Been suggested that I start another thread on the subject of Education.

Our plan is to move to France next July (2016) when our daughter will have finished primary school in UK.
She was a summer baby, so is the youngest in her class.
It has since been suggested that we get her to do a final year in Primary school in France to 'ease her in' to the Education system.
I suspect this will be the course of action we will take.

Apart from starting to get her to speak French now, and to continue to learn between now and moving, is there any other advice you could give about the Education system/process to make the transition as painless as possible.

It is our one worry, and we will gratefully listen to advice

Thanks

In France, the school year is done January to January, so if your daughter is 10 on the 1st January 2016, I think she will be in CM2, the last primary year.

I only know about the French curriculum from the outside, because as a translator I'm often asked to translate French school reports into English. When I first started doing this I was totally mindblown by what is expected of French kids. 15-year-olds are getting ticked off for not being able to put together coherent arguments on The Meaning of Life and other topics that I think the average British university student would struggle with - must do more private study, must follow the methodology they've been given. Maybe I'm getting a distorted view but it seems to me that UK kids are mainly taught 'things', whereas French kids are mainly taught methodology and how to think clearly and critically, and put forward good arguments. It's odd because people often say that the UK system is more creative and the French system is all about learning by rote and stifles independent thought, but the heaps of school reports that I've had to translate don't bear this out at all, nor does the fact that French kids seem to be able to converse intelligently with adults at an age when British kids can't.

Couldn't agree more. And this is why it's so tough for an English kid to come in at college level because competency in the French language is absolutely vital.

They are in fact taught to argue intelligently throughout Collège and Lycée, and, as far as I remember, there's a weekly "méthodologie" lesson in 6ème.
My worst year with my two girls was "Terminale" when the dreaded (to me) Philosophie was studied (with a high coefficient for the Bac). I was totally incapable of giving any guidance, but luckily OH is French and they "absorbed" philosophy through him as they grew up.

Good grief. And we think it's tough learning the times tables!!

I should have said, in the September 2016 when she starts. So I think she'll be in the last primary year here anyway.

Our eldest was 10 on January 2015, is 11 now and is in CM2. Goes to college in September.

Our daughter turned 10 in March and is CM1 now, so your calculation sounds right to me

But does your daughter?

I can't give any advice on the French system but for what it's worth our sons were roughly the same age as your daughter is now (a bit younger) when we moved to Germany.

Points of potential relevance: (1) The language is not an issue at that age: she'll be fluent in less than a year. (2) Every country employs unique educational methodologies. Adapting to them seems much harder from the parents' POV than it does from the kids'.

Disclaimer: (2) does not always apply if the child/ren are older than, shall we say, 13 or 14.

I can add this but declare that it was my experience over 10 years ago.

I helped out teaching English to college children at a local church school.

I was surprised that any form of getting out of seats and "doing" things was frowned upon. Even moving chairs to form a semi-circle was remarked on. I once brought an armful of clothes to illustrate the English for them and while the children loved it, the staff did not.

I couldn't teach without doing such things so left. I don't know if that is the same in state schools and at the present time but I hope it isn't.

It might be worth sitting in one some lessons in the local school and/or chatting with the admin or staff. I am sure they wouldn't mind and you would have a betteer idea of how your child is spending her day.

LOL we are going through that with our daughter at the moment ! HUGE workload (she is doing a special form of french BAC and so has 38hrs/ week) and the dreaded philiosphy, which for a child for whom the world has only ever been black or white, never grey, is a nightmare!!!

She is off to uni at Cardiff in September and is thoroughly looking forward to an easier pace of life!!

However education wise she joined the french system at the age of the original poster's daughter and has coped well (she had french lessons once a week to help her for the first few years)

Thanks for that. Makes he future seem a bit brighter

Hi,
I'm not sure I'd attach too much importance to philosophy's importance in the baccalauréat; for example it accounts for 3 coefficients in the bac 'S', out of ... 44, less than those for the two languages (5) and one more than sport. Maths is 7 or 9, physics 6 or 8. At the other end of the scale, for the bac 'L', yes, philosophy counts for 7 coeffs but this is still out of 39 altogether (I think).
As regards the system itself, the French are far keener on form than others might be. The magic number three is to be found everywhere; any essay plan should have three parts, as should any demonstration or oral presentation. If certain fairly rigid rules are not adhered to in academic work, it becomes quite difficult to succeed. People having been through a different educational system do tend to have trouble getting to grips with this Cartesian approach.
The French educational system does indeed depend far more on abstraction; hence the overriding importance of mathematics, and the constant necessity to bring out 'une problématique'.....
PB

Curious about what your daughter thinks of the whole plan? Our son is roughly the same age and it has been challenging enough to persuade him to go to a different UK secondary.

She is very excited. She is very adventurous though, and nothing seems to faze her.