About the March 3 Conference on Bilingual Education in Aix Marseille

The conference I posted about here, held in Marseille on March 3, 2010, under the auspices of MAABN and the British Consulate, was a great success.

There were a good 100 of us attending, with an interest in bilingual education in the region: either parents and/or officials from various institutions and companies like the American Consulate, CMA-CGM company, and ITER, the large international research project near Manosque.

The discussion went on for two hours, with each panel member introducing him or herself and his/her activity.

Some of the things I learned:

- There is a high demand, especially on the part of the British in Marseille, for an education offering classes in English for children of these native English speakers who attend French-only schools today.

Why? Because when British or Franco-British or even Korean families relocate to the area, they may not be here to stay indefinitely. Their children need to be able to return to their school systems and therefore receive proper teaching in English. These children are otherwise fluent speakers of English but they are not able to read or write it.

There is no public instituion in Marseille offering a high level of English teaching. The only private option in the primary is EPIM. There are more publicly funded options in Aix but they remain very limited, as mentioned on a previous post here on bilingual schools in the area. Companies wishing to bring in foreign staff, often in their thirties, have trouble persuading some to relocate because of this gap in the educational offering.

- The “Recteur de l’Académie de Marseille”, a very good English speaker himself, explained to us the intricacies of the international options in the French education system today:

Unfortunately, the OIB and European Option of the Baccalauréat are not well known by universities abroad. They remain a French approach to internationalization.

My humble opinion that the issue is not so much how do we offer international sections in public schools in France but how do we open up the French educational system to languages in general, English in particular, given its dominance today?

There is such a demand on the part of purely French parents themselves for their children to acquire the English proficiency they lack that adding more professionally run English teachings from Maternelle onwards until Lycee is an obvious way to help both French nationals and foreign nationals relocating here temporarily.

When native English speakers with strong teaching skills are present in all French schools at all levels, then they ‘ll be able to involve the native English-speaking students in their classrooms to a higher degree, given their natural abilities, and thereby pull all the other students, the native French speakers, up in terms of language proficiency.

The International Parents network in France is there to connect all interested parties in this matter: teachers, school officials, company managers, associations and parents, and help raise awareness of this issue among French officials and politicians. Contact us through the comments feature below to join and be counted!

International Parents Coffee Mornings in Aix and Paris

The International parents Club is organizing Coffee mornings on themes you have an interest in, as internationally minded parents.  Right now ( as of January 2010) they’re happenning in Aix en provence and Paris.  As soon as we can , we’ll organize some everywhere else, whether it be  New York, Moscow, Shangai or Dubai.

Upcoming dates:

• Aix en provence:
  >Jan 22, 2010
  > March 5, 2010

• Paris :
  > Jan 26th, 2010
  > Week of february 15th, day to be confirmed

You can contact Caroline via the Aix Marseille region of the networking space or post a comment on this blog to ask to sign up and attend.

Its Sale time from January 6, 2010 – Les Soldes d’hiver sont là

In France, sale periods ( ” Les Soldes”) in shops are determined by law.. Yes, well theoretically, since as we know, a shop owner will find it difficult to have the governement decide when he or she can cut prices on her merchandise. So they’ve found ways to bypass the official legislation.

The Official Sale Dates – in French: “Les Periodes des Soldes”

So there are two official five week sale periods, one for the winter, one for the summer. In the winter, they are to begin, the second Wednesday of the year, i.e. January 6 th for 2010.
In the summer, they are to begin the last Wednesday in June, i.e, the 30th of June in 2010.

If a shopkeeper wishes to organize “ random sales” ( ” Soldes flottants “), i.e, a two week sale period when he or she desires, she must send in a registered mail request to an administration at least one month before the “random sale ” begins and they must be over at least one month before the official sale period begins. Hmm… I wonder how many shopkeepers use the procedure?

Enter Promotions ( same word in French) and ” Private Sales ” (” Soldes Privées”), an alternative to the official Sale dates

Shop owners have found ways to get around this stringent legislation, by having what they call ” promotions” when they desire throughout the year. Whew!

They are officially recognized by the law since 2008 ( whereas they were punished prior to that) but they must follow the following rules so as not to be deemed Sales in disguise… (Oh! Oh!)

> They must be for a limited time period
> The merchant must be able to provide the products or services at the sale price at all times during the promotion period.

The merchant can bypass this difficulty by indicating: ” Promotion valid while the product is available” but her promotion advertising must cease the second one of the promotion items is out of stock. Scary life, that of a French merchant. You understand the angry looks now?

Hence, promotions often take the form of : ” Buy 2 items, get the 3rd one free” kind of deals. They are also advertised to a client list, via email or mail, therefore avoiding to advertise the deal too loudly to governement employees.

The other loophole merchants have found to lower prices when desired is to hold ” Private Sales“, or ” Soldes Privées“. There again, the principle is that they are available only to past clients. These days all shop keepers have these, generally a week or two before the official sale period.

So get on your favorite store’s client list if you’d like to get a first grab at those sale prices!

– > in French: Precise legislative text on “Les Soldes”, including the numerous regional exceptions…

– > in French: Legislative text on “Les Promotions”.

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.

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? ”

Americans fight it out with spirit as they lose their homes in droves

I have to admit it, I cried after hearing the last comment in an American Public Media podcast from a radio show called Market Place this July 2009.

A family of four had lost their home because of a tricky loan (one where interest rose after a few years) the couple couldn’t repay. This was after having completely self-renovated the home over the fifteen years they’d owned it and seeing their elderly parents and children have to live elsewhere than at home because of lack of space in the trailer…One day the bank had said: “You have three days to leave” and that was it.

The woman who’d lost her home was now living in her trailer. What hit me in the heart was when she said, as she was showing a picture of a sunset she’d recently taken : ” If I get to see this everynight, it cant be that bad can it?”

How’s that for good spirit?

– > Listen to Market PLace via podcast to get a smart taste of how the US economy is doing

Online networking tool launched, in Beta version

While this blog contains my ramblings on about living in the Aix Marseille region with children, our newly launched online networking tool, in French and in Beta ( i.e ‘test) mode at this point, is designed to help you all get in touch and exchange the joys, fears and experiences of internationally minded parents! This site is visible here, but one needs to be a member ( and logged in) to access anything significant. This is by invitation only.
If necessary, use the Comments feature here to ask for your sign up link!

Horse riding for Children and teens in Aix en provence

Here’s my limited experience with horseback riding establishments near Aix en provence, notably North of Aix:

• Les Pinchinats:
  in les Platanes, 10 minutes from Aix. 1811 Route Pinchinats 13100 Aix En Provence
  Téléphone : 04 42 23 26 97
• For a laid back, slightly unkept riding experience, but a lot of cautions is taken with the children, at least the beginners. For the more advanced, caution is still the rule but the teacher-owner has a taste for shouting and bad words… As we say : ‘ Au Pinchinats ça sent le caca – mais on aime ça!’. I’ll let you translate…
  – > So a good place to start I’d say.

• Domaine de la Garde – Eguilles
  I haven’t found a specific address for them. They’re not far from the Set Club, but on Route de Berre, on the left after the big Bovero store. Turn let onto a tree lined dirt road. Its at the end.
• The Domaine de la Garde has just changed management in 2009, for the best. Its also planned to be completely renovated during the summer of 2009. The young woman who manages it now is great, cautious, attentionate. They’re not equipped yet with any leaflets and to reach them the best thing is to call Severine’s cell phone, which I can provide if you comment on this post.
  – > My favorite so far. Its a club good for all levels, with a true interest in teaching, unlike the one below, where horses are given more consideration than students…

• Les Ecuries de venelles: In a very different style, set more north of Les Pinchinats, between Venelles and St Cannat, are les Ecuries de Venelles. Once you’ve managed the terrible, pothole-filled dirt road that constitutes the last 1.5 kilometers to reach it, the setting is gorgeous. Its a wide open space with horses quietly eating or running in the grass fields. The stables are spotless. But the feel is not as warm as Les Pinchinats. Its more competitive in a way and more pricy than les Pinchinats.
  – > I’ve heard a few stories of children falling unnecessarily, because of the carelessness and irresponsable attitude of some of the teachers there. My own child fell quite hard when a teacher had her galop outside, on a horse ( she’s been on poneys before), and asked her to jump over a branch and then magically stop her horse, I stopped going there.

CityVox is your friend in France to find where to get out about town

Here’s a great site, available in 260 cities in France, when you’re looking for a great place to go eat, see a play, hear music, for you and your children.  It’s called CityVox and their headquarters are in Marseille, believe it or not! They’re also present in 300 other cities throughout Europe.

It’s a smart blend of Web 1.0 and 2.0 approaches.  It provides a list of  all restaurants, hotels, theatres, clubs and other venues in your town, with useful information on the style and the location.  There’s a special Children section with shows and some activities. It also allows members to post comments on all events and restaurants, so you get that web 2.0 flavour that makes it that much more useful.

It’s also available in other languages, although with quite erratic ‘localizations’, ie, be prepared for a steady mix of English and French in the English version. Also, since there are few comments in other languages, the site first pulls up those venues with comments in the language you’re surfing in but then shows comments in French.

So surfing in French is the way to get the best access to user insight because it pulls up first the venues with the most positive comments in French, therefore drawing from the largest sample, but then again, contributing to the other language sites will only make them more useful… Tough choice for the international parent in you!

– > Cityvox in English
–> Cityvox en Espanol
–> CityVox en Italiano
– > Cityvox en Deutsch

Europipole: an (incredible) international school south of Aix in Cabriès

Amended December 21, 2009 – See below

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. See my post here for a general look at bilingual or international school options and a map of these schools.

I have amended my post below, as I found the general level of instruction at Europipole to be disappointing, not because the school management is not truly passionate about education, but because of a lack of structure in the school’s management.

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. The goal, in my view, as someone who is both a native French and English speaker, deserves praise, given many international schools are in fact focused on English as the true common language of instruction. But is it realistic? In any case, in 2008, the level in English in the primary was a limited “beginner Plus”, notably because there were not enough native speakers.

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. Maybe a little too informal and ‘playful’ for some parents, as recesses tend to drag on longer than they should. 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.

– > Again, general post on international schools in Aix and Manosque (one hour north of Aix).