I am totally seething

[Idratherbemuckingout]

Hi,
I am really seething and had to share it with you lot. I live in France and I took my son, now eleven, out of school three years ago. We were up front with the authorities about why we wanted to take him out - in that we want to move back to the UK and failing that get him into a UK boarding school for secondary level. We knew that if he stayed on in french school he would have zero chance of doing that.
Each year an inspector has been out to see us at home and given my son a pathetically easy test to make sure he was up to scratch. They knew I was educating him in english and why I was doing it and were forced to admit he was very good at the tests. They didn't take long to do and he found them ridiculously easy after the work he had been doing.
This year, because in France he would already be in secondary school (his birthday is in October) they sent us a letter a few weeks back telling us that he would have to come for this year's test to Vannes. I telephoned them and told them that he has a place in boarding school in the UK for september so will no longer be home educated so surely there was no point in the tests. No, the inspector told me, it is french law so they must test him. I pointed out (again) that he has only been educated in english so she told me to send her a letter detailing what he has studied and telling her it has only been done in english and they would make him a suitable examination in english.
I felt this was rather a waste of time as he is off to school and the tests are to determine whether he needs to go to school or not, but there you are, these are the french we are talking about here, and a large majority of them are bureaucrats.
This I did, in some detail, as he is advanced for his years as so many home educated children are, and already far on in subjects such as Latin and Maths. For every subject I told her exactly what he has covered and that it has ALL been in english, with the french being suitable for a child about to start UK secondary school although he is fluent in spoken french.
Back came the letter telling us we had to come on Thursday last week for the whole afternoon. Off we went and found about 20 other home educated children, all french, of all secondary ages, ready for their tests.
DS went inside the room and I told the two women inspectors his name and out came the sheaf of exams they had prepared for him.
"These are all in english aren't they?" I queried, having had experience of the french bureaucrat saying one thing one moment and having an about face the next.
No, they were not>
"I'm afraid my son can't possibly do exams entirely in french," I said possibly a little less politely than it sounds here, "I haven't prepared him for exams in french and he has been educated entirely in english to get to his school in england which you knew all about."
Oh, were they cross.
He has to do the exams, was the gist of their conversation with me.
No way were my husband and I about to leave our child to do a set of exams for which he had had no preparation at all and about which we had been lied to.
"My son is not doing these exams," I retorted firmly, "as you told me they would be in english and this is now not the case."
She waffled on about how she had never said that (lying woman, not quite what I said afterwards to DH) and how they could not be in english and how we were on french soil so I had been breaking the law by not educating my son in french totally.
We walked out. I was seething, as you might imagine.
They had lied several times over.

One, they had assured me fraudulently, in order to get us there, that the tests would all be in english and they weren't.
Two, they accused me of breaking the law, which if this is so they have been party to for the last three years.
Three, they accused me of saying my son would be going to boarding school EVERY September and accused me of lying about it to them.
When I got home I wrote a strong letter and emailed it straight off to them (luckily fluent in french too) to get my oar in first.
We have another appointment supposedly to discuss his results on the 14th of June and I told them I am quite happy to show them the work he has been doing then, and the exams he has passed. 500 children for 100 places and he was well within the top 20.
I am also happy for him to do their poxy tests, but only if they are in english as he doesn't have the specialist vocabulary for maths in french for example. I don't myself and had to list the topics he has covered in english for them.
If a child fails the tests they have to resit them a month or two later and if they fail a second time they have to go to school. So what are they going to do? He's going to be going to school anyway. I must admit, I was momentarily tempted to tell him to stay and just write nothing at all in all the papers as a silent protest, but I couldn't really see the point of him doing that. So we went home instead.
We are now awaiting the results of our letter to see what they will say. I think I have been perfectly reasonable. After all, what parent wants their child to sit an exam they have done no work for? And what teacher would responsibly put a child in for one? I can tell you - a french one.
There, had my rant.
Think yourselves very lucky to be in england where you can teach your child exactly what you want, when you want and without risk of being inspected by some Hitlerish bureaucrat with a penchant for telling porky pies.
Humph, is all I can say.
Fil in France

Oh, that is so daring of you. Think what you said was reasonable and clearly you've been educating your son well. But can also see it a little from a French official's point of view- although it sounds as if they were being misleading- you and your DS are living in France, so (as if you were in England) you might expect a child to be educated in the main language of the country.
Hmm never really though about that before. Well done you though, hope it works out.

I am amazed that they agreed to him doing the tests in English in the first place. Surely they think that an education in France that does not involve speaking French is substandard?

Well, it appears that they do, doesn't it? But they have waited three and a bit years to say it, having tacitly agreed to it every year since we took him out of school!
And actually, I do include a great deal of french. He is not on the equivalent of year 6 work at all, but more on year 9 level in written french. His french reading is as good as his english and his spoken french is perfect, accent excellent and people can hardly tell he is english when he speaks french.
BUT - that was not the point. The point was them misleading me. What he doesn't have is the specialist vocab for specialist subjects. In maths for instance that would have been very confusing for him.
Last year, in the home test, the inspector allowed me to translate everything for him, despite him being fluent and that made the maths much more straightforward. Taking that facility away this year was just not on.
DH says he is prepared to go to prison for this and make it a cause celebre by contacting uk papers etc, but I think that is a bit drastic!
The long and the short of it is that had he stayed in french school, or been forced to have been educated at home in french, he would never have gained his place in a highly selective english boarding school.
He just had to have the level of english to pass a rigorous english exam, plus verbal and non verbal reasoning, plus the necessary maths vocab for a difficult eleven plus equivalent.
I am really looking forward to the little Hitler's reply.
I really dislike bureaucrats in every country.

Bit OT, but several people have suggested that it's obvious a good education involves being educated in the language of the country where one is living. It has been established that HE parents in England have the right to educate their children without using English.

Many british children living overseas are educated in English! Or go to English speaking schools. The OP says he knows French but just not confident enough to sit a test in the French language......don't blame him at all!
It must be so difficult that they've moved the goalposts for him, and is obviously a stressful situation. When do French schools break up for summer holidays? Could you come back to UK for a while if they insist he goes to a French school til the end of term?

"...these are the french we are talking about here, and a large majority of them are bureaucrats."

"...the french being suitable for a child about to start UK secondary school..."

You don't sound as if you're very happy or willing to be a part of French life, or to encourage your son to do the same. If I knew of a French child being HEd in England through the medium of French only, I'd feel very sad for that child.

"If I knew of a French child being HEd in England through the medium of French only, I'd feel very sad for that child."

I know such a child. I'm not at all sad for her. At 13 she's very happy, and quite fluent in English. (She does have the slightest trace of an accent.) Given that most of her friends are English and she is surrounded by English TV, radio, films, and speaks English frequently to people in the street, it was hardly going to be likely that she would fail to be fully bilingual. As the OP says, there is specific terminology and methods used in educational circles which the child would have to brush up on before sitting exams in the local language. It isn't going to be particularly difficult. The only problem for the OP's son is that this was sprung on him so unexpectedly.

I also know several children well who are educated here in England at The European School, with all instruction in all subjects, plus most social contact at school, being in their native language. I've never heard anyone suggest that this would disadvantage them. On the contrary, it's one of the schools people fight to get into.

Besides, is it such a terrible thing not to be overly keen on the country in which you are living, and to want your children to be educated elsewhere? The OP did say that the family wanted to return to the UK if possible.

I'm all for children being taught many languages. But I think that a child whose French is only at the same level as a child living in an English school is at a disadvantage socially while living in France.
It's not a terrible thing to be overly keen on the country where you're living, no, but racial stereotyping is ugly.

Oh come on, saying that lots of the French are bureaucrats is a statement of fact, a million miles from "racial stereotyping". There are loads and loads of laws we'd think were (it's illegal to try to climb out of a moving lift, for example) and they have officials to inspect/enforce.

I think if I were a French taxpayer I'd be pretty pissed off that public money was being spent in these circumstances, even if there weren't a big budget deficit.

Idratherbemuckingout you need to find out more about your rights.

There are a number of people in France who are very activist about the rights of home schoolers, and who may be able to help you.

In fact the law says you have no obligation to allow your child to be tested in any way. Your only obligation as a he parent is to provide your child with instruction which would in principle allow him to reach the equivalent level he would have had had he been in a public school by age 16

Of course the bureaucrats are in the habit of doing things their way and people usually go along with it because it's easier than fighting the system, but the law is very much on your side.

I can link you to some blogs of people who are fighting in the legal system because they are refusing to allow their children to be tested, if you wish.

I can also link you to a fairly long and detailed expose of what the law says and why everything you have been asked to do you can refuse if you wish.

That's a fair point. But I felt uncomfortable reading this OP as I have friends in France who are saddened that so many Brits move there and slag off all "the system" and making sweeping generalisations about the country and its people, and don't try to integrate their families into French life, community and language. That's not to say that the OP is guilty of this, but it does happen a lot. FWIW I think the officials were wrong to lie to OP, and I wish her all the best in moving back to the UK.

Sorry, x-post discrete

And to all the rest of you, many of us living in France love the country but absolutely loathe the educational system, and are home schooling as a result of that. Of course we resent the impositions of a bunch of petty bureaucrats who are wasting our time at best, getting in the way of us doing what is best for our children at worst.

Most of the French home ed parents I know feel exactly the same way about the 'officials' as the OP.

I know of many, many British children growing up overseas who can hardly speak the local language - they go to international schools, some of which teach the local language (but not to native speaker level) and some of which don't bother at all (eg I don't think many international schools in Hong Kong teach Cantonese, though some now offer Mandarin).

I agree that it does isolate children from the local community, and I chose to send my DCs to a bilingual international school, but it sounds like the OP's DS does speak reasonable French, just can't do school work in it, which is fair enough if the plan has always been to send him to boarding school in the UK.

It looks like the problem is the homeschooling issue - I presume if your DS had been attending an international school he would not have had to do the test? But I also presume there aren't many international schools in rural Brittany...

I guess the bureaucracy is just something you have to deal with if you choose to live in France. It would be worse in Germany, where you aren't even allowed to homeschool, as far as I know.

Smile politely through the results discussion in June then point out that they can't expect your son to take a retest during July and August as that is the school holidays so they can't require him to be doing school work .

Agree to a retest in mid Sept and when the appointment arrives calmly point out - quelle dommage - that he is now in school and will not require the test after all.

or simply declare that unfortunately it will not be possible as he has already moved to Britain in order to be acclimitised for the school start in September or some such thing.

It does sound a bit rigid and bizarre given your circumstances. I expect those responsible for testing secondary age dc take it all a lot more seriously than those responsible for primary aged HE dc. Probably not much point being combative now, just polite and evasive perhaps, unless of course you have other dc who are younger and who are still being HE in France.

sorry about the typos

OP, when your ds was tested previously (the easy tests you mentioned), were these tests in English? Tbh I think they were not able to produce tests specially prepared for him in English at secondary level. They will have standard tests in French for everyone I expect.

I don't think the op has done anything wrong. Ok if they were staying in France well fair enough, but unless I'm mistaken her ds will be joining an English school. I'm glad I don't live in France.