We had finished off last year on a pretty good note and things had settled into a pattern of sorts. I knew that after spending 2 months completely in English, starting back into a complete French immersion school would take a little bit of re-adjustment. Turns out, a few more unexpected re-adjustments were needed. During our time in England a couple of weeks before school started back, I received "the call". This is the call I had been waiting for but had by now given up on ever receiving... Great news- the big two had places in the local school, which conveniently is located directly across the street from our apartment. Literally a 2 minute walk to school from our place! I grabbed it immediately. There were no places for the little two, so we started the new school year with the big two crossing the road to school, and me taking the little ones by bus or tram to their old maternelle. There were some logistics to overcome, like attempting to be in two places at the same time for pick up... but overall, things were looking up.
By the Friday of the first week back at school , I got the second call and amazingly I had got places for the little two at the local maternelle as well. It is separate location so not quite as convenient as having all 4 in the same building to drop off and pick up, but still within walking distance. The maternelle is a brisk 10 minute walk when they take their scooters, a meandering 15 minute walk when they are walking/dawdling or falling to pieces, and a laborious 18 minute walk if I have to carry one of them...
Once again, they all had to adapt to new schools, new teachers, new systems and new friends. All navigated in French. Quite remarkable really. So here are some observations on our school life so far this year:
1) This was our first experience of a "first day of school year" so I wasn't sure how it would all work. It turns out that it is pretty much the standard Belgian way- parents are removed as soon as feasible and the kids are organised by the teachers and staff and all seems to work out. What this meant for primary was that parents were not allowed to cross a certain line in the main reception area. The kids then had to go towards their respective courtyards and wait to be put into classes. As mine are in 3e and 5e they were in different courtyards and my heart was heavy knowing they were each going into the unknown completely alone and with still very rudimentary French.
2) The new maternelle has mixed classes of 2e and 3e, so although S and D are in separate classes they are both in the same mix of ages. This works out well for S who just turned 5 and is in 3e, but D who is still 3 and in 2e and is the youngest in his year level, I am not sure how this is going to work out. He is in a class with kids some of whom who will be turning 6 in January, almost 2 years older than him, and he is by far the smallest but does not take kindly to being treated like a baby (or being patted on the head as the big kids are apt to do).
3) As seems to be the standard, school gates are shut and locked at precisely 8:30am. It appears tardiness is NOT tolerated. You cannot actually get into the school unless you contact the directeur/directrice. I have not yet been in this position as I have been sufficiently freaked out about being locked out! Parents also cannot access the school secretary after 10am most mornings except by appointment. I made appointments to actually meet the primary teachers, but otherwise direct contact time is nil except by appointment and at the scheduled parent-teacher interviews.
4) Homework is legally kept to a minimum, although not all schools abide by this rule. No homework is allowed in maternelle and years 1-2; 20 minutes maximum per day in years 3-4 and 30 minutes in years 5-6. I have to say that I do LOVE this rule, as my experience of homework in Australia was that it was excessive and ridiculous.
5) The school hours are short (compared to other countries). They start school at 8:30 and finish at 3:15pm, except Wednesdays when they finish at 12 noon. But on top of that they have an hour and a half for lunch break every day except weds, plus morning tea break. they are actually allowed to come home during the lunch break if they wanted to. I am not quite sure when they get their work done but they seem to do pretty well academically compared to other western nations.
6) The culture or philosophy is quite unique (to my mind). There is a lot of emphasis on respecting the individual child's rhythms. Whether this is during the day, season or developmental stage of life. It is strongly repeated right from maternelle through primary and says to me that the education system follows the cultural norms where kids are respected for where they are at individually rather than being expected to conform to a uniform standard. In saying that, it is not at all individualistic. They are all expected to perform all the tasks as requested and to participate to their full ability. It seems to work, and better than any system I have seen elsewhere in some respects.
7) My eldest recently won her year level cross country race. Being in a large school, I presume this was a considerable feat, also given she is by far the smallest in the year. However, I knew from the previous years experience that parental interaction is not allowed. So although, we were told the day of the crosscountry, there was no information about venue or what time and certainly parents were not invited or allowed to attend. There seem to be select events that the parents are allowed to experience any part of the school life- fetes, concerts, parent-teacher interviews and end of year awards/results day. I guess this means that for working parents there are not the endless requests and requirements for parental attendance and interaction that can become overwhelming. It takes some time and experience to get used to this cultural shift though and the underlying expectation is that parents trust the school/teachers to take care of their children and that they will be informed of any issues (in a no news is good news kind of way). Obviously over-involved helicopter type parents should steer well clear of francophone countries!
9) I was surprised to find out that C class teacher (5e) does not speak any English, like none. How is this possible? But it shouldn't surprise me. The primary secretary/admin speaks not a word of English or the other official bruxelloise language -Flemish. And I suspect the other teachers also speak limited to zero English. Which is ok, I am managing to express myself and making good use of google translate in my written communications!
There are other definite improvements other than the closeness to home - the maternelle has grass! And a proper playground and looks like a normal school rather than an inner city concrete jungle.
All up, their French seems to be making improvements. 5e is obviously very difficult to be undertaking without the basics, but so far C has been making good progress. Given that the work is stretching my university level French abilities, I am really pleased with what she is accomplishing so far. O in 3e has a much easier time, as the grammar is still being taught in the beginning stages, so although she doesn't have the basic language and vocabularly background, she is probably managing pretty well independently in the class. S in maternelle 3 is doing great, her teacher looked at me quite surprised when I asked if she was speaking in French as if to say "of course she is". D as the youngest is having a harder time this year and it may be that his teacher is not the best fit for him. He is struggling to communicate with the other kids and as they are quite a bit older, the level of communication requirements is significantly higher than last year when he was in with 2-3 year olds.
As well as back to school, has come all the after school activities. Arriving in January, we soon found out that you could enrol in NOTHING until the start of the new school year (Sept), so I made sure I was prepared to enrol at the required days that they had. Luckily I have managed to get all 4 into gymnastics in the same club. The older two are in the training squad which trains 5.5 hours/week (Weds and Fri pms) and the younger two are doing kindi gym which is 1.5 hours on a Friday evening. Fridays are a bit of a write off but they seem to get a second wind and manage to get through it and enjoy it! While I get to actually watch them from the upstairs cafe (the ONLY activity that lets parents watch and I think this is only by default because the venue has large windows and a café). The older two are also doing music theory - a system called Solfege, apparently very well known method- which is twice a week, compulsory for at least 2 years if they also want to play an instrument, and then they are both doing violin lessons once a week as a pair. The best bit is that the music and violin lessons are in the Music academy that is part of the school directly across the road from us, and they are completely free. I couldn't pass up this sort of opportunity and they seem to be coping with the amount of after school activities so far..... And of course it is all done in French so they get the added benefit of being exposed to new vocabularly and language related to music and gym/movement several times a week as well as interacting with the other French kids in these classes.
Anyway, it has been a very busy first term and we are looking forward to a complete break for the holidays before term 2 starts.... We have to prepare ourselves for winter coming up. the weather here has still been very mild without much need for jackets, and so far it has only rained one day at school pick up. I feel very fortunate. But I am guessing I need to be prepared to do the school walk in the rain at least a few times over winter.
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