Talya

Hi there,
We’re about to plunge into a huge adventure...
My main focus at the moment is on my 15 year old daughter who speaks no French. She really responded to studying in a professional lycee hotelier. I’d love to meet people who already live in that area with teens who didn’t have the language, but got by and made it through the bac/social life, starting off with their limited means of communication. Any recommendations will be highly welcomed.
Thanks in advance.

dmu

Hi, and welcome to the forum! There aren't all that many BE members in the Aveyron and those who have posted have never mentioned bringing teenagers.
Do you mean Villefranche-de-Rouergue?
There is in fact a private lycée hôtelier in the town:
Lycée Hôtelier Saint-Joseph, Villefranche-de-Rouergue (12 - Aveyron) - www.enseignement-prive.fr
which would lead to a Bac Pro, but there's no Ecole Hôtelière for higher education, just a GRETA
La formation continue des adultes à l'Éducation nationale - Ministère de l'Éducation nationale

THE problem is that your daughter speaks no French. Even if she were accepted into that private Lycée, how would she follow the classes and get adequate marks for a Bac Pass?
And even if she didn't have any particular career in mind, it's unlikely that she'd be accepted into a State Lycée. Take a look in the "Schooling" thread in the Read Me: Moving to France FAQs above. Although the info on the Bac exam isn't up to date (it has recently been "reformed"), you'll see that, in Collège and Lycée, pupils have to write essays in French on all subjects. A second foreign language is also taught, usually Spanish or German, which the pupils already learned in Collège...
To be honest, I would recommend waiting until your daughter has finished her education in the UK and has spent this time learning French!
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I'm realistic.
Fore-warned is fore-armed!

cyrian

Hi Talya
Are you currently in the UK?
You would run the risk of leaving your daughter in the middle of two very different education systems.
She could end up with no qualifications in either country.
As DMU advises, let your daughter finish her education before you move.
HTH

dmu

As indicated in
Les formations pour exercer dans l'hôtellerie et la restauration - Onisep
there are many types of diplomas out there, but a student needs an excellent level of French (and French culture) to acquire them. Being of English mother tongue is only an advantage if the student is fluent in French. I once coached a student for her English exam in a Lycée Pro - she had to translate parts of several different texts in British and US English into French, and answer the examiner's questions (in French).
Your main focus is on your daughter's education, and you're quite right to give this priority. But don't hesitate to ask about other issues, e.g. healthcare insurance depending on your status: salaried, self-employed, or "inactifs"; setting up a business structure if you'll be working from home, etc...

Tweedpipe

Firstly, welcome to the forum! You did well to ask advise on this.
I agree 100% with DMU and Cyrian.
You mention plunging into a new adventure. In actual fact you would be plunging your daughter into a serious misadventure education-wise at her age, doing her a great injustice in throwing her in at the proverbial French deep-end when she is not yet able to paddle - let alone swim.
Please take the above comments seriously. I and many others here have heard of similar tales of other folks who have gravely regretted their 'new adventure' with children of a delicate school age, i.e. 11 or 12+ without any prior knowledge of French.
I've mentioned in the past that one should NOT underestimate the difficulty that children can go through with a major change to a contented routine.
Check out THIS related link. And there are many more if you should do a search.

petitefrancaise

NOPE! don't send your teenager to a french Lycee with no french. How's she supposed to learn anything? Osmosis?
I have a friend whose son is currently attending a lycee hotelier in Blagnac. He's totally fluent in french since he's 50% french and lived there all his life and I can't see how anyone would cope if they also had to learn to speak french.

International School Toulouse is the only one in the area that I can think of which is totally english speaking for this age group and the fees are pretty eyewatering if they're not being paid by Airbus

EuroTrash

+1
Nail - head - hit.

The bac isn't like GCSEs where you pick a couple of subjects and avoid the rest. Even if they're doing the bac pro hotellerie it's not all about cooking and practical stuff, they still have to study a full range of subjects. There's a lot to learn, and French kids find it challenging. Arriving in France at 15 speaking no French and being able to write essays in French on history, philosophy etc a few years later, how likely is that? The fact that she's managed to reach the age of 15 and speak no French suggests that she's not interested in/gifted at languages, otherwise one would expect her to be studying languages for GCSE and speak at least a little French even if it's not her main language. You have to be realistic.

dmu

Back to the helpful Onisep site:
Le bac professionnel - Onisep
indicates the subjects studied for a Bac Pro in the Service sector.
The OP seems to have posted and then left the building. If you're still around, click on the left-hand table under "au programme", to enlarge the list of subjects studied, the top three concerning the speciality chosen, the others likewise compulsory. EPS is sport (which is also marked). Philosophy isn't among the Bac Pro subjects, but, for all the others, the pupil needs to have the knowledge and be literate in French in order to pass the Bac.

Red_Wine_Fairy

This.

The very realistic consequence of your daughter finding she is lonely has a strong possibility of it resulting in her rejecting the new life, everything in it, and openly hating you for dragging her there (as she could grow to see it) - then leaving you as soon as legally able to, to return to the UK, a couple of years from now. Of course, she could settle in and love it, but take it from someone who lived both sides (one child 15, one 14 at the time), you need to be prepared and ready to accept the roughest of rides a child can give you should things not work out according to her high (teenage) expectations.

If you have a realistic option to let her continue her education in the UK (stay with Grandparents?) then offer her that choice because it's realistically the ONLY way she will achieve the educational level that she has worked her whole life for. There is minimal chance of a teacher putting her forward for University level if she isn't fluent, and she might end up scrapping school in France and heading back to do her A levels anyway (as mine did).

scot47

15 years old with no French ? This is, as others write here, not the time to move.

Tweedpipe

Just for the record, it's not ony Airbus who possibly support the school fees for their contractors families. There's a wide field of other companies who also support the families of their employees when it comes to education. That was our particular case, as although I was employed in the aircraft industry, I wasn't an Airbus employee.
As it turned out, junior TPipe attended the Lycee International for just one year, and during that period there was student unrest, and not only was the facilty blockaded, but students picketed the establishment for several weeks. This latter action really pissed him off. Long story short there were other issues, and at the end of 'seconde' he along with a number of others were requested to 're-doubler'. Thinking he had done pretty well that year, he didn't welcome that suggestion, and lost face. Outcome was that as he was tri-lingual at the time, he asked us to change lycee, and we found another - non International near Pau. Turned out he made a great decision, and 3 years later flew through the Bac, and subsequently turned his Uni attention overseas - as there was serious uni student unrest in France at the time. And there still is now in April 2018; things have changed very little.
If there is a moral to this narrative it may be that even if the parents do have the possibilty to choose an International Lycee, a French lycee may be a better choice, but only if the student has a very sound knowledge of French.

petitefrancaise

Lycee International Victor Hugo is NOT the International school of Toulouse. Former is a french lycee that has a number of international sections ( notably section Britannique) and is free to attend although entry into the international sections is by competitive entry only. The students leave with a French BAC OIB. The British section here charges fees which aren't too onerous but even so, Airbus employees wishing to send their children to a french school can get them paid, and other companies do this as well.

IST is in fact a private school set up specifically for airbus employees. They do not teach in French at all and the students leave with either an IB diploma or A levels. They have a german school kind of attached to it.

dmu

Whatever, unless she replies to the contrary, the OP is talking about living in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, and her daughter would have to be a boarder in the Lycées mentioned. Which would imply that the family adventure wouldn't be shared together unless the parents choose to live in a town nearby...
DD2 (born in France, therefore no language issue) boarded for 2 years in a distant Lycée because of the lack of options in our nearest one. It wasn't without practical problems....

Adore Ariege

We moved here in March 2002 with our children aged 11 and 14. My 14 year old daughter had very limited French being in Year 9 when we left England. My son had none whatsoever. However, although my son would have been entering secondary school that year had we stayed in the UK, we put him in the small primary school here and he stayed on an extra year before moving into collège. My daughter went straight into quatrième at collège. We organised French lessons privately for them and for us. I really don't know how they did it but both settled in well. My daughter took her Bac in Literature and my son, who is not so academic went onto Lycée Professionnel to study hotellerie restauration. I think it really depends on the personality of your child and if you think she could cope with the challenge. We treated the life change as an adventure and speaking for ourselves, I'm glad we made the move when we did although earlier would have been better but it wasn't an option at the time.

dmu

A big bravo to your children, it just goes to show that there are exceptions to the rule....
As a matter of interest, did they stay in France after secondary school and, forgive me for being nosey, but one of my daughters did a Bac L and there were limited career openings after Uni, what did your daughter do after the Bac L?