Moving to France 🇫🇷

[tukker]

We are packing for the move in August. My daughter is 16 and looking forward to going to the local lycée, we have been in touch with them and they are very relaxed, I've emailed them to confirm dates for inscription in July but no reply?
I love the area we are moving to in Burgundy and we already have a house, so much to do, I just keep getting cold feet about it all! Some days I think its a great idea and other days I'm really anxious. Is this normal?

Normal to be nervous about such a big move.

Lycée inscriptions would normally be all sorted by June. Is se going into second or première ? If première has she chosen her options? I assume she already speaks French because otherwise it will be brutal.

Shes going into première and has chosen her options. She does speak some French and is prepared for it to be hard. She wants to go fully residential too.

Honestly, and without wishing to sound really negative, unless your DD is very outgoing, confident and a brilliant linguist, I would be very cautious about moving her aged 16 to Lycée especially fully residential. Unless everyone around her speaks English and the course is in English, and I suspect it is not, it will be difficult. Personally I'd wait until she has finished school in UK or send her to an international school at least.

Unless she speaks French fluently, wouldn’t it be better if she were to board in the UK for sixth form? This seems a strange time to uproot her education like that.

My daughter is very outgoing and the school have been fantastic in accommodating her so far and this is what she wants to do, so please stop with the scaremongering.

Is it a private or public lycée? In our area the private ones are only beginning to confirm places. If it’s your local lycée, I understand they have to give you a place. My son is starting Lycée this year and everything is being done through the educonnect portal. Although informally he has his place, it won’t be confirmed in the system until July.

Don’t underestimate the challenges for your daughter - unfortunately being outgoing and enthusiastic is not going to give her the fundamentals she needs to do her work. Have you signed her up for intensive classes during the holidays?

Goodness. You ask for advice because you "keep getting cold feet" and "are anxious" and then tell posters who have a great deal of experience about France and it's education system to stop scaremongering! People are only trying to help. Good luck to your daughter.

I wouldn't say people are scaremongering - just giving advice from their own personal experience? Of course people are right to highlight the challenges your daughter may face. It's silly to just ignore them.

Scaremongering implies that there is nothing to worry about.

I genuinely have no idea how someone could arrive in France in August with "some French" and pass the French baccalaureate the following May.

Have you considered her redoubling and starting in second? It's quite normal and would give a run up to the French bac in première.

Kids stop "learning" French as such around sixième, it's more like literature and style from then on so she won't get any French lessons as such unless the school has special remedial/foreigners lessons

Ah yes, I've just remembered how this works and indeed as I recall it the French language element of the Bacc is examined end of Premiere, so next May in the case under discussion ( most others are done end of Terminale).

I'm sure passing it is within the capabilities of a very very good linguist but I'd be concerned.

I wish the OP well but the French education system can be more than a bit unforgiving/inflexible.

I agree that it would be best for her to start in seconde.

I do hope your daughter is well prepared.
I would not expect the child centred approach that you would have in the U.K.
Not in my experience anyway.
Best of luck. Once you overcome the little hiccups it’s a great move.

Do you have residency/correct visas sorted?

It's much more complicated post-Brexit

Thanks for the replies. We are well aware of the difficulties facing us, my daughter is very determined but this is what she wants to do! We will speak more to the lycée more in July.

The lycee will not be open in July.

You should ask for your DD to join Seconde. It is a 3-year 6th form in France.

Having chewed this over again overnight I have to agree with those saying that now matter how determined the DD to go straight into Premiere staring in Seconde really is the best way to do this.

Somebody will have to remind me but as I recall it when our DDs went though the system there was a lot more to the French language element of the Bacc than just pure language skills, there's the set reading of the beloved books 🤔and of course the whole issue of exam technique in France.

Passing the exam is not just a question of being able to have vocab, decline the various verbs, know the various tenses.

I'm also vaguely remembering (so standing to be corrected) that the mark the DD gets in French at end of Premiere feeds into to the overall bac grade (the "mention") awarded post Terminale.

A "scrape" pass after only a few months at Lycee in Premiere would be commendable but it might well impact on the final bac overall "grade" and really might be something best avoided if at all possible.

Finally being a "year behind" for whatever reason is certainly is not unusual and not regarded as a big deal, plenty of children redouble a year at some point in their school careers.

Bit slow to NB that last bit;

blacklavender is right, For info the schools/Lycees across the country (i.e. all three school zones) shut 7th July this year.

Not sure how many staff will be "in" and responding to comms after that point but I'd guess it won't be many.

www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F31952

People are not scaremongering here. I used to live in France and taught English to French students.

One of my students, aged 15, was sent to an English speaking boarding school in central France.

I read one of his reports, where his history teacher said, 'Poor effort, it's time that X stopped using his lack of English as an excuse.'

I was furious on my student's behalf, mostly with his parents for thinking that they could just plonk a French teenager into an English speaking school and expect him to cope.

Please don't think that a basic knowledge of French will be enough for your daughter. It probably won't be.

Your daughter would get much better exam results in an international school. She might be excited about it, but it’s normal for 16 year olds to be naive. It’s not so forgivable for her parents to be gamely encouraging someone without fluent French to simply assume they will do fine in a French sixth form college.

OP you say your daughter has some French but could you give a bit more info on her level of language. Does she read French books, has she got GCSE, is she conversational, how much time has she spent in France etc etc. This is quite important in being able to advise. I have to say that as someone who has lived in France I'm minded to agree with many of the posters here. Not wanting to scaremonger but I think you could be massively underestimating the task ahead.

I live in France, teach English in a lycée, and have put two DC through the system, one who is in terminale and just finishing the BAC this year.

If I were you I'd get onto the lycée now, most of the lessons have either finished or are winding down, the terminal students have left and the premiere students are preparing for their French oral exam.

I would strongly advise that you place your daughter into seconde, firstly it will give her a really good feel for the French education system but will also put her in a good position to choose her options in premiere. A BAC generale is not for all and actually there are loads of different types of BAC to choose from depending on her interests.

All schools love to give flannel about how accommodating they are to non-French speaking students. The school I teach in thinks it's amazing, the fact is they may offer some soutien in French but after 6 months they expect the children to be up and running. I hear it all the time, they're using their non-french as an excuse, they don't try and speak French, they should be bilingual by now. I do try and point out to colleagues that they have been working with these children for 6 months and they haven't managed to become proficient in English so why the unreal expectations placed on children?

My advice based on my own personal experience is, let your daughter finish her education in the UK, give her French lessons as an added extra. School in France is not like school in England, it's not a softly, softly approach here. Your daughter could end up feeling really isolated and in fact her education could be seriously affected. My DCs have been in the system since they were 2 and 3 and they always have been told they will never be as good at a subject because they are French, it was brought up in every single parent's meeting, there is no support for non-French speakers and very little for the children with educational needs. My oldest son also went on to have an amazing BAC result with a mention tres bien, it was brilliant. His teachers' comments; well it was because his English elevated his scores (he got 20/20 in every subject) there is a lot of negativity towards non-French speakers in the school system. I don't think it's scaremongering telling you this but I've seen first hand the children who are placed in school here at an older age and some of them really suffer.

*because they are NOT French

I think this is right. Even things like maths and science are really very different, especially how questions are asked.

There's also the OIB which quite a few lycées do where about a third of your marks will come from English language papers.

Thank you all, we can't get to France until early July when DD has finished her GCSEs we have spoke to the lycée and they are happy for her to go in for a few hours to assess her and make sure she will be comfortable starting in September, they seem really helpful. She has self taught herself French always reading and watching TV in French as well as gcse french which she has done very well in she has done extra vocab lessons with her French teacher too. Her lycée does do some lessons in English and has a European section. The school seem excited that she is going to be arriving.