Hi again
not had time to peer inside a 1st or 2nd primaire classroom yet as I currently do school runs morning and night and not at our own children's school too much at the moment. However, I have attended 2 school meetings in the last week, one for 3rd maternelle and the other for 4th primaire. Here's what they are doing this year .....
school open 8.25 to 15.25 except wednesdays till 12.05.
4th primaire born in 2001
1st period 8.30-9.20
2nd period 9.20-10.10
break 10.10-10.30
3rd period 10.30-11.20
4th period 11.20-12.10
lunch 12.10-13.40
5th period 13.40-14.30
6th period 14.30-15.20
(break 10 mins shorter on wednesday and 3rd and 4th periods start 10 mins earlier)
28 * 50 minute sessions per week.
4th primaire do nearly all the compulsory work in the 4 morning periods. There is French, Maths, Eveil (mix of geography, history and science). There is also example 4 hours of Nederlands per week and 2 hours of religion. There are also 2 periods of gym/sport and swimming takes up the first 2 periods on wednesdays. Any spare time in afternoon is this year going to be taken up by student and teacher chosen projects where several subjects are learned together. Then the teacher has decided to do a period of singing and painting each per week. There is a school trip planned each term, the first being to an old abbey (teacher chosen project) where the children will study history, religion and geography at the same time, then when they return from this trip, they will spend several days expanding on what they learned on this day. There will no doubt be an open afternoon too where the children present what they have learned to the parents (15.30 to 16.30) each time they do one of these one day trips this year.
The children in 4th primary are allowed to leave their seats and go and play on the benches near the window, take a board game or book from the library, when they have finished their work, the more able children are given extension work so they are not always first finished and do not spend too much time playing whilst the rest of the class are still working. The desks in 4th primary are arranged in tables, this is how this teacher likes it, there is no obligation to have desks facing the board which I admit I have seen in the majority of Belgian primary classrooms. There are some teaches in our school who like it that way, I know the 1st primary classes have theirs in a semi-circle for example in our school.
Our school only obliges children to take exams once every 2 years in primary years, the obligatory French primary exams taken by every French pupil in 2nd, 4th and 6th primary. However, in all primary years, there are regular tests and assessments and all these go into one single file containing also 4 times a year reports at which point they are handed back to parents to sign and then back to school, this file follows the child throughout primary. The children are marked against various competencies in each subject and along with an overall mark out of 10 or 20, they get a "green smiley" for excellent, "amber smiley" for adequate and "red smiley" for not yet good enough. The aim is to have less and less amber and reds by the end of each year. This "smiley" system is used in every single primaire class.
Every teacher at our primary has its own rewards scheme, in 4th primary they get given little monster things they put in a box, periodically these monster things are counted and the teacher rewards each child according to the number of monsters.
This year there is a choice of 20 lunch time activities for primary, ranging from Zumba dancing to woodwork and cookery and ping-pong. They cost between 80 and 110 euro and run October to May.
Our primaire is moving over from using photocopied sheets to buying text books for each class. This year 4th primary are using the following for French, Maths and Nederlands (school still experimenting with Eveil books, trialing a new series this year to decide whether they will buy a full set for next year):
Le Nouvel Atelier de Francais CM1
Le Nouveau Beschelle
Le Larousse Super Major
Apprendre L Orthographe (Guion)
Maths et Moustique 4e
Drill 4e
Ok for 3rd maternelle, the children are following a programme of learning letters called "La Planete des Alphas". They are doing lots of manipulation of numbers, learning even basic times and division (started this for the first time last year at this level and very successful). They are learning right and left. The whole of maternelle uses "projects" chosen partly by teacher and partly by children, just like in many of the primary classes. The theme started this week is "princes and fairies" chosen by the children and they will be doing Maths and French through this theme for the next few weeks. The children have 3 periods of gym/sport per week, 1 Nederlands workshop per week, swimming every 2 weeks (that's a real lesson, not just bobbing up and down in the water like I see other schools doing at the local pool). The children will no doubt go out to the theatre or a museum at least once a term.
Well that's about all I can remember right now about timetabling. Hope it helps. I must say I came away from the primary school meeting last week very very positive about what our 8 year old is learning. She loves her school and so do I.