enrolling in French state school over summer ...

[anotherbadnight]

planning a move to France next year and it looks likely to be over the summer. We won't know where we are going to live until then so won't be able to enroll the kids in maternelle in advance (no fixed address and all that). Anyone know whether it's generally possible to enroll over the summer hols - keen for them to be there from the first day of school

Will you have a vague idea of where you're going (e.g. town!) so you can pre-warn the mairie?

May be difficult to enroll over the summer as bits of France just shut down for August, but it can be done. You may have to be prepared to spend hours at the mairie and refuse to leave until it's done though!

good plan - do you have to register at the mairie rather than at the school? we may (hopefully!) be a bit clearer by then but at the moment it's pretty vague

Yes, it can be done. Don't worry too much about it .

If you want your DC to attend a French state maternelle or primary school, you need to get in touch with your local mairie once you have an address, and they will normally allocate you a place at the school of the catchment area you are living in. So you need, before signing a lease or purchasing a property, to work out which school your address would mean your DCs end up at. Often your rental agent or estate agent can help with this (and if they aren't helpful, pester them or look it up on the internet). You will not normally have any choice of state school.

However, French Catholic schools do not have catchment areas and their fees are often very low. If you think you might want to send your DC to a Catholic school, you need to contact it directly quite soon.

Just to add about the Catholic schools - my DS went to a Catholic maternelle and it was fantastic. If you know roughly the area you'll be in (but not the address) I imagine you could enrol. At ours you had to phone in early January for an enrolment appointment in April (and it was hard to get in after January), and the fees were 40 euros a month.

Not sure if its the same where you will be, but where we lived schools were desperate for pupils as funding depends on number of pupils. You need to go to mairie to get a certificate d'inscription, which you can do in the holidays. If you take this to the school on the day before school starts, the director should be there. We just turned up with our children on a school day and the staff were keen for them to stay. Enrolling for school was one of the easier things we had to do.

Good luck

thanks for this - v reassuring.