Tuesday 23 September 2008

Our First Parents' Evening

Well, it was a 45 minute meeting after school on Friday for all the parents in LissaLou's classroom. Her teacher seems pleasant enough, though she (like most here from all I can see!) has a tendency to shout at or tap misbehaving children. She was supposed to talk for 20 minutes but got very passionate about her subject and went on for double that! Her main point was...
La Maternelle is NOT a creche, it is a SCHOOL.
They no longer want children behaving like bebecadoms - isn't that a great word? It means cryababy I think.
She then told off the parents for sending kids to school who didn't know how to put their shoes on, ask for things, put litter in the bin... I felt reasonably smug during this, until I mentioned it later to LissaLou and she admitted that she doesn't always put things in the bin! The shame of it!
The most important job they have is of training the children to be good citizens in the future. She made many good points about the importance of teaching children now and the impact they will have on society in the future. Unfortunately, she didn't actually say much on what they actually do all day.
We got to look at their work - LissaLou had some great pictures of the family complete with eyelashes and ears! I love seeing how her drawing progresses! There are 26, soon to be 27 in the class, and they are seated according to ability. LissaLou is on the green table right by the door, so I reckon we could see her with binoculars from our bedroom window! Her friends are mainly on her table, but she has made friends with the neighbour's daughter (he was Bertie's friend at school!). I asked how she knew they were friends and she told me that the other girl had said "tu es ma copine". I just love hearing her speak french! Every now and then she will sing some of the songs they learn too.
Finally, the maitresse thinks it scandalous that these island children can't swim, so she would like to take them to lessons on a Friday morning. I am trying to convince Bertie to volunteer to go along with them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does Lissa Lou know the French for things like 'can you help me please'?
Does the class start with the best at the back or front?
either way that is invidious for little children who should be PLAYING until they are about 6 years old.
You get it in this country too and it causes unecessary stress for both children and teacher - thats why they have to shout.
Good job my frenchisn't fluent enought to take on that teacher!!

evie winter said...

Mama asked me to look at this (her comment) and said 'is it to strong?'
So I read it and said 'absolutly!' but Hevs should know us well enough to know if she posts something anti-play that we would have strong views!
On the up side many children have survived the non-play path and LissaLou only has to do it for a year. I shall be testing her on her ability when I next see her to put things in the bin:):):)

Anonymous said...

The word 'maitresse' always reminds me of our first end of term exam in the sixth form. None of us had ever come across the word before and we could not make much sense of it, even from the context. I don't know what the others did but our teacher was greatly amused at our attempts - mine was 'mattress'!

Hevs said...

Yes she does know such phrases, we have gone through them with her! The class is separated by tables but we don't know which is which (although obviously we assume LissaLou is in the top one, tee hee!) and I think the aim is to stop them getting bored by giving them more activity sheets etc. She pointed out it is fluid too. I am sure there must be some playing, as they have nice toys, but I am not sure how much of the day that takes and I don't get the impression they are free to do whatever they choose, however, it is very hard to tell from LissaLou what they do actually do all day! I would love to be a fly on the wall! She says they don't read stories though, which is shocking if true. I think you would need to take on the whole French system Mum!
Thanks for your addition Evs, but what is she going to do with the bin?!!
That seems like a fair translation to me Dad!