Home education article on the Complete France web page

[Gardener]

I read the article whilst faffing about trying to re log in and I wondered if the article in the magazine was as poor as the one on the website?

The key information about home educating in France for those who might have been interested were a section of links at the end of the story. It would have been of more use I'd imagine if they could have been worked into the real life story.

The article just read to me as a couple with young children having a great life in France , and BTW, their kids don't go to school. There was no evidence that the family were following the French curriculum, had been inspected or anything. Not critiquing the family, these things may have happened and not been reported on. which then begs the question why didn't the reporter included them? As an informative piece for anyone wanting to move to France and home educate, it failed IMO.

[Debra]

I agree - I don't think the autonomous model will fit in with the French regulations on home-schooling at all.  However, will anyone know that if they haven't registered as home schooling?  The article says you have to but doesn't say that they have or mention whether they have been inspected and 'passed'.  I can't see how they can fulfil the French requirements to study language and literature with their own level of French being low - or cover French history and education civique at the required level whilst following the autonomous model.  People do come here and home school without ever registering or being inspected, simply by not registering their children in school and never highlighting the fact that they live here permanently rather than have a second home here.  I can't help wondering if that's what they have done.

Oh - and the links at the end are to their own web sites, which all seem to be for UK businesses (Ltd companies) so are they actually registered for anything in France?!

[NormanH]

I don't think articles in the Magazine are seriously intended to be guides on how to do things. If they were it would be a catastrophe.

Just look at the ill-written and virtually unpunctuated article on healthcare

"The healthcare system (lassurance maladie) is financed through

contributions to the social security fund (colloquially knownas la scu)

and fees at the point oftreatment" (direct copy/paste )

and "This newscheme of universal health cover,called the couverture

maladieuniverselle (CMU), was designedto let everyone join

thegovernment-run healthcare scheme" not only badly written, but inaccurate, since the vast majority of people do not belong to the CMU.

or the vapid article on Retiring to France which gives virtually no concrete detail.

Surely they are just part of 'selling the dream'?

[Gardener]

I know of a French/ British couple who home educate and they have to keep a dossier of information and have found the inspection quite tough. I had the feeling that it isn't something that the sits well with the state and so they want to be sure children are getting a solid education. I wasn't picking any of that up from that article.

I agree that the magazine is selling the dream but and might have got away with that approach in its early years but after X amount of years , with all the ups and downs of living in France experienced by members of the Complete France forum, I think they could have tried to find someone to give an account of home educating in France that was actually useful.

[Quillan]

I have been researching something quite different but on one website I was reading there was a links page and in amongst the links was the one I have given below. I have no interest in home education in France, my 'brat' is all grown up but thought it might be of interest to some. I have no idea if the information is correct by the way but it looks well written.

 

http://www.parentconcept.com/

[Debra]

That's a site by the same people the article was about so I'm off to read it to see if their own site is more informative than the article!

[Debra]

http://www.parentconcept.com/french-home-education-faq

This page answers the questions about whether they're following the regulations and it seems they don't legally have to have their children tested until age 11 but the academy still like to see them twice a year and talk to them.  As I expect this would be in French I'd be worried my children wouldn't pick up enough French to cope with the discussion and I'd also be worried about what was going to be tested at age 11.  Imagine if they decided you hadn't taught them to their requirements and made you send them to school at age 11?  Yikes.  It really is the whole language issue that stops me from homeschooling in France.  I had no qualms at all about doing it in the UK.

[Gardener]

The couple I know, their kids are orally completely bilingual but the mother doesn't have sufficient grasp of written French and that was raised as an issue, the grandparents have now been brought in to help with that. Without a strong family support network around them of native speakers, I don't know how long they would be allowed to continue home schooling.

Perhaps the inspectors, are more lenient with British born children who may come and go?

_____________________________________

The CF team could really do with proof reading their articles, they are shocking. The website is the shop front for the magazine, and the problems with the forum pale into insignificance in comparison.