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11/01/2008, 16:37 Albert the InfoGipsy Joined on 01/07/2006 Kingdom of the Middle Saxons & Vannes (56) Posts 628 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. One thing to bear in mind is that speaking/listening is only part of the picture. My sons were orally bilingual when they started secondary school and quite capable of reading Asterix, etc in French. However they were not much better than their English friends when it came to writing. Their spelling was poor and they had no grasp of things like conjugating verbs, where the differences are visible but not pronounced. Your son will have had a couple of years of learning French at school, but I don't know how much emphasis there is on grammar nowadays. In France it is taken very seriously The nearer a child is to their key public exams the more critical this problem gets. It's not necessarily a show-stopper but you do need to take it into account. Albert the InfoGipsy "So welcome to the Citadel where the question is 'Am I?'"    Report

11/01/2008, 19:01 Sprogster Joined on 23/08/2004 Var & C.I. Posts 355 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. If you follow other similar threads the general consensus is that thirteen is the sensible cut off age for moving a child to a foreign country, where they are not fluent in the language of their new country.  If your son will be 14 he will have started his GSCE curriculum and is therefore only two years from completing his all important secondary education public exams. The problem is that his new French school has no obligation to educate him beyond 16 years of age, so the risk is that unless he can bring himself up to full French standard in two years, he would be asked to leave when he was 16. Do you not have friends or relatives in the UK that he can stay with term time so he can complete his secondary education?    Report

11/01/2008, 21:28 Mackyfrance Joined on 24/05/2007 Posts 33 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. Moving a child straight in to college in France can be very difficult. My son's head told me the other day that they simply can't take another non-French speaking child (they only have about 5 out of a student body of 450) and said I must 'tell all my friends that it is too hard on the child, too difficult for the teachers and unfair on the other pupils'. Spending holidays in France, even feeling at home and having friends is a completely different thing to actually living and going to school here. School is completely different to the UK, very rigid and proscribed, light on practical subjects, generally poor in IT and heavily reliant on rote learning. Help for non-French speaking children varies hugely from 1to1 to nothing at all so that should be something to check out first. Enrolment would be in the June preceding September entry. I would think very carefully about moving a child at that age though. Sorry to be a bit negative.      Report

11/01/2008, 23:23 Tresco Joined on 23/08/2004 Charente Maritime. Posts 4,635 Re: Moving with a 13 year old.  Mackyfrance wrote: Sorry to be a bit negative.   Don't worry about it Macky. People asking questions about something that has no 'definte' answer should expect to hear a wide range of views, including 'negative' ones. I've heard precisely the things you say (on this and other forums, but also from people I know in real life) about how different things are, and how very difficult it is for both children and parents to adjust, so you (and your children) aren't alone in your experiences. For the OP at least you've given them things to look out for.    Report

12/01/2008, 20:08 Jura Joined on 28/11/2005 Posts 803 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. "Spending holidays in France, even feeling at home and having friends is a completely different thing to actually living and going to school here." Amen ! If only the 'France' that some people find and gloat about could be the same 'France' that other's find to be a total pain in the ***.      Report

12/01/2008, 20:56 Cathy Joined on 07/03/2006 Mostly near Bordeaux; Sometimes near Bristol Posts 1,954 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. Mazza I've wanted to post a longer note to you, especially after the negative comments, but have been very ill.  This will be a long post.  I brought three out of my four children out to France as teenagers.  The 4th child is under 10. You have obviously been thinking about this move for some time because you have been going to the Vendee for 10 years.  It's great that your son already has friends here. Aged about 14/15, he will have to take 'Le Brevet' which is an exam stage that all French children have to go through.  At this stage, they are tested in all subjects, including for example PE.  To 'pass' you have to get an average of 10 out of 20 and, new this year, no lower than 10 out of 20 in English, so he will be all right on that requirement. I am unsure which year that your son will join.  Le Brevet in done at the end of 3eme (troisieme).  It is a hard year to do straight off so you may like to consider him starting in 4eme (quatrieme).  One advantage of the French system is that if you struggle, you can re-do a year (redoubler). After Le Brevet, he could take an academic route and do the Baccalauriat (not for the feint hearted) or could do a technical route, which is not generally on offer in the UK. On the technical route, for example, two of my children go to a ecole professionnel where they receive an amazing technical education.  On the school site is a public restaurant and one of the children (aged 16) learns how to cook and serve two days per week and follows academic subjects for the rest of the week.  The 14 year old, on her course, is being given tasters to learn different aspects of employment e.g. hotel work, hospital work as well as the usual academic subjects.  The courses are hard - they are tested on every subject every 2 weeks - but they are holding their own even though they are not native speakers.  The great advantage to them is that they will be fully trilingual (they learn Spanish as well), which a UK education would not have given them. I do not have a child doing the Bacc but I did attend a French lycee when I was a teenager and the Bacc is much harder than 'AS' and 'A2' levels.  You study all subjects (there are variations, depending on which Bacc you choose) and have to do well to get a good average.  You can't cherry pick subjects and drop the ones you don't like.  French teachers are very honest and school reports are very truthful, which can hurt a child not used to such critical comments. When choosing a school, do not be surprised if they do not show you around (except on an open day).  Parents are left at the school gate in France.  I have not seen most of my children's classrooms, for example, even though I went to interviews etc.  The classrooms that I have seen are bare.  I am pleased with this as they do not spend time putting up displays for parents when they should be teaching. You haven't mentioned why you are leaving the UK but I became very disallusioned with the state of UK education.  Libby Purves in The Times last week cited problems including the misguided trend in the UK for mixed ability teaching, 25 years of meddling with the curriculum by the UK government, the erosion of UK teachers' authority etc.  So sometimes, it isn't what you are going to but what you are leaving that spurs on the decision-making process. Good luck with your move and integrating your son.  He will find it hard and he will need a lot of tender loving care during the first few months but the chances are that he will become biligual, or even trilingual.   Cathy ----- Your children won't remember you ironing their pyjamas but they will remember you reading them a bedside story.    Report

15/01/2008, 22:52 mazza Joined on 04/01/2008 Posts 7 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. Hi Cathy, Thank you for your reply....as you said we have thought about this for a long time.... and my children's education is paramount.  We have pondered long and hard over this decision and have taken alot of time considering this move. I am presently employed in a school and over the years have seen changes in the system and have also become disallusioned with the state of the UK education.  I work in a Primary school 3 to 11. We have 420 pupils in our school.... 95% are of various ethinc nationalities and 5% are british born.  Our teachers are dedicated and our school is a lovely place to be in, but again over the years I have slowly seen a decline as more and more teachers are off with stress and anxiety.  Most schools now have to employ permanent security on site (even in Primary schools) because of the level of violence and abuse that the staff get from pupils and parents.  I realise that my son has only a few years of education left (compulsary),   (and by the way.......the school which my son attends is fantastic........) and I feel we are half way there as he is agreeing to go.  I know it is going to be hard for him, but he will have our full support, and I know that he will apply himself.  If he finds anything out of his reach we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I have to tell you this.....last year just before his 13th birthday we were all out cycling and our son turned to us and said "Dad you know if we came out here to live, I could do this all the time on my own and not be afraid of anyone attacking me or pulling me off my bike to steal it".  I was gob smacked !!!!! as at home I am the taxi driver...I even drop and pick up my 18 year old.  Not that I would be letting my guard down there..but for a child of 12 to come out with a statement like that..well what else can I say.      Report

15/01/2008, 23:05 Tresco Joined on 23/08/2004 Charente Maritime. Posts 4,635 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. Mazza, I agree it's sad for a child to feel that way. I would have been really sad if my 12 year old had said that. He's all grown up now though. What is it about the French education system that attracts you to France, though, rather than any other country?    Report

16/01/2008, 10:19 Cathy Joined on 07/03/2006 Mostly near Bordeaux; Sometimes near Bristol Posts 1,954 Re: Moving with a 13 year old. Mazza.  I shall warn you that there are differing kinds of violence here.  My children cannot use our French cycle path during the hunting season (without an adult) because of the worry of being shot at.  The hunters are supposed to stay away from the cycle paths but you will see from threads elsewhere on this Forum, this is all right in theory but not in practice.  Also, during the recent autumn strikes, my teenagers had to be barracaded into their boarding school for their own protection because of school children rioting outside.  Then, just to put you off further (!), one of the students at their school was injured in a shooting incident last term in the school grounds. When the teenagers come home this weekend, I'll ask them to give me a list of the pluses and minuses of  being here.   Cathy ----- Your children won't remember you ironing their pyjamas but they will remember you reading them a bedside story.    Report

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