A l'école

Here's just a few thing's I've noticed about the French system, in no particular order or coherence. Just things that strike me as a foreigner.

* In Primary school, children bring all their books and equipment with them every. single. day. To do so they have 'un cartable' rather than 'un sac' because they really do need to cart things back and forth. There are in the form of a big square rucksack, or a wheely suitcase bag. I think that's actually a great idea to save their little backs, but on reflection having 'trays' at school for our things was such a sensible idea. We only had to carry our lunch and pencil case, and it avoided the endless 'j'ai oublié mon livre à la maison/sur la table/mon père l'a utilisé pour allumer le feu' because we only took away what we needed for homework.

* Using cursive script makes writing on a chalk-board a lot easier! It's all in one smooth stroke. If you go at a board trying to jab the chalk at each separate letter, the chalk gets quite broken and messy. 

* French teachers, like most others in this country, do try and relax during their lunch break instead of doing a million and one things. This means everyone sits down at some point to eat lunch together, especially in my small primary school where there are eight of us round the table at most. And everyone has hot lunches that they think ahead and bring from home to heat in the microwave. I've seen curry, pasta, but also the odd bit of steak and potatoes. Then there'll be pudding and tea before the sound of children running outside after their proper sitting-down eating lunch together break too. 

* There is a severe lack of supply teachers, so much that you'd think they weren't invented. In a lycée this isn't as bad because sometimes (hopefully) the students will do set work. But in school today, the headmistress was ill. As one of only eight staff members she is also a class-teacher. a whole class as well, but they did not have a cover teacher and were instead divided between all year groups. There were not even enough chairs!