At a young age like that I would think it would be easier for your son to adjust than later on.
Do you and your partner speak French, will you be able to support him at home? That is important. And if your partner is French and has been through the French school system himself, that would be very helpful too. Even with good French it can be hard helping your child with their school work if you are not familiar with the French education system, French school work is not the same as UK school work but in French. That might sound a daft thing to say but the way things are taught is different, mine brought home exercises and tasks of types that I had never had to do when I was at school in England in the dark ages. They seem to look at things in a different way and to some extent they seem to be aiming to develop different skills, and at first we didnât really know what the expectations were as we would have done if theyâd been at school in England. So me and SWMBO feel like we have got the tee shirts, it all came right in the end but at the time we did not lke having to admit to the kids that we were struggling to help them with their homework like their classmatesâ parents could, we felt we were letting them down.
Yes, I grew up in London but French is my first language as I come from a french speaking country and my partner finished his studies in France and speaks the language really well, he did tell me schooling in France is abit hard and overall he says french is a difficult language, so the last thing we want is for the child to struggle with fitting in or learning the language as he already is behind for this age. He loves reading and can read really well, better than he can speak and he loves letters and numbers. So I thought maybe I would start giving him french/ English books to see how he would progress. Worst come to worst if we canât find a good school with good provision for our child then he would just come here to join us instead.
Yes I think that is what I would do. Even if you feel you know your child well you canât always predict what they will connect with and take a shine to and what they will refuse to have anything to do with! Also if you can bring him to France on holiday if you havenât already, and try to engineer situations where he meets other kids his age and watch how he responds to them and they respond to him. I think the more feelers you can put out over the next year or so before firmly committing yourself to anything, the better.
Yes we do go France often to see my partner and I have a lot of family there. He tends to repeat a lot after my little cousins, but thank you so much for your help and your time. I really appreciate it.