ALL ABOUT FRANCE

School: Sainte Jeanne d'Arc - Orgeval

School location: 20 minutes west of Paris

School Calendar: ​In primary school in France, it is common to find schools that do not have school on Wednesdays, but require students to attend school on some Saturday mornings.

Governance Structure: The school that I will be teaching at is considered "sous contrat d'association." This means that although it is a private school, it is funded by the government and the school is required to follow the national curriculum.

Assessment: Since the education is much more traditional, the assessment follows a traditional format as well. There are national evaluations at the end of each year that assess skills in French and Math.

Language of Instruction: French

Curriculum: National curriulum standards - Les programmes de l'état; These standards are very strict and must be met each year, which sometimes means that certain students have to be pushed along.

Special Education Issues:

• No IEPs or special education teachers, so differentiation is much more difficult

• Students can go through testing outside of school for special education; however, the school does not fund any of these accommodations or additional aides, so if the family does not have the financial means to seek out the extra help, the classroom teacher has to find a way to help that student in the classroom.

Teaching Styles:​

• Teacher-led with mostly whole-class activities and individual work

• Focus on rote learning and procedures that will help them in their future individual careers, not a collaborative effort

• Handwriting (l'écriture) is also extremely important and students are graded on this.

Classroom Management Styles (la gestion de la classe):

• Routine and autonomous behaviors for their entire education is established in maternelle, which is the equivalent to pre-school

• The talkativeness is managed through "chuts", clicking of the tongue, or silence.

Private/ Public School Issues: Similar to the U.S., public schools are free and families pay for private schools. With the values of la laïcité, France strictly follows seperation between Church and state (schooling). Class sizes are large in private schools because that is the only way that they can stay open.

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