Ds educated until 14 in France but think we want to send him to uk to do gcse's. Anyone done this?

[mountaingirl]

Our ds is 14 about to finish college and would then go onto the local lycee to complete his education. We are debating whether or not to send him back to the UK to start gcse course then A's then hopefully university. We have heard that other children have found the English system much easier and child friendly (better pastoral care etc). Has anyone done this and how have they and their children felt leaving the french system and going into the UK system for the first time? All advice welcome please!

Anyone???

Is your ds completely biliterate? Are you sure? I´m thinking in terms of it is perhaps late in the day to start English-medium education but maybe not too late. I suspect the French system is much more rigourous than the English one though.

Bumping for you!

Hi Sachertorte, yes he is completely bilingual. The French system from what I have seen so far is very much like the teaching in the 60's - 70's in the UK. I have heard via the grapevine of other kids entering into the UK system after the French and finding it easier. Just wondered if anyone had done it this way round?

My DP went from the French system to the International Schooling system which he found fairly easy HOWEVER it's a completely different learning ethos/way of learning. I find French students aren't very good at independent learning, researching and discussing ideas and doing activities which require personal expression because that simply isn't the way things are taught here. Of course I may just tutor children from crap schools or they all have the same problems but they do have a tendency to look blankly at me when I try to get them to do that sort of thing.

The disadvantage of going to the UK system is the limited range of subjects on offer post-14. You have to choose GCSEs (various combinations of which may be unavailable) and then A-levels with uni/future careers in mind rather than choosing to do a Bac S, L or ES which focuses on a broad area rather than a specific subject. Or something like the IB which is practically 3 A-levels and 3 ASs covering a range of subject areas.

Alos, is he going to uni in the UK or would he be looking to apply throughout Europe? For applications in more than one country the IB would probably be better purely because the French look down on A-levels and the British look down on the Bac - each country thinks their particular system is better whereas with the IB it's not as good as the country's national system, but not as bad as a "foreign" national system.

The pastoral care is better in the UK though, in general, when compared to the French system.