Looking for some advice, we have a 3 year old and a 1.5 year old. Every year we come to France from January to March. We’re Irish, work for Irish companies and continue working while we’re here.
We’d like to continue to do this and as the kids are getting older we’re looking at our options for kids. We rent each year, don’t have a property here. We went to the Affaires Scolaire, and they were very encouraging in that it was as simple as filling out a dossier for the upcoming school term. After that it is up to the Maitresse?
It seems almost too good to be true so I was wondering if anyone else has done this? Anything to watch out for? We’re in France now so I was thinking of visiting a local maternelle and talking to the Maitresse. One slight kink is that our french is elementary, we can get by but conversation is broken and spluttery
That’s fine, so long as you try. I live on Deepl - write out what you want to say in English, then get Deepl to translate it for you. Keep sentences short and simple. Practice before you go, if necessary print it off and take it with you. It’s a good way to learn because this is vocabulary you need. (It’s how I learnt my medical vocabulary.)
I am not familiar with Deepl but perhaps a word of caution here. Every now and then when I have a French language document on my screen a panel pops up from nowhere from Google, I think, offering to translate. I normally ignore it but the other day took the offer when speccing a new internet radio.
Nearly died laughing when I saw that they had translated a comment from somebody as ‘damage, no remote’. It was some moments before I realised that the French had been ‘dommage, pas de telecommande’. Of course context is everything and in this case it meant that it was a shame that there was no remote included in the package.
In short, best to find a French person to check what you have translated.
Thanks all for the replies! We have gone to the Maire, they sent us to Affaires Scolaire office. They were super helpful but ultimately said we’ve to apply in April to get a spot in a local school. The problem is we’re only here for January to March, we said this to the lady in the office and she said it was up to the Maitresse.
I was wondering if anyone else went through the process and anything we need to watch out for? We also won’t have an address here in France until we book accommodation for next year.
I find ChatGPT great for French translations, then I double check it with Google Translate.
