Education in France: Can children be enrolled partway through school year?

Reader Question : We are planning to move to France with our children at Easter. Will we be able to enrol both the children at school once we have moved? What is the procedure?

All children of obligatory schooling age (three to 16) are required to enroll in the French education system upon moving to France for the first time. 

Children must typically be registered by June at the latest with the local mairie for the start of the upcoming school year in September (enrolments usually start in March, though some communes start even earlier, at the beginning of the calendar year).

You need to provide proof of your identity and that of your child, as well as proof of address – if you do not yet have this or are moving to France after June, you can provide a sworn attestation for the latter. 

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Children under six are placed into the relevant school year without any assessment – the idea being they will naturally acclimatise to the language and reach an adequate level of French before main schooling begins.

Children over the age of six will be assessed for their skills in French, maths, writing and in other languages taught locally (notably English, as the main foreign language taught in French primary schools and an international lingua franca), by a specialist teacher. 

Following this assessment, the mairie will provide an enrollment certificate, indicating the school your child has been assigned to. This will generally be one of the first two years of elementary school school (CP or CM2) at a local school, or to a special unit for children arriving in France whose native language is not French (referred to as élèves allophones). 

In the latter case, there will be a focus on teaching the children French so they can enrol in a state school as soon as possible.

For secondary school pupils

Parents of children going to collège or lycée should contact their local Casnav (education service for ‘allophone’ children) upon arrival in France – you can find information for your local service here.

The Casnav will organise an appointment for your child or children with an educatiuonal psychologist to assess their educational skills and needs, which is then passed on to the local education educational authority. 

The child is then put into a school where they will be put on a specialised pathway to help them integrate into the schooling system and learning environment. The school your child will attend is assigned by the education academy, and is subject to availability of places. 

In all cases, whether primary or secondary, enrolment of children in a French school partway through the academic year is sometimes possible but is dependent on available places in suitable local establishments. 

However, this is not guaranteed.

We would, therefore, advise speaking to the mairie and/or Casnav service at the earliest opportunity.

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