I had to share this with the forum, as we found it HIGHLY amusing!
The college where my two boys are ( like every other establishment in France) find it hard to get organised.
Parents evening - parents are double booked or the teacher herself forgets
Open day - opens late
School disco - food is an hour late, meaning this years disco didn't start until 11.30pm
Not to mention the paperwork trail that gets lost, and the lost , lost and found box!
And so yesterday we received a paper from the school - En cas d'alerte... what to do in an emergency!
This lists general emergencies from earthquakes to Nuclear fall out.
So in the event of an earthquake - we must
A - not phone the school
B - must not go to the school
Instead, we must sit and listen to the radio! 87.9 if anyone is interested!
Now... in all seriousness, in the event of an earthquake, plane crash or volcanic eruption - in fact, even in the event of a nuclear disaster, who would trust the schools "planning" ( unless of course it's lunch time when I'm sure there's some nuclear fall out provision)!
They used to do special emergency drills at my children's primary school, in case something happened at the nuclear power station in Golfech. I must say, quite organized, due to a parent who was a fireman. The simple reason NOT to phone the school is to keep the phone line free. As I was the president of the parents organization, he suggested I had the list of all parents phone numbers, so in the case of an emergency the school would ring me and I would have to inform all parents. He informed me about this procedure with a VERY big grin, as this would have meant quite a big job for me, but I thought that was the best thing to do.
;O))...surprised you didn't say "stupid boy" missed opportunity brian
Silly boy, it's just outside Lyon, everybody knows that... ...in France.
Good point Ernest......I thought for years that mount Everest was in America, probably until I was 12 or so. A tad embarrassing when corrected......
Funny you should write regarding rewritten history but I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that history is being changed all over the place. I was taken aback recently by some American acquaintances to learn that they had invented the Hovercraft the jet engine and more of a surprise radar!! Just before the Russains did.(IknowI have spelled that wrong). The French are taking lessons from the USA. I did try to correct them but they were adamant that I was wrong. Very embarrassing.
Perhaps It was us who were taught wrongly.
I hope you have success with your children’s school.
I glanced out of my window to watch a passing cloud, then realised it was the shadow from a neighbour's French pride!
This is all quite worrying when you put jokes to one side for a moment. I don't mean to be unkind but if that sort of misrepresentation is common it may help explain why some of the French have a rather inflated opinion of themselves??
Back to 'PAS DE PANIQUE, PAS DE PANIQUE!'
Ah - the thing is Annette - like everything else, that gets done here, there is a PROCESS in place!
We... like all the French do our own thing and simply ignore the "process"
My daughter has already done the war thing. My father (so her grandfather) was in the advance landings who built Mulberry Harbour and so on, so she corrected the teacher who gave the impression some huge great French fleet with millions of soldiers turned up with a couple of English and Americans in tow. She told her how the first Free French Army units landed on the fourth day when the first Polish divisons were even 12km inland by then... It apparently went down like a stone of course.
I experienced a chemical plant (AZF) explosion here in Toulouse in 2001. Both of my children were in primary school at the time and the first thing that all of the parents did was run to school to get their kids. There was no electricity so we had to find batteries for the radio and the telephones were overloaded. The teachers were as shocked as the parents and I think that all "plans" and "rules" went out the window on that day. I love the shewing gum sign Wendy!
Where my two are - the history books of the Second World War have been completely rewritten - super funny as one of my sons is a war history boffin, he's tried to correct them!
Yesterday in English they were taught the word "Seldom" One of the boys came home and said "Since when have people said I'm seldom well" His teacher said that was standard English! Let's hope there are "seldom disasters" here!
Apparently - you'll use up resources! Let's seriously hope nothing happens just before lunch hey!
we are prone to flooding in this area. if we subject to a weather red alert we arent allowed to fetch the kids or call the school either.
on the wall on my girls class it says "shewing gum interdit"
Right Robert, so approptiately put the week Clive Dunn died.
The primary where my two are where - the same history is taught two years in a row but one year contradicts the other.
A nine year picks up the teacher for a mistake she makes in French grammar and is made to stand facing the wall as a punishment!
A bill to pay the school lunch bill is completely wrong because the school separated a double-barreled name making two children into four, despite previous years, months and so on when that did not happen
An anonymised questionnaire from the school finished by asking names and addresses of the parents and marked it an obligatory field.
I can't think of any more off hand, but sometimes we howl about these quirks...
You mustn't call the school because they'll all be running around screaming "PAS DE PANIQUE" lol
RIP...Clive Dunn!!