That’s a really helpful explanation, thanks. Let’s hope all CNED areas are left alone and the action is toward the completely unregulated.
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Yes - really good post Philippa - I didn’t know any of this - it sounds like the arrangements for ‘monitoring, and curtailing extremism, without banning all home education’ I suggested earlier in the thread are already in place in France.
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sorry, tried to edit a post and it got deleted!
You should be able to edit and ‘revert to revision 1’. I can do it for you if not?
It’s not only classic religious schools that are the problem schools like waldorf and montessori that I feel are run like cults are part of the problem too
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As the father of three young’s who we enrolled in a special democratic school here in Ardeche, we have also had to succumb to Macron’s madness. Instead of the kids being as they were, they now have to have formalised schooling in the morning, and then are relatively free in the afternoons.
The screws are indeed tightening on what was once a very forward-thinking education system, although nobody REALLY understands why.
What is a democratic school?
This new proposal hasn’t even been presented yet…and a long way from becoming law?
Interesting - reminiscent of A.S. Neill’s ‘Summerhill’.
Morning, I’m a French and English lady. Please tell your friends to start the process of home schooling. I think it will be a while if anything gets put into place. Also your friend, like my friends here who foster children and some are home schooled are not the category that is going to stop.
However i wonder if your friends are English why they would home school unless they speak fluent french.
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Morning,
Please don’t hesitate to to move your child out of school or move schools ( maybe try u a private college)
My son in the uk had a terrible time and we should have moved him sooner, he was very unhappy and became quite unwell mentally and we nearly lost him.
Now i live here, i watch carefully my other children. My daughter had just gone to college (private) all the other children went to the local college and i am super happy my daughter didn’t follow. Too big and too much independence. The structure of the day at the private school is better and lots of kids frim different cultures and countries.
Take care x
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Very true about moving kids, Alex, my youngest is précoce and we moved him in primaire and again 2 weeks ago in 6ème after just 2 weeks but don’t regret doing so even if it means a lot of travel and changing départements, he’s now at my other half’s old collège and much happier. The environment can make such a huge difference for some 
my kids are francophone not anglophone and both moves were from state to private.
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Worth mentioning, just in case anybody reading here doesn’t know, that French ‘private’ schools are nothing like the UK’s ‘public’ schools, especially in that they are genuinely about different approaches to education, not propagating class differences.
In France, they are generally closely integrated with the state system, the teachers are employed by the state, the ‘private’ fees state-subsidised and very low, so that I guess any family that wants a slightly different educational focus can afford it. Many are catholic schools - but because they are state-regulated, and respect the laïcité principle, they are not at all religious in comparison with almost any UK school.
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Indeed, as I learned from one of my neighbours not too long ago, about a “county lines” drugs bust in a village just 8km away.
Just imagine … that it is not British children who are being targeted by this projet de loi (it’s still just at the green paper stage). What if we were to read the Algerian or Tunisian or Turkish equivalent to SFN. What might they be concerned about? Their children having to mix with French children in a secular school without religion? They might very well be concerned that the home-schooling they have put in place with the help of community leaders, imams and other parents is endangered.
Ditto for the Chinese, Pakistanis, Americans or whoever.
Why should any one group of immigrants think that they should have a right to opt out of this French effort to integrate immigrants into the secular République?
There are some good reasons for home-schooling: most of them centre on ilness, severe learning difficulties or transient children. The new law will probably make exceptions for all these cases when it is debated in parliament.
But for those parents who decide (for their children) that secular schooling and mixing with other children from other backgrounds is not a good thing this will be a shock. And it should make them think and reflect on just who they think they are to decide to deprive their kids or social intercourse, friends, collective sports, culture and all the positive sociological and psychological benefits of collective education? And then these same parents presume that they can teach their children better maths, physics, chemistry, German, Spanish, French, literature, philosophy, art, history and much more than trained teachers?
Ouside of SFN I have heard only from marginal French groups who are opposed to the Education system in general, who are conspirationistes convinced that the Education Nationale is a massive brain-washing outfit to turn all children into mindless, obeying robots.
As a native of Northern Ireland, where I suffered numerous indignities at the hands of the religiously-minded (including expulsion for 3 days for not having a bible in my home), I can assure you all that my children were sent to state schools in France from 3 years old with nary a cross, a crucifix, a bible or a BVM in sight. They are bi-lingual (that’s where ‘home-schooling’ comes in) and now have Masters degrees. Of course there were problems, there always are. We live in the city and there are usually more than 50 or 60 nationalities represented in each school. My son is severely dyspraxic and cannot write or draw. They gave him a laptop in his first year in Collège and taught him to touch-type. He now has a Master’s degree in European law.
I just think that instead of reacting to a rumour (as this post started out as) we should look at all the facts and come to a reasoned opinion. That’s mine.
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It’s great that your family has had such a positive experience of schools here in France, Simon. Actually we have too - and I also share your views on the problems associated with religion. However, not everyone has such positive experience of their local schools, nor do they necessarily want to pursue home education for religious or any other questionable reasons.
One of my sons is also dyspraxic, and although he did well at his second school here, we had to move him from his first. Similarly, when we were in the UK he had few problems at one school, but lots at another - and we ended up teaching him at home for 2 terms. This was an extremely positive period for him; and we also had good support from the local education authority - and an inspector who not only made sure proper education was taking place, but was also a fount of ideas and good advice. Thus my own experience leads to the conclusion that home education should indeed be monitored and regulated, but definitely not outlawed.
Some of your other worries are I think unnecessary. Why assume that home educators are not aware of such issues as the need for collective activities, socialisation, or subject specialists (at least for older children)? If you look at the home education support infrastructure on the internet or at local level you will find much awareness of and arrangements for addressing such issues.
So while there are, I’m sure, problems around religious and other extreme views - although mainly I think in private schools rather than home education - in my experience this is far from the thinking of the vast majority of home educators, who as I commented earlier are either simply trying to address some specific need of their child, or have a philosophy of education different from, but just as valid as that they happen to find in accessible schools.
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Can only agree that the only place I’ve heard people talking about the proposed change is here on sfn. All my contact outside sfn is 100% French and nobody’s raised an eyebrow, quite the opposite
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I think you would find the same lack of concern from the vast majority in any country or society Andrew - it’s an issue that only interests a small number of people anywhere - but it’s very important to some.
There are great discussions on many subjects on this forum - Linux springs to mind - that would pass most people by entirely. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?
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