French without Tears

Educationalist Karen Cooper discusses French education and walks parents through those first points of contact with the French system

"School is fantastic!!" was the verdict of my five year old daughter, who spoke not a word of French, after the first morning at her new French school in the tiny rural village where we now live. Perhaps it was the fact that she, like most of her comrades, was coming home for a two hour lunch, or that she would be having Wednesdays off, or that she had done nothing all morning except play in the 'home corner' and colouring in. Formal and obligatory education in France starts at six (although this will change in September)

To find a school, the first step is to contact the Mairie in the commune in which you are going to live. All children, French or foreign, whose permanent residence is in France have the right to be educated there. Since 1882 French state education has been free, fiercely secular (don't expect a nativity play at Christmas, for example) and obligatory from the age of six to sixteen. It is divided into four sectors: Pre-school 'Ecole Maternelle' for two to six year olds; primary 'Ecole Primaire' for six to eleven year olds; secondary 'College' for eleven to fifteen year olds and 'Lycee' for fifteen to eighteen year olds.

The programme of education is very rigid. It is fixed by Ministerial decree and administrated by the twenty-six regional Academies. The hours per week are long: twenty seven for primary , thirty five for secondary with quite onerous amounts of homework, even for very young children, on top of that. There is a lot of passive learning and reciting by heart: the type of education some British parents have been yearning for. If you have a child who is average or above, do expect them to write beautifully, speak Latin and recite their multiplication tables. If not don't expect the system to cope well with learning difficulties or behavioural problems.

To enroll your child you'll need various certificates some of which don't exist outside France. We had to provide an 'attestation' from the Mairie to state that we lived here; a 'fiche d'etat civil' to state my daughter's date of birth and details of her parents; a vaccination certificate, (all children must have a BCG) and a 'certificat de radiation' which is a pupil transfer certificate in English. She would also need to have insurance cover for her time at school. This can be covered by your home insurance or be a separate policy.

I had all the necessary documents (births, marriage, transfer etc) translated and officially stamped by the French Consulate in London before arriving in France. The Consulate provides a list of authorised translators. Shop around as their prices vary but expect to pay around £20.00 per document. For peace of mind, once translated, I took them personally to the Consulate to be stamped. Beware, the queue is enormous and they only accept cash (around £5.00 per stamp). Back in France, with these in hand, I went to the Mairie which was able to give me my 'attestation' and 'fiche d'etat civil' on the spot. The day before school started I took these along with the other two certificates to the Head Teacher and watched as my daughter's name was written into the register.

Two major concerns of people with young families contemplating a move to France are bilingualism, meaning how difficult will it be for my children to acquire enough French to participate fully in school lessons, and integration.

"Will my children be rejected by their schoolmates? Will they be called names? Will they be teased? We all know that children can be cruel..."

First, all children are natural linguists. A child under 7 years old will be able to communicate in a matter of days and in 3 months a six year old will be able to participate in all lessons at the same level as the rest of the class. It is harder for older children as the work becomes harder and they become more self conscious, but all the children we have met in France who started school with little or no French language are completely comfortable and have not found that the standards of their work have been affected in any way. In many cases the opposite was found and they have improved in some subjects.

Integration is not a problem. French culture is traditionally polite and welcoming; family values are very strong. Apart from the teasing that all children will do, the equivalent of "speccy four eyes" or "inky swot", kids will judge everyone on their own merit and as the common thread in all French society is the language, then by speaking French your kids will be welcome, just as you will be.

Whatever you do don't think you're going to send little Johnny or Tamsin to a local school for two weeks to give them an 'immersion course' in French. It is trivial and selfish. Education is a serious business. Parachuting your child in in the expectation that he will somehow be enriching the class is foolish. It's not fair to your own child, and it's not fair to other children in the class who are getting the bedrock of their education.