All things French...

Since writing the last post on here Antonia has changed schools! She is now at a French school where she will study for the IB. Her brother, Alex, has also started at the school and will do his last 3 years there. It's much tougher for him than her. He already had iGCSE French when he started but learning how to order a drink is very different to studying Moliere in the original....by the time of writing this they have already completed most of the year there. Antonia is pretty much fluent in French which is a good thing as 2/3rds of the lessons are completely in French! They also have English and Italian, plus Spanish as they get older, so currently Alex is studying 4 languages!! Not sure this would even be possible in an English speaking school...

The change has been great for Antonia! Now she can speak in both English and Italian with her school friends so a lot of pressure has been taken off her everyday communications. She is fluent in Italian but the need to constantly talk in it all day was too much for her. On top of that going to a Catholic school was too much in terms of the things they were told and expected to swallow without question. We aren't Catholic so I had to sift through a lot of stuff for her. Also they were very strict but to the point that she didn't want to go into school anymore. In Prima she took 45 days off sick....now she wants to go into school.

Alex is here also because we didn't feel boarding school was a good fit for him anymore. He sat his exams at 16 then we brought him over here. He did well but not well enough for that school anyway so it was just as well we had made other arrangements. He is finding it tough but seems to have made some friends and is getting to grips with the languages! He's been pretty sick too though for various reasons (nothing serious but it all adds up) so he is missing out a lot. I'm hoping this will now be behind us for the rest of the summer term.

Anyway all good stuff I think and I will try to keep up with regular posts on here! :)