British School in Northern France

[Dicky]

We have a small little holiday home in Northern France about an hour from the tunnel. We love the place and the way of life and are considering moving to France full time, however we do need to consider education.

My wife is a teacher and would love to set up a small British primary school in Northern France. This would allow Brits to benefit from the cheap house prices, a good standard of living without opting out of the British education system. The decision for us to move to France is for ours and I dont want our children to be disadvantaged educationally from our choice to move, so a British school seems like a good idea.

Questions

1. Would there be enough young families in Northern France to make it a viable project?

2. What would the red tape be like?

3. Is this a cop out and should we educate our children in the local French school?

4. Does anyone have anything that would allow us to make this decision?

Thank you for any input you may have.

[Val_2]

This is a tricky subject to answer by anyone on this forum I would have thought. You would need to contact the prefecture in the dept to find out their decision on this,because it may be that you are not allowed to do this. I personally cannot understand anyone who comes to France to live with children and who does not want them to go in the french system, why bother to come in the first place if you want to continue with the english system as the idea of moving to another country is surely to take in that way of life and all it entails.

[Richardbk]

LAST EDITED ON 28-Dec-03 AT 03:05 PM (GMT)

I read somewhere that the French Government is trying to support the addition of Modern language sections onto exisiting state schools. This may be a way to start. For example our private free paying Anglophone section is registered as an association in France and is connected to a French state school. How this is set up and who to start with I'm not sure. Probably best to try and start with the town Mairie and if this gets nowhere try with the department education service. Even if you do not connect to an exisiting French school, there is nothing to stop you setting up a fully private association that is fully independent of the French system. There are even some private french schools that are fully outside the French state system, although most seem to have some sort of afflication which means they can get some state support and hence fees are lower.

regs

Richard

[Buster]

We have just put out 2 year old into the local french maternelle, so she will become fluent in French at school and speak English at home. I have read that it will be her English grammar that will suffer in the future in the distant future. Maybe some tuition for this in the french holidays might be an idea.