CIPEC: an ambitious bilingual school in Aix en Provence
To follow up on my analysis of international schools in the Aix Marseille region, I ‘d like to give kudos to the oldest one: CIPEC ( Centre International pour l’Education et la Culture) .
As of 2009, 25 years after its founding, it is still run by the same couple, Mr and Mme Pecnard, both French teachers by training, and teachers at CIPEC itself for the last two primary school years ( CM1 and CM2 in the French system, Grades 4 and 5 in the North American systems). They bring a strong commitment to quality education, both in French and in English and a cozy yet structured environment for the children.
Do not look for the Montessori approach here. While the children are truly evaluated and taken into account as individuals, they are to follow the teachings of their teachers and abide by group rules.
The outside play area gives the children a wonderful playground, especially for the older ones, where they can roam the foresty grounds behind the school. The younger ones have a smaller, enclosed play area, providing for a safe environment where they are not mixed in with older, potentially roudy children.
The school offers a true bilingual curriculum and manages the various English and French levels of its students by creating two to three language levels per grade. The advanced English speakers for a given grade will be in one level, the intermediate levels in another, and the beginners, finally in a third English section. French students who enter CIPEC in pre-Kindergarden become completely fluent in English within a few years.
Conversely, English speakers get a demanding teaching in French. My first impression is the school is stronger in the English language skills, despite the efforts by Mr and Mme Pecnard to instill the best teaching practices the French school system has to offer for the last two years.
The children get a well rounded education, with academic teachings in Math, History, Geography, Science and French and English Languages, along with Theater, Music, Arts and Sports two whole afternoons a week. This is exceptional compared to a French school, where non academic teachings, and sports in particular, get at most a couple hours a week, and are considered minor disciplines.
Tuition is that of an independent private school in France, at about 7 500 Euros a year ( with a discount for sibblings), and includes hot meals served daily from a local organic kitchen.
Children can add optional sports activities like horseback riding and additional languages as well. I know my kids love to go to school there. I can see the work they do and am generally impressed by both its quantity and quality.
On a practical level, the school has a bus service for children between Aix en Provence and Luynes, 5 minutes south of Aix where the school in located. The additional fee (in 2009) for this is 800 euros year. Otherwise, parking is a little complicated, but this is France after all! One must be ready, when relocating here, for the little daily life disconforts that come from the land of Haute Couture and Haute Cuisine … As a dedicated Canadian mom says, quite wisely: ” Ask not what the parking can do for you, but what YOU can do for the parking!”.
The parents at CIPEC form a close knit community, and as much as possible is done on their initiative to welcome new families to the school and the region, where settling can be nerve wracking… See my other posts on this blog.
Filed under Education and Child Development, For international Children and Parents, Living abroad - Relocation, Moving to France | Comment (1)Relocation and real estate agencies: same type of beast?
We recently vacated our beautiful, pricy rental home just North of Aix ( in Puyricard) to move in to a home we bought nearby.
However, our departure from the rental was less than peaceful, thanks to a similar type of attitude from a local relocation and real estate agency. We had given our notice to leave the home too early. The renovation work on our newly purchased house did not finish as planned by Novembre 18, when we were to move in. We knew about this one month ahead of time and informed the rental agency that we would like to prolong our stay on the home if possible to the end of November so we could move in to a house with floors, painting and plumbing that was finished.
We’d been model tenants. The agency did not respond at first and started showing the home early november. prospective tenants were immediately pleased with it, given the very good condition and the intrisic value of the home. Instead of advising tenants the home was not available until the end of the month ( a 10 day difference that meant the world to us), the agency did not say anything and we were told around November 6th that one of the prospective tenants was interested in taking the home from November 20 onwards. I’d spoken to the other prospects who had indicated they were interested in moving in early December. Apparently they were not preferred by the agency.
I was truly discouraged by this news. By chance, I met in Puyricard the woman from the relocation agency who I’d seen show the house to New Zealanders due to arrive to the the area on a confortable expat package. I explained the situation to her, thinking as a woman and a mother she’d understand the difficulty of moving in to a house still under major renovation while the children were in school. She indicated she’d do her best to informthe agency’s manager, explaining she was actually working as a ‘ volunteer ‘ for the relocation agency… I later emailed all local relocation agencies and got a response from the manager of the relocation agency in question. I again pleaded with her to pospone her client’s move in date by one week, just so the work could proceed a bit more before we moved in.
She said she’s try but came back saying her clients were going to be staying at a hotel and wished to move in as quickly as possible.
So we vacated our rental home on a Thursday and a Friday and arrived in our own home, where the paint was still fresh from an hour past, the floor still full of dust and where a week’s worth of work was still required to make the home functional.
Later, we had problems with our request to La Poste to have our mail forwarded. Luckily, being close to our previous home, we dropped by during the next ten days to ask if we could pick up our mail. We discovered no none had moved in… The relocation agency was apparently taking its time redecorating the home until the future tenants arrived, with absolutely no regards for our situation.
The woman i’d spoken to has four children and has relocated to various cities worldwide. I must say I am flabergasted with the ease with which she overlooked the difficulties we would face as a family when we were obligated to leave our home one week before it would have been truly the time to do so. On the phone we’d had a discussion about how local real estate agencies were particularly ‘nasty’. I must say I’m wondering: ” Are relocation agencies in the Aix region the same type of beast as Aix real estate agencies? ”
Filed under Living abroad - Relocation, Moving to France, Real Estate in Aix-Marseille | Comment (0)Beautiful and spectacular Xmas Celebration and Choir Concert in Aix
Today, Sunday December 6th, 2009,
the International Christian Congregation of Provence organized a wonderful Christmas Celebration with its own choir in Aix’s own impressive Saint Sauveur Cathedral.
Between 3:30 and 5 :15 PM the fully packed cathedral audience enjoyed English Christmas carrols, whether British, French ( like the Gloria) or American. The songs were intermixed with short readings by parishioners from the Bible in English.
The audience, where many were French speakers, was asked to participate on several occasions. When singing ” The twelve days of Christmas”, they were invited to stand up when their birthday fell on the first month and the song was on ” The first day of Christmas”, and so on for the twelve months and twelve days. It was fun seeing people pop up and down among the churchgoers!
At the end the cathedral went dark and a beautiful general candle lighting happened, where attendees were all given a candle, which was lit by neighbouring attendees, after the “co leaders” (ministers) started ‘ spreading the light’, which was the message behind the action.
For more information on future events by the ICCP, see their web site here:
International Christian ( Protestants) Congregation of Provence -