistant.

These are the positive stories. When the head first mentioned we would have a pupil in a wheelchair it wasn't well received. most staff didn't like the idea of having an extra adult in the room and French teachers on the whole aren't very good at adapting for "different" pupils. I know that both times, it only happened because people fought hard to get it work and at the same time we opened the UPI my husband's school refused to take a pupil in a wheelchair because he needed an oxygen bottle. Both of my examples are also for children whose special needs are purely physical. To be perfectly honest, children with learning difficulties are still not really welcome in class despite what the government might say. Teachers aren't trained to deal them and are so used to dealing with the middle band, that the extremes get left to one side.

My suggestion would be to find a smaller school (and I mean one with less pupils per class- not less children in the whole school) this might mean looking at the private (catholic) schools.

Good luck

[LesLauriers]

I have no personal experience in this area but from what I have read on this site in the past and Mistral's posting, it would appear that this could be a difficult one for you.

I would suggest that you visit the school where you propose to send your child to and discuss this in person with them as it could be a deal breaker.

Good luck.

[Val_2]

We have accepted a special needs child into our village school for the first time in many years and we have had to fight tooth and nail on council to get the local prefecture to help finance another classroom assistant because unfortunately the class concerned is upstairs and help is needed for mobility. My friend is a retired teacher and said they used to have one assistant for every two handicapped children but these days it is very hard to find workers.

I would suggest to the poster that the first port of call is to see the maire as ultimately it is his dept who are responsible for taking on assitance and admittance to the local school.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Wouldn't the last piece of advice only apply if the poster has a school within the commune they reside in?

I'd be interested if I'm wrong because as far as I know the mayor of my commune, which has no schools, is not involved in the running of schools in neighbouring communes.

[Val_2]

Thats correct. If your commune has a school then it is the mairie who oversee the running and finance etc. We also help towards the finances and running of the local college in the next village to which all the children of the canton attend (unless they go private or elsewhere and they get no help from the commune for that). We had to vote whether we would take on a special needs assistant,needless to say everyone voted yes and this is why we are fighting to get finance from the state towards it as the village finances are tightly controlled as it is.