Private secondary after French school primary

[carine23]

Hello

We are considering enrolling our DD to one of the French bi lingual schools. They go until 10 or 15. Since we plan to stay in U.K. I want her to be ready for British uni so was hoping we can get her to a private secondary (not good state secondary options where we are).
Has anyone done this? Can the children be accepted in private secondary if they followed French curricular and most important will they struggle a lot ?

Thank you

Hi Carine. I think it might be hard for posters to answer this without some idea of where in the country you are. I’m assuming you are moving or have recently moved to the UK from France. What level of English does your DD have? FWIW I moved to UK at 15 ( to a good state school) after being in French schools for 10 years and didn’t have any particular academic problems, although settling in socially took about a year.
Maybe if you post a bit more, with your DDs age, rough location etc others can come along with advice.

Hello
Sorry adding context.
My girl is 3 years old and we are in St. Albans considering a move to London and joining college bilingue. Since in the area we are looking in london have very few secondary state we are just thinking ahead whst are our options when she gets to 15.

Private secondaries main intake points are 11 and 16 - so switching over at 10 could work fine. Switching at 15 wouldn't work as students study for GCSEs aged 14 to 16. If you want to switch at that age I think you would need a private school offering the International Baccalaureate rather than a general private secondary. You could also switch to state secondary at 11 fine though may need to investigate what languages they offer, my kids one just does one in y7 and y8 but DDs grammar offered two.

Well there is the Lycee Charles de Gaulle in South Ken. It is subsidised if you are French; otherwise it is ££’s. I think they have primary too.

There are several sites.
They have an ecole primaire but I’m not sure if they start from Maternelle at 3 or CP at 6.

I’ve just seen their fees and it is expensive. I have heard that the French government subsidises French Nationals.
Having a British child at school in France mysel, I would say that if you wanted to get your Dd British university ready, the bilingual section would be best, rather than the pure French bit.

I looked into this option but it seems it’s crazy hard to get there and my husband wasn’t keen on the pure French system as too academic and not based on positive enforcement. That’s why we were looking fir the bi lingual instead thst still does French curricular but with English pedagogy

Indeed we hope to go to uni in U.K.

The school does have a bilingual section. I take it you are French and your DH is English?
Can you not just send your Dd to a uk primary school and give her extra French lessons and do opol ( one parent; one language at home?)

Actually I am French and Lebanese. So talking Arabic to children but still looking for a way to get the French. Another option would be state primary and French nanny but there are so little good state primary if we move to hampstead based on what I found online. So we thought of college bi lingue partly to get them French but also as an alternative to state primary which are hard to find there or private primary which are more expensive and probably impossible to get to as we left it late.

Hello Carine. We had the same idea as your and your husband in terms of educating our children. We wanted to start in the French system and then move to the British one principally because DH (French) liked the solid foundations the early French education gave, but preferred the breadth of a very good private education which we could access in London.

We, too, preferred the bilingual schools and turned down a place at CdG. Due to various events, we ended up pulling both children out during the pre-prep years and switching to English schools. It is possible to switch to English schools at normal switch points in the French system (the 11+ level), but in order to have a good chance at the most selective schools in London, we would have had to do years of private tutoring to make sure they were accessing the exam appropriate information and skills and decided that it would be better to just switch them early.

My advice, though, is based on the crazy, competitive London secondary transfer scene for the very top schools. Less competitive schools would be doable from a bilingual school with tutoring in the last 1.5 years just to make sure comprehension, reasoning, story writing, and maths (word problems in particular) are worked on.

Another option might be to keep her in the French system to 18 and then apply to UK universities with her French bac results. Most (all?) UK universities offer entry through equivalent EU qualifications.

I know many French families who go to English schools (state or private depending on what is available to them) and they do French school on a Saturday.
All have done their French GCSE 2 years early and got the top grade. At school they have taken another language to learn with their peers.
Would that be an option?