Positive experiences French Schools near Basel?

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Hi,

My husband and I have been living in England for 10 years (previously lived in France). We have 3 children aged 3, 6 and 9, who speak Arabic, French, German and English (we are a multilingual family!). English is their dominant language.

My husband is starting a new job (within his current company) in April. We would like to see our older 2 through most of their current school year before moving over.

Now because of our particularly favourable linguistic situation, we could relatively easily live in France, Germany or Switzerland, while having a reasonable commute to Basel for my husband.

Trouble is I am not a big fan of l'Education Nationale. I have second-hand experience via family and close friends whose children attend school in France. I dislike the mostly adult-led prescriptive nature of education, the early and frequent testing/grading and the lack of consideration for children's individuality. I know fair well that teachers do have different attitudes, and some of them are fab at recognising children's needs and working with them. However, I feel the above description is more often the norm than not.

I really do not want to upset anyone with my post above, only describing how I currently feel, and really looking for others' experiences. My views may well be tainted by the English system which, even though has its own shortcomings, comes across to me as more understanding/respectful of how children learn...

More than anything, I would love to be proven wrong and find parents who can recommend nice primary/secondary schools on the French side of the border.

Does anyone have a positive experience to share on French schools in the vicinity of Basel?

Does anyone know anything of the French/German bilingual elementaires/colleges/lycees in St Louis, Sierentz, Hegenheim, Kembs?

Thanks for reading and for considering our situation!

2
Teacher here, not in the French system but Binational French-german wirh my own schoolrecord.

French school is academic and made for independent students. I loved it because we learned content. Lots of it, and one specialises in high school rather than having to pass every single exam. Paradise for people who spend their life between the librairy and educational tv programs. Hell for the others.

In Alsace, one can see a stronger value of technical industrial (vocational) education because of the interlinked businesses and culture with Germany in most fields. The lycée technique can lead to a high level of technical practical competence for the non academic students with this kind of intelligence ( as opposed to literacy intelligence based on language).

All in all, French teachers are very demanding and a very high level of independance and responsibility is expected from students, which means that parents might feel not-welcome to interfere... on the other side, parent involvement in social behaviour and discipline training goes without saying. No teacher in France will accept to educate social skills to high schoolstudents, it has to sit by the end of middle school, where the teachers and school administration usually are very demanding on disciplin. Getting expelled is not that difficult.

Nevertheless, what you call adult centred learning might be partially a misunderstanding, brcause daid adult is also the student. Even in middle school. The maturity expectations are often unrealistic, and it is a blessing for some and just a mistake for others.

WhenI was in my cousins's German school, I was horrified by their lack of knowledge and work ethos. They simply worked far less than we had to in France. Good in some aspects but there is a point in time where it shows.

3
Our son is part of Hegenheim. The quality of his education (he is MS) is fantastic. The teacher response when ask for anything at all is immediate, and the community is very supportive and kind.

4
Faltrad, I agree with you re the desirability and necessity of independent work at college and lycee. However, I have reservations on the pressure put on children for "excellence" at a very young age (maternelle/elementaire). My niece who is 5, in grande section, gets red marks on her school work when it is not neat. This is the kind of attitude I would ideally like to avoid.

By the way, I am an indirect product of the French education system (am from an ex-colony) and used to love school too. But one system does not work for all...

Where2, does your son go to a bilingual (german/french) school? Would you mind sharing with me what you and your child like most about it?

Thank you both for your insight!

5
I never said it was a good thing I am just warning that on the long run, it is a system one is thankful for or one hates intensively. It indeed does not suit everybody, far from it.

Nowadays, primary school can be anything, because the teachers have full pedagogical freedom as long as they care and provide for the skills defined by the ministery. One has to has each school, they can be very different. In Middle school and even more High school, the academic presure gives the tone. French famillies are often hard on their own children, school means work. I've never heard in Germany or Scandinavia anybody relating school to "work" like the daily credo in France.

6
He is in the French only program in Buschwiller. My husband speaks swiss germans and I speak English at home. We will put him in the bilingual part only after his french is up to par. Our neighbors kids are in it now, I believe in Bourgfelden and it has taken about two years but now they are starting to speak German. My son has more of an introductory course.

My son loves his school, and anytime we've discussed anything with the school we've had an immediate response to improve. He received semi private French lessons from his teacher, he has learned basic reading skills, can do very simple math, and never wants to stop learning. When we have school holiday he can't wait to go back to school. They are just so kind and patient and care about him. Of course we also have regular issues, like so and so pushed, or this teacher was crabby, but the overall experience has been more than I could have asked for.

7
That's an interesting observation Flatrad, the different attitudes toward school being work. Think you are right, we need to look at each school individually. The thing is we are short for time. We would ideally like to be over from Aug for the children to start the new school year.

Where2, glad to "meet" a fellow multilingual family. Our daughters already speak French and German, although of course not as a native would. I do wonder, whether it is worth pursuing the bilingual route.

8
We have had our 3 kids in school in France for the last 5 years after their kindergarden years in English in Cyprus and we also have 3 languages at home (we speak Dutch to them, they speak English among themselves and school is in French. Our experience largely confirms what you say about the Education Nationale. Today is their first day of holidays since Jan. and the kids really need a break. Personally I think it's not normal that 12 year old kids are physically tired from going to school. If your kids are good students they will cope well with French education, if they are only so so, I would keep them away from French school as there is no individual attention really. Basically our main criticism of French school is that in the long term it often makes kids insecure (as a result of constant and severe testing), nervous and irritated. But surely technically they learn a lot (often by heart) and a few years will not do too much damage if you compensate at home, in order to raise their self-confidence and to do creative things.

9
Tons of rote learning by heart- and little thinking out of problems. I know several FRench families in the UK who went back to France with kids, and returned after one year as the kids just hated hated hated it. I coach lots of French kids in German and English, and all they do at school is learn lists of vocab and grammar, and are only tested in writing. Mind you, almost as bad here in CH. I would hate to teach languages at secondary level here.

10
Based on your username and the fact you speak Dutch to the kids I'm assuming you're Belgian in which case you should be used to that kind of thing. The Belgian system is pretty much the same.

11
Odile, keep cool, you are generalizing and the wording becomes pure lies with no intention of lying originally. The reason the French kids hate French school after time in UK is that they hate to have to work again for hard fact knowledge from which they have to build up the thinking part. It is a myth that French schooling is only about rote learning. One needs hard knowledge inside the head and not only knowing where to find it online to elaborate arguments and get the academic level and analysis demanded in France. Same in maths... no formula sheet during exams and tests for high school students, they must learn theorems by heart indeed. And UK school has no lesson to give to anybody about language learning, not even France. So please cool down.

12
We've disagreed about this in the past FAltrad. My comments are based on contact with many schools, in many areas of France- not just my local one- and 30+ years of exchanges with French schools. And even Unis and Ecoles de Commerce, etc. One of my students only oral test at the end of the first year at Uni was to read a text written in phonetics (:

Have you ever been to school in the UK, or taught there by any chance?

My comments are not just about language teaching- although it is may area of expertise and experience btw. I do find it sad, tragic even- that languages are not taught for effective communication, and that so little value is given on oral and aural skills. I have great respect for you as a person btw- but unless you have spent significant time teaching and observing in the UK, it is unfair for you to judge. So many of my colleagues in the UK were French- for the very reasons stated above- they could not bear to teach languages in France, the way they had been taught and had no respect for the system, the CAPES and the AGREG- which again had little to do with effective communication in the language. Nothing to do with belief, but experience. I've just taken one student through the English and German Bac- and I just could not believe how dry it was, and what the oral consisted of- I would have hoped it would have improved since I last visited a French school 10 years ago- but sadly no. Same for kids at secondary Level, who are totally put off by the way they are taught. It is a shame.

13
Don't speculate about my experiences, you are not the only one to know schools students and teachers, it's been my life too. We disagree, you wish to see the devil in French school, that's your choice. But English high school has academically a ridiculous level compared to France. and this forum is full of people who learned German and French in UK while i learnt English in French school and we can see the result. The human cost of French schooling is high for French stiudents, we agree. The rest is your belief, nothing more.

14
I would not presume to speculate about your experience of teaching languages in the UK- just asking if you have. Don't take it personally, I am sure you are an excellent teacher.

I find it tragic that so many kids in France are totally switched off language learning because of the methodology and tasks required and lack of effective personal communication- with most emphasis on writing.

15
Hi there, yes we are Belgian. But as u know, there is no Belgian school system, there are two independent school systems, the Flemish education system is close to the Swiss in my feeling, the one in the French speaking south is probably closer to the French style. Anyway i can assure you my sister in law who is a teacher in a Flemish school cannot believe what she hears when we tell her how it works in France. Learning boring poems by heart, writing lines as a punishment, teaching languages the way you teach biology are things that disappeared long ago in Flanders. But of course 'Belgian' schools are very different to the UK A level system, it's more like the Swiss matu.

16
I can definitely agree that my children have learned long poems by heart. My son even learned whole fables by heart - what is the point of that?, loads of lines for punishment. Some teachers even giving communal punishments - whole class had to write lines on not misbehaving. Red dots and green dots on all exercises.

17
Could someone please tell how different it is in basel land from the above? Thanks.

18
In a village school in Baselland, over a 5 year period, my son had to learn a couple of songs and maybe even one 6 or 8 line poem. Yes, handwriting is important and only the accepted way of writing will be accepted. No, he never suffered from communal punishment but I did hear of a couple of other children having to write out a paragraph of textbook as punishment. Mostly the child concerned would be required to stay on after the end of class to help the janitor (obviously if their crime was serious enough - this didn't happen often in his class).

We have since moved to the Jura (french speaking) and in Jura, I can confirm there is more rote learning - including dictée most weeks - but then there are more irregular spellings in French so perhaps no surprise there.

By the way we are an Anglo French couple who have both been through the French education system and as a result of this, had no hesitation in moving to Switzerland exactly because of the education, rather than France (and rather stupidly moved to Baselland because our relocation agent assured us there was no part of Suisse Romande that was within commuting distance of Basel!!). But that was just based on our own personal experience.

Our son is now in the public French-German bilingual primary school programme run by the main primary school in Delémont and we are vey pleased with his bilingual education.

19
Very interesting ecb, thanks for sharing. I never thought of looking in Canton Jura, only focusing on Basel Land.

I am quite partial to a franco-german bilingual class, as our children already speak both languages. However, my husband is a bit reluctant to commit to a long-ish commute.

How do you find the commute from Delemont to Basel?

20
There is also the French primary school in Basel, somewhere in Skt Alban. Very good reputation.

Be careful about Delemont, the bilingual sections is meant to make the transition possible for German speaking Basler, but the goal is still to get those student to become Romand students. The language issue is explosive in Jura, don't have false hope, it is and will do every thing to stay a French speaking everything. Incl your children on middle term.