On Tuesday, Jan 3, kids started school in Bordeaux. We registered them with a local Montessori school. The school has 2 campuses in a short distance of 2 blocks. Levina will be at the primary school campus (up to grade 5), and the other two will be at the college campus (grade 6 and up). When deciding which school system (public vs private), I joined every Bordeaux FB group there was, just to see what other expats' experiences were like. Some say their kids fit right in the public school system, thriving, others had completely different, unpleasant experience with the teachers at the public school mostly due to lack of communication and large class sizes. And there's the private school. Some private schools are run by the Catholic churches, super affordable but usually have long wait-lists. Private international schools offer bilingual education (English and French) and are very costly. The Montessori schools land somewhere between the Catholic private schools and the international schools. They offer a wide range of classes (Music, Geography, Science, History, Theatre and Sports similar to those in Canada) besides the fundamental classes (French, Math and English) along with smaller class sizes. After chatting with a few expat moms, we felt the Montessori would be the best fit for our kids. We were looking for support and immersion within a short period of 6 months. For our kids, small classes will probably offer them more 1:1 support and an easier going social environment. The last thing we want is to add any stress to them in a brand new country.
All three kids were feeling a bit apprehensive on the first day. Ok, for Levina, it was a lot. I could feel her anxiety, which made me double guess our decisions at times. Nothing was going to make these kids at ease. We just had to let this one play out. But the time was going rather slowly that morning. Our place is about 15-20 min away from school by bus #9. We got up early, a bit too early. Breakfast was baguette with butter, prosciutto, jamon, eggs and oranges. Yes, they always have a good appetite in the morning. Before dawn, we were on our way.
The plan was divide and conquer. I take L, and Nick take E and N. We met Levina's teachers for the first time in person. They were very welcoming and attentive. They spoke some English, which was to my benefit. It was a relief that we understood each other. We took a tour of the school. The school is very small, 3 stories. Kids aged 7, 8 and 9 are in one classroom on the 3rd floor. The classroom is also small, probably half of an average classroom size in Canada, with tables and chairs in the middle and lots of shelves along the wall. Teachers in Canada would find these rooms very cluster phobic 😂
Levina's schedule goes from 8:45am to 4:45pm with 2 hour lunch break, and no school on Wednesdays. The older kids' go from 9am to 5pm, same 2 hour lunch break, and half day on Wednesdays. At the end of the first day, the most they talked about was their lunch: salmon, mashed potato, veggies and chocolate mousse as dessert. The food was so good that Evania and Noah even went for seconds. Chocolate mousse was Levina's favorite, of course.
It's hard to gauge how well the kids are adjusting, still too early. However, it's safe to say that they enjoy the school so far. No more resistance from Levina at least. She made a couple of friends at school. A couple of names came up during our daily school recap. A girl named Anna came up to her, gave her a fist pump at the end of the first day and said "Good job" in English with a very cute French accent. Really cute. For the older two, school did an assessment on them (not sure how it was done), and decided that they each could stay in their current level (grade 9 and 7) for most classes. Noah was placed in grade 6 Math at first, then he got moved back to grade 7 after the 2nd day. With Evania, the teacher was very pleased with how well she's able to communicate in French, and placed her in grade 9 for all her classes except for Science. Below is the school schedule for Evania and Noah. 6eme to 3eme correspond to grade 6 to grade 9. The smaller the number, the higher grade. So Evania is in 3eme, and Noah in 5eme. Besides the core classes, they also take Spanish and Korean LOL. During the time slots for English class, they are given extra French work. The feedback from E & N so far is that Math here is a lot harder. They are learning more advanced Math, and they love it.
Our week ended almost uneventfully until Friday afternoon around 2:30pm when Evania called from school saying that she and Noah were going to take the bus home because school ended early. She assured me that she knew which bus and which stop and which turn. I figured she had taken the bus to school on her own this week, she speaks the language, and she sounded very confident...what COULD go wrong? It normally takes about 20 min from school to home, but by 3:30pm, I still didn't see them. I kept my eyes peeled at the gate. Every tiny movement at the gate made me feel hopeful to see them coming through the gate, but NOTHING! By 3:45pm, I started to panic a little. Ok, A LOT. I made Nick contact the teacher at school. She confirmed that they had left at 2:30pm. My heart sank. We had no way of contacting them. They had a phone, but no SIM card. Couldn't call anyone or get help in an emergent situation. It was like "Missing Levina in Madrid" all over again. Only this time, I ALLOWED it to happen. By 4PM, still no sign of them. It was time to pick up Levina from school. So I jumped on the bus, and Nick stayed behind by the bus stop, scanning both directions. Nick messaged the teacher again, seeking suggestions. What is the procedure in France in case of missing children? Do we have to wait for 24 hours to report a missing person? Do they have the amber alert here like in Canada? I was on the bus, my mind racing at light speed. What is the children's abduction rate here in Bordeaux? We didn't do any research on that before coming here. Why didn't we look into that? By 4:07pm, Nick called...he could see them running towards to him from far away...then added "I'm gonna murder them". I picked up Levina, hugged her so tight, and went to unite with the others.
That night, we went to a Free mobile boutique and got Evania a SIM card for 2 Euro/month (yes cell plans are dirt cheap here, I'll talk about that next time), with which she has 200 min talk time and unlimited texts. We won't lose them EVER AGAIN. At the time of writing this, the rest of the gang is laughing their heads off. Evania says they were never lost at any given time. She knew exactly how to get home. Here's her own account of their unplanned adventure.
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