Europipole: an incredible international school south of Aix in Cabriès
Finding a good school for your children while moving about worldwide is not easy. Often, as an international parent, you’re looking for a school that’s open to other languages and cultures in its curriculum. You often think of looking for an ‘international’ or bilingual school.
The Aix region is blessed with a few of these schools at the Pre-K, and Primary levels. There’s a ’supply’ issue only at the secondary level (the ‘ collège’ level in French), when the children are 12 to 14 year , where there are two options:
- the private international school IBS, in Luynes, just south of Aix. Tuition there is above 10 000 euros a year.
- The Collège Mignet in Aix, a public school, has a small (30 student big) international section. Tuition is nearly free.
I discovered a great pre-K and Primary school with a German/ French and an English/French track: Europipole. The school calls itself a ‘ bilingual ‘ school as opposed to an international one because it stresses it seeks to give children perfect language litteracy in the two languages chosen. Unlike many international schools which welcomes all sorts of language speakers, with English being the true common language of instruction.
The school is run by a passionate couple who both teach as well as run the school. The school is their second one in the region, after IRIS, a German-French pre-K center in Aix launched in 2000. IRIS is becoming a bilingual English-French pre-K center in september 2008 due to strong demand for this language as opposed to German.
There is a real family atmosphere at Europipole thanks to the couple’s passion for bilinguilism and thanks to the small size of the school. In 2008, it has a little under 100 children, with classes being very small - a maximum of 15 students. They use the facilities of a ‘ centre de loisirs ‘ a sort of municipal holiday and after school facility, with a beautiful natural courtyard surrounded by a beautiful forest and sports facilities including tennis courts. The children have access to these facilities during their sports activities.
The choice to use a municipal facility makes tuition at the school much more reasonable than what is usually expected of private ‘international’ schools. In fact tuition is about 3 000 euros a year. The school has the lunch box system.
English and German are taught by level (from beginner to proficient) by native speaking certified teachers.
- The preK levels have two full days in English or German, depending on their chosen track, and the other two days in French.
- The primary level kids have 1,5 hour in English or German and the remainder in French to follow the French curriculum.
The other pre-K and primary school in the area is CIPEC, also in Luynes, just south of Aix.
Here’s a quick listing of schools with an international curriculum:
-> IRIS: English-French Pre-K in Aix en Provence. Same site as for Europipole.
-> Europipole: Centre de Loisirs Municipal Parc Club de l’arbois 13480 CABRIES . About 30 km south of Aix, 15 km north of Marseille. PreK and Primary. Tél. / Fax : 04 42 315 315.
-> CIPEC: Luynes, 10 km south of Aix.pre-K and primary.
Domaine de Fontvieille - Luynes 13080 AIX EN PROVENCE - FRANCE Tél: +33 (0)4 42 60 84 25 - Fax: + 33 (0)4 42 60 84 26 Email: info @ c-i-p-e-c.com
-> IBS, International Bilingual School of Provence: Domaine des Pins- 500 Petite Route de Bouc-Bel-Air, Luynes. 10km south of Aix. Secondary level. Tél : (33)(0)4 42 24 03 40 Fax : (33)(0)4 42 24 09 81
Filed under Education and Child Development, Moving to France |6 Responses to “Europipole: an incredible international school south of Aix in Cabriès”
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There is also now http://www.epim-mis.com/ in luynes just south of aix which is bilingual french - english with again true bilingue focus with 50% of the teaching in french, 50% in english. I think its a great school -small classes and very professional staff.
Yes, I’d left out EPIM, you’re right. Tuition is similar to tuition at CIPEC and IBS, ie between 8 000 and 10 000 euros a year.
Caroline,
Just to let you know on pricing. IBS tuition begins for the younger kids at 6 900 euros not 10 000. The fee schedule can be found on their website at http://www.ibsofprovence.com.
Hello everyone,
We are considering moving to Provence and have started looking at possible school choices for our 3 children aged 8, 6 and 3. As we have lived abroad our children have done their schooling within the International school systems.We are a bilingual family English/French. The most important decision for us right now is finding the right school to fit our kids.
We understand that the school Europipole has second language options but it only proposes 1h30m per day for this. So it is really a French school offering daily a bilingual class option of 2 languages ? It does not correspond to what we have experienced as an International curriculum where the children work through both languages.
We plan on contacting the CIPEC school and are very interested in learning more about the school EPIM that Clare one of your readers has mentioned.
Thanks
Irene
Yes, you are right Irene, that Europipole is not an International school in the true sense. It calls itself a bilingual school in fact. So your children will get more French than English there. One thing I must say now to be honest is that the academic level, as concerns the French program, has disapointed me. As concerns the English classes, i’ve been quite happy with the teachers in pre K and in the Primary Avanced English level. For the Pre K levels, I think they’re great, with their wonderful warm attitude towards children and half of the time taught in either English or French. Afterwards, it’s more of a matter of looking at your priorities, between top academic achievement, family atmosphere, and cost versus other options like CIPEC and later IBS.
We were really disappointed with EPIM in Marseilles.
The level in English wa quite low because most of the children were French.The directors of the school don’t have any teaching background and are really ” money oriented”.There were a lot of changes with the teachers who were not happy.
The new school in manosque is fantastic.
All the best
Eva