To think ski school for the tiny ones is fairly barbaric?

[Nurder]

We have just gotten back from a week skiing in France and I spent a good deal of time on the learner slopes with a friend who is just learning. The amount of 3/4/5 year old children wailing in the snow and being terrified was just upsetting. The ratios appear to be really high with not enough staff to remotely cover what the kids actually need.

Mine loved their ski school at 4 and 5.
Nothing like you describe though. Although it was Austria, not France. 3yos were in the nice warm creche instead. Any 4yo who was cold went inside the nice warm hut.

Doesn't sound like a very good ski school. Maybe some of them are still a bit young. My ds went at 5 and loved it. Two days practising by the carpet-pull outside the lodge then up the mountain & away.

The only thing he moaned about was having to carry his own skis back to the chalet (so I did it). He was pretty tired by then.

I loved ski school at that age.

I hated ski school at that age. Yes, lots of upset kids was my and my sister’s memory of it.

I agree. Here in a resort now. I actually helped one of the tiny ones who was crying yesterday and seemed to be abandoned by his instructor. Have never put mine in, we taught them ourselves.

‘Barbaric’ is a bit extra!

DS enjoyed it when he was 4. He’d go for a couple of hours in the morning then join the rest of us for the rest of the day. He learned really quickly.

I did it once for my eldest at 4 she cried most days - being yelled at in French and being put last in a 12 kid chain didn't help so we gave up on group and only had private lessons with a wonderful instructor both my two now love the sport.

My experience of French ski school wasn't good. DS was in one when he was that age. He refused to go back after the first day unless we stayed with him. I watched one little French boy go up and down about 4 times, just sobbing the whole time. The instructors just ignored him. We've never used ski schools since.

ESF is just awful. The ratio of kids to instructor is just shocking.

We always tried to avoid them when possible and use the alternatives like new generation etc.

I hated ski school so much at that age that i refused to ever go skiing again.

Yes they do cry at times, it’s tiring and frustrating. They also really enjoy the other parts. Personally I think doing something challenging and getting a massive sense of achievement is a brilliant experience.

The key test is, do they want to go back and do it the next day? Ime - absolutely.

Barbaric? Slight hyperbole there.

Most ski schools will not take kids under the age of 4.

Mine all loved it- and thrived. But I remember one little girl, Dutch, who screamed day in, day out for the entire week. Best way to make sure she will always hate skiing.

Yup this. Avoid ESF like the plague. DD started at 4 and loves skiing.

I didn't like ESF for my DC. They were 7 and 10 starting lessons but were in giant groups, yelled at in French a lot and the final straw was DD falling behind the group and being left alone on the mountain. A different ski school brought her back to the hotel. And no apologies given.

I think learning to ski early is a great thing, but not with ESF.

I guess it depends on whether you view skiing as an essential life skill? Some people might say the same about swimming lessons for tinies - some kids love it and some kids hate it, but we think it's important so we persevere...

[Playing slightly devil's advocate here, we don't ski and I've never sent my kids to ski school, but I can imagine that if you live in a place where it's something that everyone does then you'd have a different perspective].

This sounds like ESF. You couldn’t pay me to put my kids in one of their classes! We love skiing, and both my kids have been in ski classes at that age, but not ESF. It pays to put a bit of research into ski schools for younger children. You really need to know the ratios of adults to children and the adults’ qualifications. We used smaller but more expensive ski schools with English language speakers. (It was not necessary for all of the other children in the group to be English speakers though, DD in particular has good memories of ski classes where she was the only English speaker but got on with the other children, they don’t say much when they are skiing anyway.) I don’t think there were ever more than 6 children to one adult, more often about 3-4 kids per adult. In the largest group she was in, the instructor was a woman we knew who was a very kind older instructor with an interest in teaching young children to ski well (and was the main reason we signed her up to that group.) With ESF, you see great long lines of a dozen or more kids trailing across the pistes behind an uninterested young male instructor, often with a child dropping off the back of the snake and being left behind. Not all ski classes are the same though, so you can’t say they are all ‘brutal.’

We have had some great ESF instructors for our boys when they were young. Each resort is different, and each instructor is different. They have always been able to communicate in English, but tried to get the kids to speak a bit of French. Never had an issue, and in several resorts over many many years.

The maximum per group is 12.

ESF is the best for technique and improvement - and drilling safety mountain rules, it's at its best in smaller groups of fairly advanced skiers.
It's pretty barbaric and I would say dangerous for tiny children, it's not necessary to be cold and miserable and shouted at and they are too crazily relaxed about putting them on gondola lifts.
It's so typically french that learning a sport as a child has to be made as painful and unpleasant as possible. (I am french)

The common theme here is ESF, who have a reputation for having a very different approach to teaching than British (and Dutch and Scandinavian) kids are used to.

Over on the Skiing forum there are threads where people discuss their experiences of Austria and the ski schools there. English-speaking instructors always available, very child-focussed lessons with an emphasis on having fun rather than being a boot camp for getting 5-year-olds to be technically perfect, great child facilities (hot chocolate stops, fun trails, magic carpet lifts, "games" rather than "drills" ...). Maybe try Austria another time.

Any child already in French education would be absolutely fine in French ski school. Any child not already licked into shape might struggle. The French spend the early years moulding children to fit in which is actually quite reassuring for children who start in the system and know nothing else (mine both started at 2.5) but it can seem quite strict, uncompromising to any child (or parent!) who is used to gentler, more child-centered methods.

Not true unfortunately! My raised in France, half French, educated in the French system niece was still upset to get thwacked with a pole by the instructor, shouted at, then left on the side of the mountain. Her English cousin who was in the same ski school was actually less bothered, he couldn’t understand the yelling apparently 🤷‍♀️

Skiing is barbaric 😂

We go to Italy where the instructors are so warm and friendly with the kids. I know it’s a stereotype but it is true that the Italians are much warmer with children than French.