The French Secondary School Experience. Part 3

Or, How to get your daughter into trouble without really trying.

At the beginning of the school year we were given a list of material to purchase for the school year: pencil case, ruler, protractor, crayons and so on. Equally asked for was the English exercise book for first years.

I’m not a fan of buying books for the school. We all pay enough taxes to cover the cost of school books and I believe that it should be the school’s responsibility and not the parents to buy the school books.  Anyway we went onto Amazon and bought the book. As we were in September 2012 Amazon sold us the 2012 edition.

When we went to see the various teachers at the end of October we sat in Audrey’s registration class and throughout the evening the different teachers came to us and gave us a summary of the first term. When it came to the (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) English teacher’s turn it transpired that we were not the only ones that had the 2012 version of the book: the (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) English teacher had the 2009 version. (Can you see where this is going?).

We all said that this was a pretty stupid arrangement but the (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) English teacher wasn’t buying it (which was ok for me as I wasn’t really selling it).

When the (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) teacher asked that for homework the kids do; for example, exercises 6 & 7 on page 32 these coordinates apply only to the 2009 book, not the 2012 book where there are no exercises 6 & 7  on page 32.

Audrey started getting 0/20 for the homework. As were other kids.

So Carine wrote her a letter that she stapled into the correspondence book. There was no reply. Apparently the (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) English teacher said to Audrey that she couldn’t understand a word that Carine has written so didn’t bother replying.

So I entered the game…as I would…in my way….which wasn’t a particularly a good idea!

I wrote a letter. Actually I typed a letter.

In English.

To a French (very near retirement age so doesn’t really give a toss how it’s all thrown together) English teacher.

It didn’t go down well! I didn’t save it on the computer so I can’t copy and paste it here but I basically said that it shouldn’t be Audrey’s fault that in the year 2012 she purchases a 2012 edition of the school book that is three years newer than that of her teacher’s.

She again got 0/20.