Jenny Colgan fails to plan for school in France

This’ll teach me to be smug. For the last two years, whenever anyone has politely enquired where on earth we’ll be educating the children, given that we live in a part of London famous for Sweeney Todd, newspapers and having absolutely no children whatsoever, I’d try (and fail) not to  look TOO smug and say, oh, well, we’re moving to France with my husband’s job… whereupon people’s eyes would glaze over and they would see in their mind’s eye, just as we did, a fantasy that combined Etre et Avoir, Jean de Florette and those annoying petit filou ads.

Oh yes, I’d heard those wondrous tales of tots being sat down at 11am to tackle three course meals with knives and forks (and wine. No, not before noon!), and a residual teaching culture of naughty boy ear- pinching, something which, as the mother of two naughty boys, I’m not entirely averse to.

But now, as of 2008, we’re actually here, rather than just smugly talking about it. And, needless to say,  it’s a touch more daunting. Suddenly, the reality of my kids being schooled in a place where a) I am going to completely suck at helping with homework, and b) you can’t even say 94 without doing some fairly complicated arithmetic, is sinking in.

I always thought I'd be one of those quite good (read, insufferably pushy) mums, helping out with their projects, chivvying them kindly into doing your homework. But if you’re sitting there trying to put all the Louis in order, I’m not going to be much help to you. You know, my sons are going to write their ‘ones’ funny. And that’s before we even get to the language. My husband and I are passable and on the up, but we’re still going to be those embarrassing immigrant parents. That’s why we’re working hard with Bernadette the Martinet; so that, hopefully, we don’t have to get our children to take us to the doctors.

Still, we have the first problem to get through: finding a place. It is a belief that has finally jumped up and bit me in the arse: my long standing conviction that socialised education- ie, if no-one has the option for private education all the schools will be better, coming from a Scottish comprehensive which was nothing like as fearsome as its Southern equivalents, private education in Scotland being seen as something for rich parents of Edinburgh thickies. Well here, private education is indeed banned, at least in our area. And guess what. The local nurseries are amazing. Immaculate, fantastically equipped, with happy looking children and bright, engaging staff. So can we get the two year old into one? Can we bollocks. It’s like trying to get into whatever that evil trick was Tony Blair pulled at the Brompton Oratory. I’d hate to interrupt Nicolas Sarkozy’s heavy schedule of having acrobatic sex with supermodels to ask him to fix it, but Nicolas- FIX IT! Sorry: FEEX EET! S’il vous plâit.

Not that it’s not lovely to have the two-year-old padding about helping his dad dig a trench in the cellar (I don’t know if we actually need a trench, it just seems to be something  that men who move to a new house need to do) and bringing in the chopped firewood, but he needs to be with other children before he becomes one of those James Harries types that joins in too much at dinner parties. Plus he needs to learn French properly- the directrice of the school he’s starting in September warned us not to speak French to him in case he picked up our disgusting accents. But he won’t manage it on Dora L’Exploratrice alone, although I was delighted when a waiter set his black olive pasta in front of him the other day (hurrah for France and it’s no kid’s menus- food faddiness here really is met with raised eyebrows) and he said ‘Hou la la!’.  Which he then instantly denied and refused to repeat of course.

So that’s why I’ve found myself sitting in a wildly overheated room watching the baby make a bid for freedom across the concrete floor. A nice lady explains CAF to us for ninety minutes. This is the Caisse Assistance Familiale, which helps you pay for any childcare costs you may incur, for only the cost of filling in three thousand forms and doing advanced algebraic calculations. This is how it works, she explains to the roomful of mothers. (French mums, by the way, make Natalia Vodianova look like a slouch when it comes to getting your figure back post-childbirth). You actually employ the childminder yourself.

Everyone looks shocked. The state pays, but you’re the employer. This just doesn’t compute to the lucky French who are used to the government taking care of everything. Then the lady tells a story about a woman who went back to work full time when her baby was only twenty three weeks old! Cue lots of eye rolling and shocked expressions. I don’t tell her about my American friend Victoria who had to go back to her job before she was legally allowed to drive, post-caesarian.

But finally, after four hundred hours, we get the piece of paper we need. Now, time to call the creche ladies… I wonder what the French is for begging?

Comments

[Delilah (Episcopalians get Sunday off)]

I'm intrigued. If French schools churn out such cookie-cutter graduates why so fond of place and people, aren't they all small-minded drones? Or could it be (shock horror) that genuine creativity survives a bit of social conformity?

Sufficiently intrigued to do a quick google search of most innovative/creative countries, and have to say UK didn't feature. (Nor did France). Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, and US did ... probably bunkum stats but the consensus seemed to be that private (not state) investment in R&D is the biggest determinant of innovation and creativity, not any particular type of schooling or personal freedom. Interesting though that all four countries value social conformity hard work and teamwork over individuality (even the US, believe me)and have a history of respect for vocational education.

[Sarah]

I have a five year old son and he attends the local village school where we live in France.

The headmaster, the teachers and the assistants have been wonderful BUT I have to say that he is pretty sad there the majority of the time. It has taken a year and a half for the kids to stop teasing him. That is a hard thing to have to live with day after very long day. Would I be able to deal with it? I think not and yet he has to soldier on. Thankfully the teasing has finally stopped.

For about a year the staff thought he had learning difficulties because he didn't say much. They couldn't seem to understand that he was learning another language with no help and reference to his own. It takes time for all that new vocabulary and grammar to sink in. He has mastered it and they have finally realised that he is, in fact, a very intelligent kid.

While there are benefits to some of the early education methods – beautiful handwriting, learning to memorise poems etc (I think that memory skills are essential and have been forgotten about in the UK system), colouring in between the lines in the accepted colour (hmm ... I have no time for that!) it is basically the kind of education that I had back in Scotland in the 60s. Not all bad but ... no music, no sport, no kind of classroom excitement. I feel that his enquiring spirit and endless thirst for knowledge is being quashed. Luckily both his father and recognise this and aim to let him have his fill of whatever he needs at home.

The education system in France is for cookie cutter kids. One of the most frightening things that I heard last year on the radio was that in a survey the majority of university students aspired to nothing more than being a government functionary of some sort. Job for life, long lunch hours and roll on death. This is maybe a prime reason that France is failing as a creative and dynamic innovator.

It is sad because we do love it and we love our friends (incidentally they all have a problem with the lack of fun and aspiration and diversity of ideas in the schools) but I would say that our boy will be in school in the US or UK within the next five years. Ideas and innovation what could be better than that.

Scary stuff on the French school system! But it's really useful to take it on board when we moan about the British one....

[j]

having taught in a French lycee I would remind us all that it's easy to see the flaws in our own education- I remember only too well the issues I had at my large comprehensive school. All systems have their potential and their troubles. There will be issues in the future whatever schooling we choose for our kids (says she with 3 at 3 different secondary schools)

[Susan]

Agree with Sally. French education can seem wonderful to Brits after a more traditional education, but although the curriculum is good, methods are dubious. My 3 year old was chastised for colouring things the "wrong" colours, which gave us quite an insight into how imagination and difference are stamped on early. Older children learn by rote and regurgitate, asking questions isn't encouraged and there is no attempt to foster the enquiring mind so valued by UK universities.

It's actually the *Caisse d'Allocations Familiales*. They don't pay for your childminder, they subsidise it - parents pay at least half. And maternity leave ends at 12 weeks postnatal so plenty of little ones are in full-time nursery at a lot less than 23 weeks.

[dina]

I went to school in France, all the way up. It was an awful experience. Difference is to be shunned, the system is designed to pulled the brightest down for the sake of 'equality'. Thank god I'm out of there.I wish that experience to no one, not even to my worst enemies.

[Sally Tisserand]

I am English, living in Paris with my two children - 17 and 16. Apart from 2 years in Belgium they have been educated in the French system: state school up to 11 and then private catholic. Private school with school lunches costs around £100 per month. All creeds and colours are at the school which has an excellent academic record.
French education, state or private, is not for the weak, not for the artistic ,nor sporty, indeed not for any child that stands out from the 'norm'. It is for children who can learn the national programme and then regurgitate it for the Bac exams. Do not expect more than that. Humiliation and pressure are everyday occurences. The French system does not admire or encourage difference. Excellence in one area can even be seen as showing off and is to be avoided. My children have learned to fit in and will do well academically, but at what cost to their sense of self-worth and oh dear me, their poor imagination and non-existant free writing abilities.
The private system is cheap compared to the UK, Those once very critical republican-minded French friends with kids in the local state schools are now paying a fortune on extra private lessons after school.
Every choice has its cost, let's just try to prepare our kids for life after school.

[Sally Tisserand]

I am English, living in Paris with my two children - 17 and 16. Apart from 2 years in Belgium they have been educated in the French system: state school up to 11 and then private catholic. Private school with school lunches costs around £100 per month. All creeds and colours are at the school which has an excellent academic record.
French education, state or private, is not for the weak, not for the artistic ,nor sporty, indeed not for any child that stands out from the 'norm'. It is for children who can learn the national programme and then regurgitate it for the Bac exams. Do not expect more than that. Humiliation and pressure are everyday occurences. The French system does not admire or encourage difference. Excellence in one area can even be seen as showing off and is to be avoided. My children have learned to fit in and will do well academically, but at what cost to their sense of self-worth and oh dear me, their poor imagination and non-existant free writing abilities.
The private system is cheap compared to the UK, Those once very critical republican-minded French friends with kids in the local state schools are now paying a fortune on extra private lessons after school.
Every choice has its cost, let's just try to prepare our kids for life after school.

[Lazy Mummy]

In the US, kindergarten starts at six, too and that's when formal academic education starts. Children start pre-school somewhere between 3 and 5, usually; we're investigating preschools now & hoping to get our daughter in when she turns 4 (she does group activities & shares a nanny with another child, so isn't wholly without social skills/group activities right now!) From what I've seen, pre-schools here do a range of activities: lots of focus on social skills, and activities like free play, songs, dances, dress-up, arts & crafts; outings, nature walks, etc.

When I was a child (in England in the 70s), we started school the term after our 5th birthdays and that was soon enough for most children. It seems like the school starting age has gradually got younger & younger in Britain, and I just don't understand why, when we know that developmentally, not all children are going to be ready to learn academic stuff at 4. In fact, it
probably turns off those who are developmentally slower in those areas and doesn't necessarily produce better-educated OR better-rounded individuals in the long run. As someone else said, it seems reasonable to put children this age in an environment where they're learning social skills, etc., but also to teach them to read/count/write if they're interested at that stage. Those skills are often best taught 1:1 anyway, and I think most parents spend time, as we do, teaching them to our children as & when they seem ready to learn them.

[Rachel Le Borgne]

It's the Caisse aux Allocations Francaises and can be quite helpful when it comes to childcare, but I found it easier to send the children to a local creche/halte garderie and then the Maternelle.

French children do spend such a lot of time in school. From the age of 3 so many of them are in school from 7.30am until 5pm or often later. The childcare system is good, but it does mean that kids have a very long day.

I've recently come back to the UK and have found that my 2 girls have thrived in the English school. In France they weren't pushed and weren't encouraged to be different. I was horrified to hear at my daughter's 1st parents' evening in her CP class, that they worked all children the same, and that they didn't move on to the next topic until everyone was ready. My daughter was always top of the class without any effort on her part, something which I think is wrong. We moved to England the year of her Keystage 1 SATS. She couldn't read or write in English, all her previous schooling had been done in French (from the age of 3). The teachers in England were fantastic and said they would help her as much as she needed. She gradually worked her way through the work and reading books and was top of the class once again but in her second language. I can't thank her teachers enough. She is bright, and has blossomed so much in the past 2 yrs thanks to the English system of treating each child as an individual. This is not my experience of the French system at all. All we were told was that she was too shy and quiet.

[j]

Anna, isnt a big element in your choice, the decision on where you as a family plan to live later on?

[Jane]

why rush it at the early stages- let them play!
***

I don't think very young children should be taught in a formal school-like way, and I think seeing a tiny child in a school uniform in a classroom is pretty grim, but I do question an attitude that contrasts 'play' with 'learning'. Not only is 'play' so often 'learning' anyway but also, 'learning' is also 'play' and its surely an essential idea to get across to children that 'learning' is NOT the opposite of 'play' - that learning is enormously good fun, exciting, challenging and enjoyable. Yes, HOW we teach/learn may not be, but learning itself is the most wonderful adventure for the human mind, and why stop children from doing it?

[Lisa]

Anna: if it makes you feel better, there were many Germans at University with me in the UK (and French and so on). I think the real time delay comes in at tertiary education level (same for Italy I believe), as they don't have a strict three year degree timeline as there is in the UK, though I do believe that they finish school at the same age as A Levels.

[MonacoMum]

My 2 year old daughter has just started at the local creche here in the South of France and absolutely loves it- so do we! There is 1 teacher/assistant for every 3 children, the school is modern, clean, bright and friendly with lots of equipment (bikes for each child etc).The cost of this is based upon your last year's income (you have to take a tax declaration in in as well as many other papers), as my husband stayed home until very recently (very un-French for a Frenchman..)to look after our daughter whilst I worked full time, this means that we pay EUR 1.60 per hour for childcare from 09h30-17h30 Mon-Fri. Bargain :)I did have to put her name down when I was 5 months pregnant, which made me laugh (the creche is not exactly Eton, is it?), although in the end, we didn't qualify for a place in the state creche until both parents were working (well, it is there for that). I'm delighted that my child will just play for the time being as I strongly believe that all play and observing others at play at this age IS learning. Plenty of time for dicté and conjugaisons and tests later. Real school (maternelle) starts at 3 and even that takes a while to get going academically. But, you know, we all hope that our children will go to university and this means that they won't finish school really until around 24- why rush it at the early stages- let them play!

[Anna]

Lisa:
you know, as I was writing about the german kindergarten, I thought it sounded great too! I suspect, having read Junilou's comments, that I am being too English about the whole thing - worrying that she will fall behind her English and French cousins of the same age or younger, then find it harder to get a job (outside Germany) because she will be too old by the time she finishes her education. Although I still don't see why kindergartens can't find a bit of time in the week to teach any interested children the alphabet, numbers, etc. Lots of them teach some English (songs, reading stories, etc), why not some basic literacy and numeracy too?

[Junilou]

Oh and goodenoughmummy, I don't disagree that not all is good in the French system but there are priggish swots in the English system as well. I have met personally quite a few of them.

[Junilou]

Well, first of all, as a French person living in England, I can tell you that the English school system can be as baffling if not more to outsiders than the French one. Calling to register your little darlings before they're even born? Moving houses to be in the "right" zone just to find out that this year, you aren't? Having conversations with the other mums in the nursery playroom about secondary school education? I've been at it for seven years and I still don't get it.
Secondly, a very large majority of French mums (much larger than say, in middle-class England) goes back to work after their allocated 12 weeks. Working mothers are the norm in Paris, and in large cities in France, much more than they are in the UK.
That being said, good luck. Moving to another country is always very difficult, and doing so with kids even more so. There is a book called Living and Working in France which covers a lot of these issues.

[Lisa]

Personally (but that's because I grew up in a system where you start "proper" school the year you turn 7), I think the German kindergarten sounds brilliant. Anna, if you daughter wants and is able to learn to read, surely you could read with her at home?

[Claire King]

Goodness me. Well we must be the lucky ones then.

We have been in France for 6 years and our oldest (nearly two and a half) daughter started Maternelle after New Year.

She started because she lost her place at the garderie she attended in another village due to a reorganisation that reduced places. So our village maternelle took her in early, in order to keep her socialising and keep her French going (we are both English but with passable French).

Our daughter is in a class of 19 children from her age up to just under 6, which splits into three age groups from time to time for activities which are more suitable to be done by age. There is one teacher and an assistant and our daughter is absolutely delighted with the whole set up, and so are we.

Jenny, the CAF is the Caisse des Allocations Familiales and shouldn't really be as much of a nightmare as you suggest (artistic licence?). Im baffled as to whose concrete floor your baby is charging across but it really isn't that bad.

I'll tell you what, I offer you all my assistance and advice on the subject, for what it's worth, if you will explain the (real!) workings of literary agents to me.

[Anna]

When I have asked in kindergartens, whether they teach reading/writing, etc., they all look horrified and say that that is left until they are at school. The kindergarten is there to teach the children social skills, hygiene, although 3 year olds must be out of nappies, so hygiene is generally handwashing and toothbrushing, lots of physical activity - they often have decent sized, varyingly equipped gardens and all seem to have a "Turnhalle", ie a gym, with climbing equipment, mini trampoline, big stackable pvc cushions, etc.. They have reading corners (for an adult to read to the children), lots of playing, including dressing up and role playing, one I have seen had a piano and most do lots of singing, painting, crafts, some might have fish or animals that the children can feed... The children often help get their breakfast ready and clear up afterwards. So they do a lot. The quality varies, obviously, with the motivation of the people who work in the kindergarten, at least half of whom are qualified (but that doesn't always translate into motivation). The groups are mixed age, so the small kids get used to the big ones and vice versa, which I think only works with good supervision. They go on outings, eg to the theatre, the dentist, have talks from the police. It is mostly interesting stuff and the children seem to enjoy it, but there is no academic learning at all, which I think is a loss for intelligent children who are perfectly capable of learning to read much earlier than 6 years old. I don't know what the reasons are. My daughter (3 years and one month) knows lots of songs by heart (and sings them all the time, with actions!), can already recognise a few letters, knows that a word next to a picture usually describes the picture, and can count to 10 in three languages - not because we are pushy parents, just because she has picked it up through playing with us, watching dvds and TV, and at her creche, and because she is naturally curious. Effectively, if she goes to a German kindergarten, she will still not be able to do any more than that in three and a half years time! My husband says that the Germans have fun for the first 6 years of their lives and then are serious and have no fun for the rest of their lives. And, having lived in Germany for nearly 5 years (as well as some years previously in France, Switzerland and the USA), I certainly don't find that the Germans have any notable social skills that other nationalities are lacking - in fact, often the opposite. It is very safe here though, with low crime levels, especially compared to the UK and France, and there seem to be no problems with aggressive youth, at least not in the affluent West where we live. I don't know whether that can be attributed to socialisation in kindergarten or not though...

[Kim]

Jane, there's no particular reason to be teaching five year olds to read. Most continental countries start later, with no obvious problems. I once interviewed a former headteacher who said that this country wastes vast amounts of money by identifying five and six year olds as having "special needs", and giving them extra tuition and help, when in fact if we just waited till the children were seven, they'd learn to read and write without any problems. It's a developmental issue - some kids just aren't ready to read at 5. Why not let them play?

[Jaywalker]

Ooooh yes Jenny, Molly, Pig, I have also been there, had the breakdown. We moved back to London from Paris after failing to find a crèche place for our two boys despite huge amounts of begging, pestering, letters to our local député, etc etc.. You have to make yourself a permanent feature at the town hall to be in with an outside chance of a place, prepare for a long summer of stalking the official responsible!
Now they are both (aged 6 and 4) in school in Brussels and are very happy, but it is SO structured... The youngest started at the tender age of two and a half and both found the 'sit down and learn' culture fairly tough after UK nursery, with eldest castigated for scribbliness of his drawings and all four of us were sent to the headmaster within the first fortnight for some serious cultural reeducation!
On the plus side, the system has huge benefits for a family with two working parents, as the assumption is parents will work, and pre and after school care is universal and virtually free. It's also a good, mixed state school that draws from a varied catchment area rather than the kind of ultra-privileged middle class homogeneity they had in London. Most important of all, they're happy, have plenty of friends, and run into school in the morning without a backwards glance. I am putting my trust in the kids' resilience and trying to provide enough fun and silliness at home to compensate for the strictness. Not without some qualms though! Gulp.. Good luck anyway.

[Jane]

in the German system children go to kindergarten from age 3-6, do lots of fun stuff but no learning (not even the alphabet or counting),[

***

I'm curious, what do the staff there say the point of kindergarten is, then? Is it just for child minding? Socialisation?

I don't necessarily argue in favour of teaching children things like reading or maths early (though if they can do it happily, what's the problem?), but I would like to know what the children's minds are supposed to be 'doing' if they are not learning things like reading and maths while they are at kindergarten? What are the cited advantages of delaying that learning? (Yes, I know the theory is that they are all 'equalised' by nine or whatever, but my question is more what they ARE doing rather than what they are NOT doing, in such kindergartens)

[Anna]

I am currently deciding what to do with my 3 year old daughter and vacillating between various options, none of which is perfect. I am English, my husband is French and we live in Germany. We have the choice between an expensive private English school, a state-run French school and a German kindergarten. The English and French schools are real schools, ie pre-school from age 3 followed by actual learning from age 4-5, whereas in the German system children go to kindergarten from age 3-6, do lots of fun stuff but no learning (not even the alphabet or counting), then have to cram all their learning once they finally start school at 6. Since my daughter is born in January, she would be nearly 7 before she started school. They generally finish their education later than in the English or French systems - an average graduate finishes in his/her late twenties. Add in to the equation that the French and (almost all) German schools are half-day schools, ie they finish at 13h, and "extras" like sport, music, etc. are done out of school. I can't decide which will be best, especially since there are short term and long term advantages and disadvantages in all systems. Advice or ideas from anyone with similar experience very welcome!

[Goodenoughmummy]

How do you imagine French children are so well behaved in public? They are trained to be robotically well mannered in grown up surroundings such as restaurants and we British wring our hands and wish we could bring up children like that. Well, we can if we're prepared to be as ruthless as the French. Many other continental education systems are similarly rigid. In Switzerland, my friend's son was humiliated in front of his whole class by his teacher because he did badly in an exam.

We think we are less child-friendly than the continentals but in many ways we are a hell of a lot more child-centred and we like to bring up well-rounded kids, not priggish swots or kids who grow up feeling failures because they did not jump through the necessary academic hoops.