Feeling anxious about DCs starting French school...

[slinkyboo]

Just wanted some words of wosdom and hand-holding, really! We've been in France a few months but DC have been at bilingual school. In Sept they are due to start at a French school. The school is very good and everyone praises it, and it is well used to expats' children as there are so many in this area.
BUT I am feeling more and more anxious about it. DCs are 6 and 4 and I cannot stop imagining theor first day and just HOW they will cope, and how lost they might feel. They understand some very basic French and I am trying to get them to watch French TV etc but my stomach wrenches when I think about leaving them there. How many days/weeks of potential tears and upset will there be???
Tell me to pull myself together...I know, I know. And no I am ansolutely not showing any of my fears to them and nor will I!

Well everyone else has pretty much covered advice regarding playground, canteen, handling the separation. Yes it will greatly help to try and make friendships and break into the circle of already existing friendships. Do you not get a contact sheet with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the other children in your children's classes? If not, can you ask if it's possible to circulate a list? That way you could invite several or all of the class to socialise - yes I am serious, in the past I have organised days out at the park, bowling alley, ice rink and socials at school at weekends, they have been really successful in forming friendships between parents and children too. A class list makes it much easier to organise birthday parties too, not having to rely on your children to name the other children in the class in order to send out invitations.

Hang on in there - I've met many parents in the past 3 years who have put their children in at the deep end into French and Dutch language schools, so far only a single family has pulled their children out of a French school immediately (after the first day), quite a few have changed schools but still in French / Dutch after false starts and it has worked out at the 2nd school. For some children I know, they have settled immediately, for others it has taken a lot longer, like a year, to feel quite settled. I'm sure your children will be fine. Courage!!!

Thank you again, a million times. I think I will print out this thread and keep it in my pocket.

Natation - they removed their children after the first DAY?? what happened?

Dikkertjedap - unfortunately parents can't volunteer in the school. However, they have asked for volunteers to help when they all go swimming on Monday afternoons and I've put my name down for lots...I definitely want to be involved where I can and get to know how things work.

You could volunteer for the parent-teacher association so you get more involved in the school - good way for you to meet parents too.

The system in France is that you have a parent délégué or two per class, who is "voted"/chosen by the other parents in the class after putting him/herself forward. Chances are that the Parents' Association in the OP's school is politically affiliated (this is usual) and follows the agenda of its parent organisation. Actually contributing to school life is quite hard as a parent in a French school!

And it could be quite difficult to be voted in by the parents in your child's class if you have just arrived.

...and being Anglais!!

Sure! Though in our school (bilingual) the Parents' Association's aim is to have one Francophone and one Anglophone (or non-Francophone) parent rep per class, so statistically my chances are quite high.

Volunteering to go on class outings is good though IME you don't get much time to talk to the teacher, just observe her.

Well, things have got more complicated...DD's teacher spoke to me earlier and they want to move DD up to CE1. She is a very able reader etc and teacher thinks she is/will be bored with the academic work in CP. There is no rush to make a decision but they are assessing her tomorrow (including a psychologist to check she is mature enough for CE1!)

I have mixed feelings. She already did CP in her last school (bilingual) as they moved her up from GS almost immediately as it was too easy. She did brilliantly, but I thought it would be best for her to be with her age-appropriate group in French school so she could learn the language comfortably and integrate. I feel nervous about moving her up...but I also don't want her to be bored. She knows two girls in CE1 already (both bilingual) but I doubt we will be lucky enough to get another bilingual teacher as we have now in CP. She will be younger than everyone else, obviously, although her birthday is 1st February so she would not be too far from CE1 kids with Nov/Dec birthdays.

The teacher says that moving children up is not unusual...

Any thoughts, since you lot have been so supportive thus far?

PS - DS doing soooo much better - no tears today!

Hey that's fantastic progress for DS!

How mature is your DD? My DS is an able reader etc too but we have always said we would never move him up because he is socially quite immature - I think for me that would make the biggest difference, especially as her birthday is near the start of the year so she won't be that much younger than the others.

I think the language learning etc would come ok whichever year she is in, and having the girls she knows already would surely help. Can you talk to the current teacher about how she thinks DD would cope if she was with a non-bilingual teacher? They must think she is pretty bright if they are suggesting this despite the language difficulties...

Hmm, my ds was the youngest in his year with a 31 December birthday. He found the first three years of primaire more difficult than ds2 with a March birthday (a lot more in the first year, slightly less in the second and slightly less again in the third - by the fourth they were averaging the same marks). I wish I'd kept him down in retrospect. I didn't realise how difficult it was going to be in primaire. They are immediately two to a desk in front of the teacher, exams at the end of the year (twice a year from second year onwards), it's quite intense for a six year old. Mind you, this is Belgium. I don't know what it's like in France.

Obviously it's not my decision, but if I were in your shoes knowing what I know now, I would definitely NOT put her up. Ds1 was able enough and they said mature enough but it wasn't a good idea. My dn's birthday is 13 January and he is very clever (top of the class all through primary, up amongst the top if not top all through secondary, now in final year). My ds-in-law said she didn't want him put up because she wanted him to have another year to improve his Dutch rather than having to concentrate on actual subjects. He's always found school fairly easy and therefore never hated it in the way my ds did. Funnily enough ds1 was two weeks early so should have been in the year below and dn was two weeks late so should have been in the year above.

So pleased about ds though :)

"quite intense for a five year old" I should really have said as that's how old ds1 was and how old your dd would be. My UK friends didn't understand that that was young to go into primary but the approach is a lot softer in the UK than in Belgium.

Well it doesn't sound as if she has much problem with French - I can't imagine they would suggest this if her French was as basic as you'd led us to believed (not suggesting you misled us, just that she's probably better than you think!). Much of CP is spent learning to read and if she can do that already then her teacher is right and she probably would be bored. My son has just finished CE1 and I must say it's not that much different to CP and there is a lot of time spent consolidating reading skills learned the previous year. My concern with my own children would be whether they were mature enough to go through school with children a year older - I'm not sure if they are, but only you can make that decision for your daughter. On the plus side she already knows two bi-lingual girls in that class - would they be ready-made playmates? That would probably swing it for me.

I would trust the school on the issue of putting your DD up to CE1 - see what the outcome of the assessment is and go with it. If it's borderline, don't push for it, but if it clearly comes out in favour of putting her up a year, do so. My DD has just started CE1 and it isn't very difficult for a confident reader - so much of CP is spent learning to read that there isn't a lot of time to cover much other stuff.

Thank you.
Lillian, I can assure you that as far as I know DD has VERY basic French - unless she is keeping it all from me?? When I say basic I mean basic 'commands' and requests, parts of body, house, shops, animals etc etc...she was asking me how to say 'are you new' to someone so she definitely doesn't have much conversation, even with a fair-ish amount of vocab.

Yes its fab re DS - really seeing a change and I am over the moon! I am utterly glad that I'm picking them up each day...I'm finding that we talk 'things' over quite a bit over lunch

Some varied responses re putting DD up to ce1...lots to think about. I'll update of course and, again MERCI!

"Unless she is keeping it all from me" - not out of the question. I remember when we lived in Germany being completely unaware of my daughter's level of German. When they told me she was in the German mother-tongue group I thought I had misheard and that there must be some mistake - German was her third language and as far as I knew it was very basic. In fact she was completely fluent - she just refused to speak German in front of me!

Both DD1 and DD2 were put up a year. It was the right decision in primary as they were getting bored easily, but the big issue, as we have now learnt, is that they then go up to collgege a year early. Primary is one thing but college is quite another.

DD1 is small for her age, so being at college at just 10, when others in her class were in some cases 2 years older (children are put down more often than up) has meant that she really stood out, and got a crick in her neck :).

Having said that, I still think it was the right move for them. Teachers don't move kids up unless they really think it is a good idea.

Frenchfancy - do you mind if I ask how old your DCs were when they were put up? And how did they find it?
Lillian - that is amazing! How even young children can be mysteries in some ways...

Relief!!
She was indeed borderline so she is staying in CP but will get more advanced work.

DD1 did CP work in GS, but wasn't offically put up until CE2. DD2 did GS and CP as normal but was put up to CE2 after one term of CE1. No real problems for either of them until college. DD1 found 6eme difficult in terms of age and organisation, and making friends in the class, though not the school work. DD2 has only just started 6eme, no problems yet but we are only in wk3.

Some of it of course is down to personality, and in our case as it was a very small primary school, the other children.

frenchfancy - out of interest, are you intending to keep your DCs a year ahead until terminale?

Yes of course. They are getting very good Moyens, there would be no reason what so ever to make them redouble a year (generally kids who are getting poor results of less than 8 in French and maths redouble, mine are getting over 15 out of 20).

In anycase once they get to 4eme it is the college who decides, the parents choices are disregarded.

If things continue as they are DD1 will take her bac just before her 17th birthday.

That's not quite correct, about the school deciding - parents have every right to challenge the decision and to be supported by parents' reps from other collèges. And you can always request that a child be returned to its appropriate year group.

What advantage do you perceive in your children leaving school at just 17?

I don't suppose it's a question of "advantage" Bonsoir, rather that they are in the year they are in, doing well and there's therefore absolutely no reason to hold them back a year. What would be the point of removing them from a year when they are doing more than adequately (15 out of 20!) and from all their friends just for the sake of them being the "right" age to do their bac?

A friend of ds2 was 16 when he went to university. He was put up a year and has a November birthday. Even then he was easily top of the class. He's just finished his second year at uni with une grande distinction. He is exceptionally bright though :) .

It's an interesting question. I have several French friends of my own generation who did their bac one or even two years early, having been put up a year or two during the course of their school career, and they are, without exception, adamant that they wouldn't want their own children to do the same - and have been very vigilant about enriching their super-bright children's school career, rather than accelerating it.

My sister and I, and my DP, were all put up a year. My sister did her bac early (not in France) and has always regretted it. My DP and I both repeated a year (at points when we moved schools) at some point, and never thought twice about it ie we were happy at school.

DSS2 was a candidate for moving up a class but he didn't want to and nor did we, so he has stayed where he is.