FCPE or PEEP?

[SaligoBay]

Mostly people are telling me to go for the FCPE, because it's for "ordinary people like us" - not sure what kind of people are in PEEP!

Does anyone have any experience of them, are they effective?

At the moment, my only concerns are vague ones, like that 8.30-5 with homework afterwards is a VERY long day for 10-yr-olds.  Heavy schoolbags is tant pis, apparently the collège did have lockers but they were removed as part of Vigipirate, so that's kind of beyond the scope of the FCPE.  Or is it?

I don't know!  Any comments on your experiences with these would be very welcome.

Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LesLauriers]

Please excuse my ignorance, but could you explain what these acronyms are, as I have a ten year old maybe I should know!!

[SaligoBay]

FCPE Fédération des conseils de parents d'élèves des écoles publiques

PEEP Fédération des parents d'élèves de l'enseignement public

And that's all I know! 

[Teamedup]

FCPE is considered  'left' wing.

PEEP is considered 'right' wing.

And yes les lauriers you should know about these associations. These are the ones that work in state school, the private system has a parents group called APEL (think that is right) there may be others.  You should have received papers at the rentree asking you to join a parents association and then even if you didn't want to do this, you should vote. Whichever school your child goes to at around this time of year the schools have elections to the school council.You can do this by correspondance, ie give your child your envelope to hand in, or call in on voting morning. NB if you are doing a postal vote make sure that you follow the instructions properly, some of them are as clear as mud.

 

I ended up being president of our FCPE for a few years when my children were in primary.

 

What do these groups do. Well, as long as the program isn't touched upon in anyway, proscribed to even imagine that the Education Nationale would not have got it right and if they haven't even to mention it. The general running of the school is discussed, ie transport scolaire, cantine, homework, discipline, most things really. The most success we ever had was getting the transport scolaire sorted out, as there were problems with it most years. In fact most of the parents who were dependant upon the school bus system would join one of the associatons to have some say in how these this got sorted out at least. 

[SaligoBay]

Thank you, Teamedup.

So I'll steer clear of curriculum etc. 

And since my first post, I've decided I DO have some soucis!!

First, the cantine.  They go in in alphabetic order, and as my son is almost at the end of the alphabet, there are often no entrées or salads left.  He's currently planning to go in as a retardaire (?) instead, so he gets the benefit of the second instalment!

Second, they do sport on a public ground, which, like any public ground anywhere, is liberally sprinkled with broken glass.

It's knowing the cultural "norms" that's difficult.  For example .... you could say that Britain is stiflingly "safe", and the French attitude to safety can be quite "refreshing", but I would still suggest it's not a good idea to be running around on broken bottles!

But you've confirmed that it's got to be the FCPE, when it finally happens in October.    

 

[LesLauriers]

"And yes les lauriers you should know about these associations"

Thanks for the explanation TU.

Yes, I've had the usual notices for the school council but I've never seen any reference to these organisations, although they must figure in it somewhere.

In the UK I was Chair of the school PTA for several years and put in a huge amount of time and effort into organising events that raised ten thousand plus pounds a year (small school of 100 children , so no mean feat!). So when we moved here two years ago I decided I needed a break from it, although I have involved myself in many school activities and organised stalls at fêtes etc, just not with the stress of being 'in-charge' of it all.

 

[Teamedup]

I can't help wondering what happens when these offical associations aren't in a village. The school council still must be elected. Somehow the parents must organise something.  And we didn't really have any fund raising involved with the FCPE, although we used to sell calenders to members, but that was about it.

School fund raising is  done by other associations in our village. Ours in the state school is called the  Amicale Laique and the private school has their own. We used to work blooming hard to raise around a thousand quid for ours, ten grand is unimagineable. It used to be fun though, whereas the FCPE was usually serious stuff really.......often mundane but not always.

[SaligoBay]

I never looked very deeply into the école primaire's parents' association, but there was no mention of FCPE or anything like that on any of the voting papers or meetings, which is why they're new to me now.

They did both the mundane stuff and the organisation of fund-raising.

Didn't manage to stop the teachers smoking in the cours though, apparently that was lack of money - if anyone complained, the smoking teachers would demand a smoking room, and no-one wanted to spend money on that.

It's worth getting to know all this, if only for the amusement value when someone says "Mais c'est pas normal ça, ils n'ont pas le droit de fumer devant les enfants, c'est la loi!".   

 

[Teamedup]

Thanks SB, I have never heard of schools around here without an FCPE/PEEP presence, but I had realised that it was a possibility. So as you indicated the  parents obviously organise themselves in another way when there isn't, which I had suspected how it would be.

[Richardbk]

[quote]Mostly people are telling me to go for the FCPE, because it's for "ordinary people like us" - not sure what kind of people are in PEEP! Does anyone have any experience of them, are they effective? A...[/quote]

does it really matter which one - both are about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

The government is trying to decentralise the education system - but I think it is a long long time before the parent associations will have any real  impact on the way the system works.

 

regs

 

Richard

[LesLauriers]

Isn't it funny how events pan out...

...I've just been to collect the children from school and the Directrice collared me and asked if I would put my name down for the elections onto the Conseil d'Ecole!!!

Of course, I said yes as I'm terrible at saying no (that's how I came to be Chair of the PTA in the UK). So now I'll just wait to see if I get elected on the 15th.

BTW no mention at all of FCPE or PEEP.

[SaligoBay]

Richardbk said "does it really matter which one - both are about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

The government is trying to decentralise the education system - but I think it is a long long time before the parent associations will have any real  impact on the way the system works."

LOL Richard, you old cynic!!

But I have been wondering along these lines myself.   I spoke to my friend who's a collège prof, and she just poured scorn on the whole idea, said they were only there to stick their noses in where they didn't belong, and to emmerdent les profs.

Her experience is that parents are interested only in their own child, and not to expect anyone to care about the greater good.

C'est la vie.  I'll go along for a skwizz when it happens, at least my conscience will be clear then.

[Teamedup]

Not quite a chocolate fireguard as we did get some things done. And there were some who were members of the FCPE with me who became so empassioned that they went on to become elu and got the new ecole maternelle built, that we had been going on about for years. The directrice used to say that she would never see one built and a few on the school council would say, you wait and see. We helped stop class closures too, the only village around here that managed that one year, so we felt quite a sense of achievement really.

The meetings are made up of the quotiden though, cantine, garderie, pre-haut ( at which point TU pulls her hair out as I have never in my life heard of anything so ridiculous in my life as the things concerting the sacre pre-haut), transport scolaire, school outings and getting IT for the school.

[SaligoBay]

I don't know pre-haut, TU, do you mean préau, the covered-over bit of the cours?

Go on, tell us about it...... if nothing else it'll help when the rest of us get stuck into sorting our schools out.

[Teamedup]

LOL Yes, that is what I mean. I should spell check.

Our primary school's essential thing.

I just can't go into discussing the lousy things and the thinking (or lack of it) behind it.

 

ps I know why I always think it is pre haut, because the one at the school was high and sometimes I apply some unfathomable logic to my translations.

[Battypuss]

The private school middle daughter goes to have just sent the papers for the APEL; I have to sign if I don't want to join (I don't as I have no car and no babysitter and I'm damned if I'm trailing two kids on a 5 mile hike at 8.30pm in the middle of winter) or they will bill me 25€!