La Rentrée - Back to School

Written by Jill Penton-Browne

“Unwillingly to school …”
Jill Penton-Browne looks ahead to la rentrée

I’ve written about la rentrée – the beginning of the school year – on earlier occasions, and the articles in question can be consulted on our web site. Previously I dealt with the business of kitting out pupils for the return to school and the cost this involves. I’d make three points here: do your rentrée shopping now and not at the last minute. Why so? First of all, you’ll avoid the rush and be able to relax across the holiday without wondering if you are able to get everything on the teachers’ lists; secondly, and if you’re an indulgent parent, you won’t risk missing out on that high-end brand schoolbag your child hankers after; and thirdly, you can spread the expenditure out over a longer period and so make it less painful – according to the association Familles de France it costs around 225 euros to equip a child entering first grade in junior high school (sixième en collège) with the outlay probably rising to around a 1000 euros for a senior lycée pupil.

“Normal for kids to be stressed”
This time I’d like to look at another aspect of the return to school – what’s been called le mal de la rentrée. And it can literally be a sickness. As the date for school’s reopening approaches children frequently suffer a range of minor ailments – headache, sore throat, upset stomach – and young patients with such symptoms are a seasonal fixture in hospital emergency rooms. According to a paediatrician at the Lenval Children’s Hospital in Nice, “It’s quite normal for kids to be stressed after two months out of school but the problems usually clear up quickly once they’re back in the classroom. The critical ages are 5 to 7 and then again early adolescence.”

So how can parents deal with this likely difficult time? To start with, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that a holiday is meant to be exactly that: a period of rest and relaxation and this is especially true for younger children. It’s really not a good idea to impose a sort of semi-school regime across the summer break. It’s good for kids to be able to go to bed later (though without too much television) and then to sleep in. It’s great if they can be encouraged to do some reading and maybe a spot of revision but this shouldn’t be forced on them.

On the other hand, paediatricians and teachers are at one in insisting that there shouldn’t be an abrupt break between the holiday life style and the resumption of school routine. Laura Neden, a former teacher in England and now with two children in school here, says; “Ten days or so before the rentrée you’ve got to ease them back into that routine. Once again it has to be early to bed, early to rise.” It’s also important to find out why a child seems stressed at the prospect of going back to school. With the smaller ones it’s often fear of separation but older pupils can have worries about renewed contact with a disliked teacher or about bullying. These things are best talked through but not in a way that indicates the parent is equally worried. That won’t help.

“Important to identify a problem”
Laura Neden says that with a couple of other mothers and their children she organises a get-together a few days before the school gates open and there’s a relaxed discussion of the “adventure” – as she likes to present it – of the new school year. I would add two points: in some collèges there can be a disagreeable atmosphere that a foreign child in particular could find difficult and it’s important to identify if there’s a genuine problem with, maybe, victimisation by a teacher (it can happen) or with bullying; secondly, there’s much less evidence of “back to school sickness”, I’m told, in our local international schools. As one parent told me, “They’re smaller than most French high schools and they’ve got a friendly, family feel about them that you just don’t get with Education nationale. My kids are always glad to go back to school at the end of the summer.” I was like that, too: those long, lazy, hazy days can get teejus.

Reporter 116 Aug/Sept 2006

Set as favourite

Bookmark

Comments (0)