1st January 2021: Studying in the United Kingdom – the new rules

The British Point of View

01.01.2021 is approaching, and with it the new legislation for EU students studying in the United Kingdom. Here is a short guide to help explain* (more…)

WHAT I DID IN MY SUMMER HOLIDAYS

The British Point of View

This, or a similar topic, may well be your child’s first homework task of the new school year and, I am sure, often makes interesting reading for teachers. Several years ago – well before Covid 19 made working from home the norm – I was introduced to a chap at a drinks party and for some reason we got on to the topic of children’s homework.  My new acquaintance made me laugh: having been given the writing topic “What my parents do”, his son had written that his father “sits at his computer all day in his dressing gown”.  (It wasn’t until later that I discovered I had been talking to an Oscar-winning screenplay writer).

This year, “What I did in my summer holiday”s essays might make repetitive reading for teachers; summer 2020 has been a Staycation for most and hearing about someone getting into an airplane or crossing an international boarder has become something of a novelty.  My own holidays have involved 4Fs: family, friends, fresh air and France – not much to complain about there.

Teachers at boarding schools, meanwhile, have been recharging their batteries after the demands and complications of last term.  Despite the expansive boarding school buildings throughout the country lying eerily empty for most of the term, teachers were kept busy ensuring that school life continued at its usual snappy pace from April to July – albeit it at a distance.

With the help of online platforms such as Google Meets and Zoom, boarding schools adapted swiftly. From Morning Chapel to end of day homework clinics, boarding schools maintained a varied and rich timetable for every pupil. The effort put in by teachers, their energy and initiative that I witnessed from schools’ sometimes daily emails was consistently impressive. Alongside regular, real-time full academic lessons, pupils were able to continue their extra-curricular activities.  Chess club, science projects, cooking skills, photo competitions, art exhibitions, kite making, sports challenges, video film making…..the options were as comprehensive as ever – and often even more inventive.  As the mother of one French pupil who followed an online timetable for the term said, “l’école a organisé les choses admirablement bien.”

Of course, everyone is now very keen to get back together on site, put aside their computer screens and enjoy human camarderie once again. Staff have been working tirelessly to put into place the current stringent regulations required in order to guarantee all pupils’ health and safety as they return to school.  Most schools have signed up to the Boarding Schools Association Covid Safe Charter which gives clear guidance of the strict measures to be followed – made easier to adhere to thanks to the advantage private boarding schools have of spacious buildings, extensive grounds, small class sizes and low pupil to teacher ratios.

Summer 2019

The British Point of View

SUMMER 2019

Voici quelques idées pour votre enfant cet été*

JUIN                                                 AGES         DATES                                                                             PRIX

SUMMER SCHOOL + FAMILLE

MON PREMIER SUMMER CAMP

SUMMER SCHOOL GÉRÉE PAR UNE TOP BOARDING SCHOOL

SPORT

SPORTS NAUTIQUES

PERFORMING ARTS

LONDRES

CAMPAGNE

SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGIE

ACADÉMIQUE

INFORMATIQUE

HAPPY EASTER

The British Point of View

Mummy, the Cloche is Sonning

The British Point of View

“If someone who speaks many languages is multilingual and someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, what do you call someone who speaks one language? Answer: an Englishman”. So goes the joke.*

Those people who speak more than one language are two-a-penny these days; those who are truly bilingual or multingual are harder to find. As a monolingual parent it has been fascinating to watch my children growing up mastering two languages seemingly without effort; they appear to have made the most of the “celestial openness of the child’s mind” referred to by poets (and also by Patricia Kuhl in her TED talk ‘The linguistic genius of babies“). However, this does tend to throw up interesting phrases such as “the cloche is sonning, Mummy” from my 7 year old son when we had just moved back to France from England, or, just two days ago, from my twenty year old daughter “watch out: the bowl is going to smashé!” A third, private, family language seems to have sprung up unknowingly.

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” Frank Smith, psycholinguist.

Whilst there continues to be debate over the pros and cons of being bilingual or multilingual, it is clear that it has a positive affect on the brain. According to Ellen Bialystok, research professor of psychology at York University, Toronto, we have a network of brain neurons in the cognitive system of our brain: the Executive Function System (EFS). You may know this already, but I didn’t, until I listened to Dr Bialystok discussing bilingualism on English radio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j9z75

Apparently, the EFS is most important cognitive system we have and forms the basis of the most difficult thinking, performing and problem solving that the human mind can engage in. In short, it helps us to select what we should be concentrating on. The EFS of a bilingual or mutilingual person has regular practise in focusing on which language to choose over another. Practise, as we know, makes perfect: in this case, it certainly exercises and muscles the brain, resulting in people capable of improved decision-making and with a developed ability to focus. Oh, how I wish I were bilingual.

“To God I speak Spanish, to women Italian, to men French and to my horse, German.” Emperor Charles V.

I was intrigued by a friend of my son’s who, aged 13, spoke five languages but said he was not totally at home in any of them. Ignacio has an Austrian mother, a Spanish father, has been educated in England and France and lived briefly in Portugal; he is now based in Spain. Ignacio told me, “If I don’t know a word in Spanish I will say it in English, so sometimes my sentences don’t make much sense; people do say I speak Spanglish alot. And also, since I have never studied Spanish grammar, I don’t know my tenses, so I make up my own. It is quite funny”.

Oliver, my 18 year old godson who I have seen grow up switching easily between English to his father, Dutch to his mother and French to his school friends, tells me that he feels most at home in English, despite the influence of a French education. (However, he does play hockey for France and is going to university in Holland).

One thing is sure: both Ignacio and Oliver are totally charming, engaging young men. Would it be going too far to suggest that this is a direct result of their multilingual backgrounds?

“It is a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it is a mere word or sentence that comes to me – if I am writing the book in English – in French. It is not always easy to deal with.” Tatiana de Rosnay, author

I am always impressed by French children who go directly from French schools to British universities: within weeks they will be expected to hand in long essays, expressing themselves perfectly in a foreign language. It is one thing trying to find the correct words and to put them together without grammatical error, but perhaps the greatest challenge is to present them in a natural form which does not read as a literal translation from one language to another.

Tatiana de Rosnay (who describes herself as a ‘franglaise’), writes some of her novels in English and some in French but, interestingly, does not translate her own books. I would have thought it was challenge enough to produce a novel in one language. Irish playwright Samuel Beckett also wrote both in English and French, novelist Vladimir Nabokov first in Russian and then in English and Joseph Conrad in English although his first language was Polish. Chapeau, as they say.

The recurring comment from those lucky enough to be bilingual or multilingual appears to be that it is easier to express certain things in one language than another; when a suitable word or phrase cannot be found in one, they turn to the other. This could be put down to intellectual perfectionism but, according to my own children, in their case it is pure laziness that leads them to converse in fractured franglais.

“It is both a blessing and a burden.” Cuban-American poet Gustavo Perez Firmat.

It is said that it is not possible to be one hundred percent in more than one language.   Assuming that ‘double semi-lingualism’ (not developping full proficiency in either of two languages) is to be avoided, at some point the question arises: ‘what is your mother tongue, your first language?’ From the outside, a faultless accent can appear to give the answer but surely the most important element is which language feels the most comfortable from the inside?

The standard question people ask is “which language do you dream in?” as though this is the ultimate, deciding factor. However, I think “which language do you laugh in?” would be a more pertinent question – or, as my children might put it “in which language do you rigoler?”

*the original answer was, in fact ‘an American’, but I thought it was acceptable to do a little editing.

British Boarding School

The British Point of View

April 2014

“One of the big findings of modern psychology is that wellbeing is a key ingredient for successful learning.” Peter Gumbel

MY STORY: 1970s/1980s

I was longing to go to boarding school. I had done my homework; hours invested in the pages of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers had served to fire my imagination and made me dream of lacrosse, midnight feasts and classroom pranks. In 1978, aged 12, my wish came true. I posed proudly on our lawn in my new school uniform (the height of 70s crimplene) whilst my father recorded the departure of his youngest child, hugged and kissed my beloved cat and left for my new life with a skip and a jump and a heart bouncing with anticipation. (I presume I kissed and hugged my parents as well).

And so began my boarding school adventure: four years shared with 499 other teenage girls. I loved it; the rules (and also breaking them), the team sports (lacrosse, of course), the mealtimes (plastic bread, plastic meat – and chips), the fire practices (organized in the middle of the night in our pyjamas), the tennis matches played late on summer evenings, the pottery room in the attic, the assemblies when the whole school gathered together and sang. I soaked it all up. Perhaps I was an unusual creature; amongst my friends it was cool to be in rebellion against ones family and ones school, but I loved both.

The food was pretty revolting and of minimal nutritional value, the headmistress was terrifying, we didn’t have mobile phones or computers and were forced to write a weekly letter to our parents (our only form of communication). We slept in small ‘cubicles’, separated by partitions and curtains, were yanked out of bed to say prayers in the early morning and were treated to a weekly television ration of Dallas and Top of the Pops. We shivered beside the open-air pool awaiting orders from a sadistic swimming teacher, lay around at the week ends eating sweets (courtesy of our weekly 30p pocket money) and squealed when we received a letter from a BOY.

This may paint a very bleak picture of life at a British boarding school, yet, even in the early 80s, these institutions had come along way in improving their Dickensian reputation of cold showers, fagging and flogging. The “Colditz in kilts” which Prince Charles had endured was gradually becoming a thing of the past. These schools, which had once reveled in teaching children (sometimes as young as 6) to keep a ‘stiff upper lip’, through all means of adversity and punishment, began to soften and modernise. As the years have gone by, they have become happy places of learning and friendship, finding an even balance between effort and reward, whilst maintaining tremendous records of achievement in every domain.

MY CHILDREN’S STORY: 2010

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

We had two options: we could either keep our four teenage children at home with us in France and continue our close and comfortable family life, or send them 800kms away to boarding school in the north of England. We chose the English route, thereby taking not only a massive, emotional decision, but also making a significant financial sacrifice.

Pretty much every day in France I am met with incredulous looks of horror and incomprehension. “How could you send your children so far away?” people ask in shocked tones; “that must be so hard.” It is hard; horribly so at times, and there are moments of miserable emptiness (for us, the parents left at home). Yet, as soon as I speak to my children and feel their happiness and enthusiasm, or receive a short email saying no more than “Really busy, lots of love,” I am reassured. Any worries or doubts that may linger are totally banished when we go to the school itself. Welcomed as part of the close community and made to feel very much at home, we are able to see our children joking with their friends, racing around on the sports field, performing on stage, chatting to teachers. Then I know without doubt that this choice – for my children – was the happiest one.

The trigger for me came five years ago when I spent a week in England looking after my ailing father. I made the last-minute decision to take my ten-year old son out of his French school and enroll him in a local prep school as a day boy. The first morning I dropped off a slightly anxious child, awkward in his unfamiliar tie and grey flannel trousers. Ten hours later I was greeted by a grubby creature, bobbing up and down in excitement. “Mummy, Mummy,” he gabbled as soon as he saw me, “we did experiments in science and I played rugby and we lay on the floor in the library and read, and Rosie said……” My heart leapt and sank in swift succession. How could I deny my children this wonderful opportunity, this freedom and joyful adventure?

It has been tremendously rewarding to see our children thrive in the boarding school environment. Our daughter, who arrived in the Sixth Form, rang us during her first week to say, “thank you, thank you, I am so happy; I am going to send my children here.” One son, who had stalled at school, has had his interest in learning re-kindled through positive encouragement. Another son has grown in confidence, finding his strengths both in and out of the classroom. And then there is the youngest: even more passionate today about science and who is a regular visitor to the school infirmary with rugby injuries. Who knows what the future holds for any of them? Butcher, baker candlestick maker; whatever they go on to do, I am pretty sure that they will be always aided by the solid foundation of their all-rounded school days.

YOUR CHILD’S STORY: 2014 and on

“Teaching is an art form. It is not a delivery system. It’s about getting to know your students and finding good ways to energise them and engage their imagination”. Sir Ken Robinson

There is a multitude of words that trip off my tongue when I am extolling the virtues of the British boarding school system. Encouragement, confidence-building, fair play, team spirit, independence, self-respect, tradition, good manners, creativity, emotional intelligence….. the list is long and positive. This is made possible with the help of enthusiastic teachers who encourage active participation, small class sizes, a streaming system to cater for a range of abilities, the strong tutor structure, the overall house set-up within each school. This is all held together by a vital pastoral element.

Of course, there are many other factors which help to make a successful and happy school and each establishment will have a particular strength or ethos which sets it apart from others. There is a school for everyone: the highly academic, the seriously sporty, the shy child, as well as the outgoing one. Whichever place you decide suits your child, you can be sure they will be closely guided throughout their stay at the school, and the parent given regular updates of his or her progress. Individual learning support is offered to those children with special needs such as dyslexia, and your child’s academic life is not over if they struggle in maths. The school will soon uncover a pupil’s potential, stimulate their curiosity and fire up in them a desire to learn.

It is true that the facilities are often of exceptional standard: golf courses, equestrian centres and Olympic-sized pools are not uncommon. It is also true that the pupils are extremely privileged; neither can the significant school fees be ignored. But there are facts to be taken into account which show that the independent sector makes increasing efforts to share its privileged status. 9 out of 10 fee-paying schools have an agreement with local state schools or community groups. Most independent schools have close ties to chosen charities and encourage their pupils to become involved in fund raising and help those left fortunate, in Britain and around the world. In 2010 £300 million was put towards bursaries to help 40,000 children attend independent schools.

The recent film, Guillaume et les garcons à table may have been fairly eccentric and its portrayal of the idyllic British boarding school somewhat far-fetched, but it was joyous to see Guillaume thrive and relish in the new life thrown open to him. I tell my own children that they have been given a wonderful opportunity and that they should make the most of every minute. When I visit these impressive establishments today, I often wish I could go back to school again myself.

Back to School

The British Point of View

September 2014

“Mummy, I think I have forgotten something.”  Eustache, 15

We are in the middle of our 800km journey back to school: one frazzled mother, four over-sugared, gangly teenagers, two hot and hairy dogs and several hastily-packed suitcases, all squashed together into our rather dirty car.  Of course, when our first child started off on the British boarding school adventure everything was meticulously organised; each item on the school list name-taped, folded and neatly arranged weeks ahead.

Five years on, and times have changed: I now take turns at the wheel with my two elder children (thanks to driving lessons taken whilst at school), giving me time to run through my long-neglected to-do list and to scrabble around in my cavernous hand-bag for a needle and thread.  One son is attempting to write a long overdue thank-you postcard, the novelty of holding a pen proving a challenge.  Another is gazing happily out of the window as though this is another day out to the beach.  Pink Floyd’s “I don’t need no education” accompanies us along the motorway…..

Two delicious, barefoot months have come to an abrupt end; it is time to knot the school tie once more.  There has been a mad dash to the dry cleaners with several dishevelled suits and the vigorous polishing of black leather lace-up shoes.  Long-forgotten hairbrushes have been unearthed and hasty last-minute shopping trips made on discovering that each child appears to have shot up another 5cm during their long and lazy summer.  An alarming number of pieces of clothing have an unfamiliar name on them; my husband went off to work with socks labelled “Johnnie H. Travers”. Every Bédier sock seems to have vanished into a Black Hole.

A fat volume of “War and Peace” is jammed under one of the back seats; it has spent most of the summer there.  My attempts to keep up my children’s cultural education during the holidays have met with some resistance; I would be surprised if any of them can remember how to spell their name.

Children will be arriving from all corners of the world to start the new school year at boarding schools across Britain.  For many, the journey will be longer than ours, even with the progress of modern global travel.  A friend described to me her trips, at the age of 12 in the 1970s, from her home in Morocco to her boarding school on the Isle of Wight.  This involved a ‘plane, a night in London, a train, a ferry crossing, another train and finally a taxi.  She didn’t see her parents for months on end.

I cannot say that my children are actively looking forward to going back to school: few people, I think, would choose to get out of bed at 7.30am rather than 12.30pm, or take up revision of German verb endings instead of idly flicking through a magazine whilst sprawled on a sofa, hammock, beach, boat or similar relaxing location.  There is, however, a certain positive anticipation in the car as to what lies ahead.

A new school year at a British boarding school brings with it not just hard work and the conforming to school rules: it also gives pupils the chance to build on successes already achieved or to have another go at things not yet mastered, as well as the opportunity to take up new ventures.  Above all, however, is the reunion with close friends.  Facebook has been in full use over the summer, but nothing – I am glad to report – beats the real thing.

By the time I am back behind my desk in France a few days later, I have already received several happy messages from England.  Single room status has been achieved, as has membership of the Cheese & Wine Society and a place in the senior squash squad.  Preparations for a raft race and involvement in charity fund-raising are under way; a busy school year is up and running once more.  One son even remembers to add, as an after-thought: “They have already given us so much work to do”.  I am reassured.

A YEAR AT A BRITISH BOARDING SCHOOL

The British Point of View

Spending a complete academic year at a British boarding school allows for a wide choice of options; this is the minimum period many schools will accept.  It also gives a pupil the time to adapt to new surroundings, to make long-standing friends, to perfect his or her English – and to learn a variety of new skills.

Here are 10 ideas for different ages, budgets and interests.

The prices are approximate annual fees.

1         TRADITIONAL PREP SCHOOL: 7-13

Happy, busy and homely: £19,500 up

2         CNED: 7-13

Possibility of continuing French curriculum alongside the British timetable: £25,020

3         BUDGET: 11-18

Small and friendly: £20,943

4         TOP OF THE RANGE: 11-18

State of the art facilities: £35,775

5         PRE-IB/’A’ LEVEL YEAR: 15-16

One year preparation for international pupils: £28,500 up

6         SIXTH FORM COLLEGE: 15-19

Small, international, tutorial-based: £31,095

7         SPORTS ACADEMIES: 11-18

Intensive coaching in golf, riding, tennis, swimming and other sports alongside regular classes: £28,500 up

8         GRAMMAR SCHOOL: 11-18

All boy, academically challenging: £11,250

9         PRE-MEDICAL STUDIES: 16-17

One year course preparing for medical school: £34,050

10       STATE BOARDING SCHOOL: 11-18

Larger class sizes – smaller fees:  £14,355

My tailor is rich

The British Point of View

I would like to think I am well-placed to give advice on how to learn a foreign language: marry a foreigner. Yet, even this somewhat radical step does not necessarily bring instant fluency: despite also living in my husband’s country, 20 years on I am still grappling to get the words out. Although many kind people insist that my accent is “charmant” I am very grateful that I do not have to listen to it myself

However, I could give advice on how not to learn a foreign language: spend 12 years reciting sentences such as “la plume de ma tante” (strangely enough, I have never used this phrase outside the classroom). I remember a whole school year of French classes taken up with drawing and cutting out a “valise”. Although it is true I spent most of the time in the corridor outside the classroom due to my disruptive behaviour, I think I can be forgiven: at the age of 6, eager and energetic, I was hungry for knowledge and frustrated by the limited expectations.

Experts may disagree with me, but the fact that my French teachers had names such as Mr Golding and Mrs Bradley surely played a role (I won’t be cruel and start talking about their age – everyone seems very ancient from a child’s view). Even today I still ponder long and hard as to the gender of ‘beurre’ or ‘fleur’: hard to shed the ingrained rule – according to Mr G and Mrs B – that every noun ending in ‘e’ is female.

So that was then and this is now. Has the method – and final result obtained – in learning languages improved? The British department of education states “Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures”: an intelligent and forward-thinking statement – and yet it is no longer compulsory to learn a modern language at school after the age of 11 (and only a cursory amount from 7-11). The British have now become so complacent about being understood throughout the world without opening a phrase book that the motivation for studying another language is dwindling rapidly.

How are languages taught in the French classroom today? Probably a lot better than in Britain and somewhat worse than in Scandinavia. I was amused to discover only the other day that my own children had watched videos of the cartoon “Pingu” whilst at their French primary school. As I had no idea what they were refering to I have just spent 5 minutes (quite enough, thank you) on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyk1394JF6k. Quite how anyone is supposed to improve their English thanks to Pingu I know not. I can afford to be amused; my children are already bilingual, but this is not so funny for French families who know that their children have to be able to communicate fluently in English.

Many French parents gnash their teeth worrying about what they believe to be the poor level of their children’s English, but on the whole I have been impressed by the ability of the French teenagers I have met to converse with me. Perhaps it is just a question of confidence and the lack of opportunity to put the theoretical learning into practice. “The French school system is built around negativity. There is lot’s of telling pupils off and putting them down and in the end they come out of it believing they are bad at languages; a lot of French people say that themselves” says David Stenning, director of Interface Business Languages in Paris.

The comment made to me by the father of a 15 year old French boy made me think. He was looking for somewhere to send his son at the beginning of the summer and I suggested him going to a British boarding school for the month of June. His father replied that it would be a waste of time for his son to sit in lessons with British children; he said that he knew how easy it was to ‘zone out’ when a conversation was hard to follow and that he himself had only learnt a few words of slang after 3 months working in a bar in England as a student.

It is true that simply going to a foreign country – whether it be to school, university or even to work – is not enough. Anyone can spend years abroad and return with no more than the ability to ask for a loaf of bread or pint of beer. Useful knowledge, of course, but perhaps not totally satisfactory. The key is to get involved and participate, rather than being a silent onlooker. The boy’s father and I had a long and interesting chat and I was able to assure him that a good school in England would encourage pupil participation, aided by the fact that class sizes are small and streamed according to ability. (His son did go to boarding school for the month of June and the stay was, I believe, a great success).

Should a child who goes to a summer school in Britain take (often optional) English language classes? I would say yes, if they are ‘hands on’, fun and interesting but probably not if they are simply a repeat of the experience in the child’s class at home; there is little point in packing a suitcase for this. Taking part in an activity which interests a child – tennis, riding, rowing, sailing, painting, singing: whatever it may be – in which they will be forced (in the most natural way) to converse with intructors and other children in English, would be a much more positive, fruitful exercise. It is a well-known fact that we learn best when we are interested, involved and happy in what we are doing; the effort is a more pleasurable and positive experience.

This is not to ignore the importance of knowing how to write a language fluently and there are some very interesting courses with a more academic emphasis on offer in Britain for the older child. Whilst the tried and tested ‘séjour linguistique’ is still in existence, there is now the possibility for teenagers to learn about Business, Law, Public Speaking, Debating, Team Building – all in English.

So what is the best way to learn a foreign language? Start as young as possible, converse with native speakers, read, watch and listen to everything and anything in that language with passion and enthusiasm: throw yourself into it, without inhibition or hesitation. This is my amateur opinion and nothing new.

Why are my children billingual? Simply because I have always, always, always spoken English to them and my husband French – and – just as importantly – they have always replied in the same language. Why do the Dutch and Scandinavian speak such fantastic English? Because they have to. They are immersed in English from an early age – particularly via the television; it is second nature to them.

Take heart, though, if you feel that you have already left it too late for your child ever to be comfortably fluent in English. My husband spurned English at school in favour of German and Russian. At the grand age of 24 he took himself off to Hastings for a ‘séjour linguistique’ (shades of ‘A Nous les Petites Anglaises’) and, by the time I met him (not in Hastings, I hasten to add) a year or so later (conversing in English, despite my ‘A’ level French) one would be hard pressed to believe he was a relative newcomer to the English language. He can still recite reams of German poetry and sing in Russian, although he never uses either language. Is this because he has what we call a ‘good ear’ or do I have to admit that he is just a touch cleverer than me?