Novocastrian

I sincerely apologize. I relied on the post made by another poster whose judgement and opinions I respect.

Funnily enough, I did my undergrad and D. Phil. at the dark blue place and then worked at the light blue place for a couple of years before emigrating.

Moreover, over-parenting has been a bit of an issue between myself and SWMBO for 30 years or so.

I'm happy to report that my position has been justified by events.

Best of luck.

Peabrain

Hi,
I really do beg to differ. The French are obsessed with 'la forme' compared with 'le fond'. However good one's content may be, if there is no introductory plan setting out in detail what one intends to do, followed by the compulsory three parts still often reduced to "thèse, antithèse et synthèse", if the work produced is rambling, it will get nowhere. Learning to master the French way of essay writing, commentaire and explication de texte is one of the hardest things a foreign Arts student has to do.

French children are not the world's most satisfied with their educational system. They are not encouraged to express themselves at school, they are pressured into doing well at maths even if they don't like maths, the best classes prépas littéraires (hypokhâgne and khâgne) in the top lycées like Henri IV take bacheliers 'S' whose baccalauréat specialises in the sciences, and a really good arts student will have greater difficulty in making his or her way after the lycée than the above average science student.

PB

VAurelius

I apologise to anyone who has been having trouble understanding my answers here. The comments were really addressed to vboz who appears to have had no such trouble.
In answer to the question why I decided to enrol my children as externes first, the answer is that we had started the elder at a school in Maisons Laffitte and then spent four years in Brussels. Upon return we decided to send them both to the school we knew to help them reintegrate, while realizing that they also needed extra English tuition.
As far as which lycees in St Germain en laye allow for students to attend the Lycee International as ecternes, I'm afraid I don't know. I can't see why that wouldn't be possible at St Erembert. I could find out if you are interested.

vboz

hello sorry for the delay in replying... hectic life!! thanks a lot for your answer i have called st erembert but not sure yet if they accept externe from the lycee so will call back this afternoon - also do you know if the lycee will test them again to go from externe to interne at the lycee? I am worried their English won't be as good next year.