Moving to France from bermuda and bilingual schools

[amandallw]

Hello
We have lived in Bermuda and my french husband might now have the opportunity to move to paris. I am worried about taking ds 5 and ds 8 to a big city after living here so long. Also we have had no luck getting into eab or lycee st germain? How does one get into bilingual schools? Are there any other good bilingual schools? is it better to live in the centre of paris or in western suburbs?
Amanda

well. It depends what you want! If you want to live in a lively neighbourhood with lots going on, you need to be in Paris. If you want space and country walks you need to be in the suburbs. We have always lived outside of Paris: when we first moved here we couldn't afford Paris. I disliked it at first but got used to it and now love where we live. Saint Germain en Laye is lovely but expensive.
there are not so many truly bilingual schools in the suburbs but there are several with a "section bilingue": extra English lessons in primaire and the " intégration bilingue" in collège where they do several subjects in English. For starters there is Institut Notre Dame in Saint Germain and Louis Pasteur in La Celle Saint Cloud and SIS Sèvres. there is a lot of competition (sheer numbers off applicants as opposed to number of places) for e Lycee and EAB.

thank you so much for your response. I suppose I would like a lively neighbourhood but think my sons who are used to living outdoors would prefer the suburbs. Do you live in St germain? Thank you for the recommendations, I have looked them up and will contact them (although I can't find louis pasteur online). Have you heard of Forest Montessori? or Ecole Bilingue Montessori de st cloud? We are having a parent interview over the phone with eabjm next week

No I don't live in Saint Germain but not far from there. For Louis Pasteur look up www.apeseb.org that is the website for the bilingual section. Forest is a nice school but only goes up to age 9 or 10 if I remember correctly and has a reputation for not being very academic. I looked at Saint Cloud once for my daughter: it is small and there isn't much space to play but the directrice seemed really good, really on the ball. Don't know if it does all ages of primary, however...?

Hello
The phone interview with eabjm was a bust, they are full. We have the added diffculty that i have homeschooled my boys for the last 3 years and cannot produce report cards. However we have decided to move to paris and now I am panicky about not uet finding a school. How do i find the list of approved schools? Have you heard of little stewart school? St cloud goes up to cm2 and I have also written to louis pasteur. Thank you so much for your help
Amanda

At that age can you not just put them I to local schools? The mairie have to provide a place if you live there and many Parisian schools are very used to have non-francophones.

Honestly and truthfully, if your DH is French, you can put them in a decent French public (state) school and they will be fine. The important thing is to identify the school that you want and move into its catchment - you will almost certainly get a place. I can help you with this if you PM me.

Hi Amanda, don't panic and do consider going French local. Just to give you an idea, we moved here when our sons were aged 5 and 7... one became perfectly bilingual (from zero French) and would have done very well in the local French set-up (but is actually in a bilingual school), the other did not fare so well (more a cultural than a language thing, and he is now in a international school following British curriculum)... so you can see that your two, already presumably speaking some French, have every chance of doing fine in French schools.

Otherwise, there are other bilingual schools to choose from -- have you looked at EaB (as opposed to EaBJM)?

Good Schools Guide International covers France too I think... check it out (make sure there is good coverage for Paris before paying the subscription...)

Best of luck,

Hi, Amanda, I would like to know if you got finally the school you wanted to. I was in the same situation as you in September 2012 but at that time all schools were full. I only find a place in Ecole Montessori Bilingue Saint-Cloud. It has been the worst experience ever for me and the kid. After 3 month, we had enough. We went for the public education and we are SO happy! Still I do feel a big guilty as I was the one choosing it. This is my personal experience, I know some other mums are expecting to finish the school year to change the kids but I know there are others that are planning to stay. For me, I really want to forget this episode, my kid was very happy to leave the school too.