A Blog-u-mentary
about one family's experience moving from a
tropical Caribbean paradise
to another type of paradise in the
heart of Provence.

Monday, March 15, 2010

L'ecole: CIPEC

LUYNES -- The CIPEC School, an unassuming yet charming little set of buildings nestled into a small hillside, is literally less than two minutes walk from La Bergerie. The school is separated from Mike and Nadine’s house by a little stretch of wooded area, and there is a path that weaves around right to the entrance of the school. The kids from the school even play in the wooded area behind the house, and Eugene and Jackie see them around all the time.


The idea of the kids being able to walk to and from school is a huge attraction for us – an big incentive for the whole move, really – and I think Savannah and Lindsey would enjoy that part of the experience, too.


The school itself is small-ish, about the same size as the Ashcroft School where Lindsey and Savannah go now on the island. There are grades from pre-kindergarten up to Grade 5/6, which is for kids up to around 11 years old. It’s called a bi-lingual school, but most of the classes are taught in English, except for a couple – and even those are segregated by proficiency in French. The kids all are required to take French as a subject, too. I met some kids who spoke very little French, and while they were learning it at the school, it didn’t seem to be a major detraction from their primary education and core subjects.


Madame Pecnard, a slightly bookish and serious French lady, is the principal of the school, which she and her husband founded it back in the mid 80s. She is the main French language teacher at CIPEC, but told me the roughly 20 teachers on staff are from all over the world with diverse educational experiences. She showed me around the small ‘campus’ which includes a playground area, various individual buildings for each class, and a main office building/dining hall. It all overlooks the gorgeous French countryside of Luynes.


We visited the Grade 5/6 class, where there were about 20 kids in the midst of their afternoon study session. Apparently the school doesn’t give much, if any, homework to the kids. Instead, they prefer to let the students do their work while still at school during a daily study period and in the presence of their teachers. Not a bad idea, and I am sure the girls will like that concept of no homework.


Madame Pecnard went around the classroom and randomly chose kids to introduce themselves to me. I was impressed that every single kid was very some place different – England, US, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Spain. But they all spoke very good English, even the French kids. A few of them described what they were studying and Madame explained that they operate at different levels even within the same class, because of the diversity of their backgrounds and educations.


CIPEC attracts a lot of ex-pat kids from some of the companies and organizations based around Provence that have an international employee base. So it can be a bit of a transient population - Madame estimated that there is about a 20% turnover every year, which is about what there is at Ashcroft, too. {I got to speak with Mike’s son, Marius, while we were in France this week. He is in college in Montreal now, but Mike checks in with him at least once a day on Skype (as Mike does with many, many people, I learned). Marius spoke very highly of CIPEC and his two year’s experience there. And Mike tells me that at CIPEC Marius really progressed quickly in a short time with his French, which he speaks fluently now).


Back at the school, Madame went over the typical daily schedule with me. School starts at 8:45 and runs til 5 PM every day, except Wednesday which is a half day all the time. The kids take their core classes in the mornings – English, French, maths (why do the Europeans add an “s” to the word math as a subject?), and history (French, I presume – forgot to ask). After lunch, which looked pretty good to me (natch, this is France – what did I expect, macaroni and cheese?) when we peeped through the window, there is a study break. Then, twice a week in the afternoons, the kids take secondary subjects like music, art, science, and geography; and twice a week they go to their sports classes. That takes place down the road a bit at a sports club and Madame told me there is a whole bunch of activities they can do – tennis, horseback riding, marital arts, swimming, gymnastics, and dance. Plus, there are other organized activities and clubs for the kids after school and on weekends. So it’s good to hear there is no shortage of things for the kids to do.


Madame then reviewed the kids’ Ashcroft School transcripts with me and she was pleased with their background, classes and reports. All in all, I left feeling pretty good about CIPEC and I think the kids would fit in well there.


2 comments:

  1. Hello,

    We are moving to Aix this summer and I was wondering how your experience with CIPEC has been so far?
    Do you feel you made the right choice (we are still trying to decide between CIPEC or EPIM). Your advise would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

    ReplyDelete