Ecole des petits question

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NorthcoteRoad
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Ecole des petits question

Postby NorthcoteRoad » Fri Jan 09, 2015 11:39 am

Hello,

We re French and our daughter has been offered a place at l’ecole des petits in Fulham. We live around Northcote Road and were considering more of a local school but since people in the French community seem to be considering this to be a golden ticket we are in a bit of a dilemma.

We slightly prefer the English system but want her to be able to write French too (which means CNED anyway). We also value the fact that L’ecole des Petits gives you the option of the Lycee later on which would be pretty much impossible to get into otherwise. But it is at the cost of commuting into Fulham every day (10 minutes by car or 30 minutes by bus), having school friends living all over SW London so I am guessing car trips on week-ends too for playdates/birthdays rather than staying in the lovely community between the commons.

Was anybody in a similar situation? Did they choose l’Ecole des petits and are there many kids living nearby who go there? Or did they choose Belleville + CNED? Or local private + CNED (at Belleville or other)?

Thoughts very much appreciated. Please PM me if you d rather not post publicly.
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AnotherMummy
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby AnotherMummy » Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:52 pm

Hi NorthcoteRoad,

Also bear in mind the admission policy to the Lycée in Kensington is changing from 2015. Looks like the "écoles homologuées", which l'Ecole des Petits is, will not benefit from a direct link to the Lycée Charles de Gaulle any longer. The aim is to reduce the number of students at Charles de Gaule and fill the Lycée International in Wembley instead.

Good luck!
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supergirl
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby supergirl » Sat Jan 10, 2015 8:13 am

My children are bilingual english and french and go to an english private school. We applied to l ecole des petits Battersea but i m so glad there are not there.
If you are lucky to have an outstanding english school state or private, then in my opinion you have the best. Who knows if your children are going to be very academic or not? In english outstanting primaties tge focus is on a holllistic approach to the child where they more sports than in french school, a lot more public speaking (assembly, play, etc), music, etc.
In my school they are 18 per class they weekly french, a french club and a spanish club.

I would definitively choose an oustanding english over the commute. My children are in yr1 and R. My eldest reads and write in french now. Learning the phonics first has helped her a lot. She even put the accent aigu in grand pere and grand mere. I help yes but havent consider the cned yet as i dont want french to become a chore and 1h30 min a week in top of activities and homework is a lot in my view.

Good luck in your decision. PM me if you need. Sx
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supergirl
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby supergirl » Sat Jan 10, 2015 8:15 am

there are a few typo as i m typing on my iphone sorry. The main one is i mean *accent grave* of course. :oops:
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NorthcoteRoad
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby NorthcoteRoad » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:20 am

Thank you so much for your very kind and helpful replies, posts and PMs. Very appreciated.

Anybody with experience of Hornsby house and CNED (either at Belleville or with private lessons)? Everything we've heard and read about the school is absolutely amazing with never a bad comment (and very happy with the school's ethos and results after my visit of it), the worry being that it is a bit far from the Northcote road area where we live and also (therefore?) does not seem to have a large French community. We know of a lot fewer people going there compared to other private schools.
Thank you.
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brihoney
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby brihoney » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:31 pm

Sorry, this is a long post, but I have been through all these dilemmas and have had experience of a few of the things you ask about!

My son went to L'ecole des Petits in Fulham for 3 years and we live near Southside so it is a bit of a pain as a commute but not too bad. I ended up driving a lot, but it is mostly fine and would take 10-15 minutes, but you would get the odd day when the traffic ground to a halt and it would take 45 mins! I did work very close to the nursery so it wasn't too bad.

The school is really lovely, small and sweet with small class sizes. Don't be put off by the admissions lady, she is a bit of a dragon, but it is in the job description I think... The teachers are all really nice.

Before I went I'd been warned that the parents tended to be very wealthy ladies of leisure with nannies etc, but I found it was a fair mix (the fees prohibit it being a real mix, but some people on limited means who really wanted the bilingual education were making do with grandparent help etc) and everyone is really friendly and its a nice community of both fairly french french and also very international francophones and francophiles. Probably more so than the lycee is now because you have to be so french to get in. The EDP is more similar to what the south ken lycee was when I went to it in the 70s&80s

They do have a very complicated system of options for classes, they have 2 years of english pre-school (half days from 2 1/2 years old, or full days equivalent of english nursery, which follows the english sept-sept year group) and then the fully french classes that follow the french jan-jan age groups and are petite section, moyenne section and grande section. My son did 2 years in the english then grande section. Then got a place at Clancarty Lycee in CP (which was our aim). However, CP in the lycee is a lot more academic than year 1 in the english system, and probably a fair bit more academic than year 2 (it straddles both age groups according to birthday), so my son struggled and it didn't really suit him, and in the end we moved him to an english state school that has a bilingual stream when we got offered a place there. We are now a bit buggered when it comes to secondary schools as we had thought he would go to the lycee in south ken. But we will cross that bridge in a few years...

However, he is doing the private after school french classes at Belleville (french between the commons). So I can advise that these are great, nice small groups and seem to be fun. It is hard as it is 1 1/2 hour twice a week, so they are very tired on the nights they do it, but it means his french reading and writing is still keeping up, although his spoken french is going down hill a bit not having it all day at school. So if you went to Belleville this would be very easy for you, and I believe as a result there are lots of french at Belleville, which is obviously a very desirable school (although I've heard on the grapevine that there is 'a lot of bullying at Belleville', but I don't know how much you want to take the words of 13 year old boys)

From L'ecole des petits in fulham you are guaranteed a place at the lycee, but it could be any of the sites (including ealing! The year above my son, 6 got given ealing - who lived off wandsworth bridge road! but I think by the start of term they had got into fulham or south ken, our year everyone got their first choice i think). If you do the whole primary at ecole de battersea (which is a great school too) then you used to be guaranteed a place in south ken, however now it could be either there or the new Wembley site. But, as the head of Clancarty lycee told me, by the time our children will be looking for secondary schools there might be other options as the population of french in london continues to rise, and there are so many bilingual primary ventures in english state schools, the lycee might well do some secondary school joint ventures to take the pressure off south ken and wembley.

I don't know if that helps you. In the end as people always say, go visit the school, get a feel for whether the philosophy of the education is in line with yours, try to get a feel for what kind of a child you have (hard I know, but are they already very conscientious or very day dreamy then they might continue to be the sort that loves very academic, or the sort that needs to learn through lots of creativity...)

Also, when we were at edp, we did have a few play dates the other side of the cromwell road, or maida vale, but very often you can do play dates in the local park straight after school so it was rare to be going all over the place, and a very large number are walking distance or within 10 mins of the school.

You can PM me if you want to know more!

PS - if you have any preschool children, I'm involved in a lovely playgroup for francophile, it is 'Cadet Rousselle' in Gypsy Hill, I know a bit of a schlep, but there isn't anything like it around, and people come from putney/eltham/surrey to it. Quite low key with nice people involved, meets on a monday morning and is only £3.50 or less per session.
www.facebook.com/cadetrousselle
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NorthcoteRoad
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby NorthcoteRoad » Mon Feb 02, 2015 1:15 pm

I thought I had replied to this but did not which is very rude. Thank you very much for all your answers. Brihoney thank you for your detailed and insightful reply, much appreciated.
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carolhugs
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Re: Ecole des petits question

Postby carolhugs » Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:04 pm

Hi,
We look after 2 children who attend Ecole de Battersea. The school seems very good.
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