Switching School Systems: How to Support a Smooth Transition

For French-speaking families, moving abroad is often the perfect opportunity to give their children a bilingual education. Since French is kept alive at home in the evenings and at weekends, why not enrol them in an English-speaking school following the IB, British or American system? All the more so as these schools tend to outnumber French schools abroad, and these systems have plenty going for them. But what challenges can a change of school system create for a child?

A unique experience for the child…

French-speaking expatriates, keen to give their children a genuinely open outlook on the world, are often won over by international schools: from primary school onwards, these schools champion the harmonious development of the child, not only intellectually but also emotionally and socially. Children learn to live well together rather than under the weight of authority, and to see respect for others as a condition of their own success.

When Louis arrived in Bangkok for work, he enrolled his two sons at the American School of Bangkok, “because it enjoys an excellent reputation”. “We were won over by the teachers’ immense respect for each child’s personality.” Everything is designed to help children settle in easily and build their self-confidence. During storytelling sessions, for instance, children speak in front of the class from a very young age, freely recounting an episode from their daily life, which delights them and teaches them to get to know one another. As for the afternoons, they leave plenty of room for sport and creative activities.

But an additional adjustment to make…

Yet discovering a new system, however enriching, does not rule out certain difficulties. It is one more adjustment we are asking of the child. New country, new city and new neighbourhood, new school, new friends, new language of instruction and new methodology: the change of school system is just one more challenge for the child to take on!

Emma, who moved to Bangkok with her husband, decided to enrol her three children in a British school “so that they would become fluent in English”, and because the family was likely to move on to an English-speaking country afterwards. “The first difficulty was the language,” and even though the school guarantees pupils’ integration through individual follow-up, the parents turned to private English lessons at weekends throughout the entire first year, so that gaps would not take hold.

Beyond the language itself, the French system, which places greater emphasis on grammar at primary level, had not prepared the children for the high expectations of the British system when it comes to writing. “At the British school, my daughter, who is only 7, is already asked to write stories a full page long, and my eldest, who has just turned 10, already has to write essays of at least 3 pages!” These difficulties stem from differences in curriculum content between the systems, and they appear in mathematics too. “At a French school, children encounter one or two new mathematical concepts per year, in a linear progression: addition and subtraction in Year 2, multiplication and division in the years that follow, and so on. But at a British school, all the concepts are introduced together from the earliest years. After that, it is all revision and practice.”

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Solutions to help them through the transition

Faced with these gaps between one system and another, individual academic support for children, at least during the transition years, remains an excellent option: any lag needs to be closed as quickly as possible so that the child does not fall behind and lose heart. “That is exactly the spirit in which we created Axiom Academic,” says Mathieu Choplain, founder of this agency specialising in tutoring for children of expatriate families, “because the support must come from professionals who know the school system in question inside out, and who become true coaches for the children during a sensitive period when they can feel isolated.”

And if children’s expatriation deserves careful support, the same is just as true of the move back home, in either direction. For one thing, children often return at a more advanced stage of their schooling, when the stakes are higher. “Joining a French collège after 5 years at an American school in Thailand was an ordeal for our eldest. Sadly, his difficulties with syntax and grammar followed him all the way to the baccalauréat,” Louis confides.

Is it feasible, then, to follow two curricula in parallel, the local one and the French one, with a future return to France in mind? Ambitious, but possible, thanks in particular to the CNED, France’s national distance-learning centre, which provides course booklets for every subject and every level, allowing pupils to follow the French curriculum remotely. Document collections, lessons and exercises to complete with a tutor or independently, online activities and assessments to send back: the CNED’s materials amount to a complete framework for the pupil’s schooling. One to two hours per week per subject are enough to cover the essentials, though this still represents a significant extra workload. But it is well worth the effort: it is the price of freedom of choice, the freedom for children, once they have grown up, to study wherever they wish.

How Axiom Academic supports your family

Whether your child is moving from a French school into an IB, British or American system, or heading back the other way towards a French classroom and its exams, Axiom Academic matches them with experienced tutors who know both systems first-hand. Our tutors help bridge curriculum gaps, strengthen academic English or French, and keep pupils on track with the CNED when families follow two curricula in parallel. Every engagement starts with a first lesson covered by our money-back guarantee, so you can see the fit for yourself. To discuss your child’s transition, get in touch through our contact page.