PRESCHOOL

Preschool: a unique cycle, fundamental for the success of all

The preschool program organizes lessons into five learning areas

The lessons are organized into five learning areas:

• Mobilize language in all its dimensions;
• Act, express yourself, understand through physical activity;
• Act, express yourself, understand through artistic activities;
• Acquire the first mathematical tools;
• Explore the world.

Each of these five areas is essential to the child’s development and must find its place in the organization of daily time.

The primordial place of language is reaffirmed as an essential condition for the success of all. The practice of physical and artistic activities allows you to develop interactions between action, sensations, imagination, sensitivity, thought and language.

The areas “acquiring the first mathematical tools” and “Exploring the world” focus on developing a first understanding of numbers and the first mathematical tools, of the children’s environment and to encourage their questions. Young students’ need for exploration, discovery, manipulation, experimentation, play and exchange is stimulated to lead them towards the progressive mastery of new skills and knowledge. By relying on initial knowledge linked to their experiences, preschool sets up a course which allows them to order the world around them, to access usual representations and knowledge that elementary school will enrich.

The main axes of the program in preschool

Mobilize language in all its dimensions

The primordial place of language in preschool is reaffirmed as an essential condition for the success of all. The stimulation and structuring of oral language and the development of understanding of texts read by adults and awareness of the sound and visual components of language constitute priorities for preschool and concern all areas of learning.

Act, express yourself, understand through physical activity

The practice of physical and artistic activities contributes to the motor, sensory, emotional, intellectual and relational development of children.

These activities mobilize and enrich the imagination and are an opportunity to experience new emotions and sensations. They allow students:

• to explore their physical possibilities
• to develop their motor skills and balance
• to better situate oneself in space and time
• to understand the image of their own body

They also aim to develop cooperation and constructive relationships with others, while respecting differences, and thus contribute to socialization.

The participation of all students in all the physical activities offered, the organization and the approaches implemented seek to combat stereotypes and contribute to the construction of equality between girls and boys.

Les activités physiques concourent à une éducation à la santé en conduisant tous les enfants, quelles que soient leurs “performances”, à éprouver le plaisir du mouvement et de l’effort, à mieux connaître leur corps pour le respecter.

Act, express yourself, understand through artistic activities

This area of ​​learning refers to visual arts (painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, cinema, comics, graphic arts, digital arts), sound arts (songs, instrumental and vocal music) and performing arts. (dance, theater, circus arts, puppets, etc.).

Preschool plays a decisive role in providing all children with access to these artistic worlds; it constitutes the first stage of the artistic and cultural education journey that everyone completes throughout their primary and secondary schooling and which aims to acquire a personal artistic culture, based on common benchmarks.

Acquire the first mathematical tools

Discover numbers and their uses

Since birth, children have an intuition of sizes which allows them to compare and roughly evaluate lengths, volumes, but also collections of various objects (“there are many”, “not many” , etc.). This perceptual capacity constitutes a basis on which the learning of numbers is anchored.

Preschool gradually leads students to understand that numbers can both express quantities and a rank or positioning in a list. This learning requires time and confrontation with numerous situations involving pre-digital and then digital activities.

Explore shapes, sizes, organized sequences

Very early on, young children intuitively discern shapes (square, triangle, etc.) and sizes (length, capacity, mass, area, etc.).

In preschool, they acquire knowledge and reference points on certain shapes and sizes. The approach to plane shapes, spatial objects, and sizes is done through the manipulation and coordination of actions on objects.

This approach is supported by language: it makes it possible to describe these objects and these actions and promotes the identification of initial descriptive characteristics. This knowledge constitutes a first approach to geometry and measurement which will be taught in elementary school.

Explore the world

Finding your way in time and space

From birth, through exploration, children intuitively perceive certain spatial and temporal dimensions of their immediate environment.

These perceptions allow them to acquire, within their living environments, a first series of benchmarks, to develop expectations and memories. However, this knowledge remains implicit and limited.

One of the goals of preschool is to gradually lead students to consider time and space as relatively independent dimensions of current activities, and to begin to treat them as such. It also seeks to get them to gradually go beyond their own point of view and adopt that of others.

Explore the world of life, objects and matter

When they enter preschool, children already have representations that allow them to gain bearings in their daily lives.

To help them discover, organize and understand the world around them, the teacher offers activities that lead students to observe, formulate more rational questions, construct relationships between observed phenomena, predict consequences, identify likely characteristics to be categorized. Students begin to understand what distinguishes the living from the non-living; they manipulate and manufacture to familiarize themselves with objects and materials.

A redesigned assessment

• a learning logbook, completed throughout cycle 1, and
• a summary of the student’s achievements, established at the end of the Final Year, the last year of cycle 1. The summary document of the student’s academic achievements is communicated to the parents or the legal guardian at the end of the Final Year (Grande Section).

As for the transmission of the learning logbook throughout the cycle, this summary given to parents reflects what their child knows how to do at the end of their preschool education. It is an opportunity to interact positively with families. It also allows, if necessary, to reassure them that their child’s needs and weaknesses are being taken care of, so that they can calmly approach the Grade 1, first year of cycle 2.

To learn more.

Official texts

An action plan for preschool: giving all students the foundations for success and guaranteeing their development
Memorandum dated January 10, 2023

Educational preschool program
BO number 25 of June 24, 2021

Preschool, school of language
Memorandum n°2019-084 dated May 28 2019

Fundamental learning in preschool: discovering numbers and their uses
Memorandum No. 2019-085 of May 28, 2019

Modern foreign languages ​​in preschool
Memo n°2019-086 of May 28, 2019

PROGRESS OF A PRESCHOOL DAY (First Year / Middle Year)

PROGRESS OF A PRESCHOOL DAY (Final Year)

Projet d’école 2022-2025

Teaching Objectives:

• Meet the demands of families and the requirements of our multilingual environment,
• Follow the recommendations of the AEFE (Agency for French Education Abroad),
• Offer a curriculum tailored to the needs of our students, ensuring a personalized path to success,
• Provide a coherent path ensuring continuity with the French high school system,
• Develop skills to learn languages, as well as intercultural knowledge and competencies.

At Boule et Billes School, children learn 3 languages:

1. French, which mastery is a priority, ensured through the French program taught in French in classes, as well as by offering French language support (FLE) or French as a language of schooling (FLSco) when necessary,
2. Vietnamese,
3. English.

The school has a comprehensive system that offers the possibility of adapting a language program that respects the child’s learning pace and the AEFE guidelines.

Class sizes range from 14 to 16 students per class, allowing for personalized teaching and daily exchanges.

The foreign language teaching policy, based on the Common European Framework of Reference, aims to integrate the school’s educational offer into a context of mobility and openness to internationalism.

Students, depending on their level of proficiency in the foreign language taught, are grouped into small level-specific groups for progression and tailored teaching. Thus, 3 languages will be taught within the school: French, Vietnamese, and English.

In Petite and Moyenne Sections:

The Vietnamese-speaking child who begins to speak will first be supported in their native language through playful and learning activities while also participating in class activities in French.

Vietnamese: 30 minutes of introduction to the Vietnamese language by a native teacher are offered to all children.

English: 2 x 30 minutes of English workshops with an English-speaking teacher: oral communication, storytelling, rhymes, and musical awakening with the playful Kindermusik method.

Additionally, there are two 30-minute sessions of Emile (motor skills, music, art, gardening, logic games)

In Grande Section:

One hour of Vietnamese language and culture by a native speaker, and one hour of English by an English-speaking teacher (Sports, Kindermusik, playful activities).

English: 2 hours of English and 2 sessions of 45 minutes of EMILE.

For children whose French level is considered insufficient, a test will be conducted to arrange for additional FLE courses (see FLE Fees).

During after-school hours, the school offers 2 extra hours in English.

Extracurricular activities will also be offered to children in French, English, and Vietnamese. (See extracurricular activities schedule).

*What is EMILE?

EMILE refers to a bilingual learning situation where a language other than the mother tongue is used as a medium to teach/learn a subject. The language is no longer just an object of learning but becomes a tool for accessing disciplinary knowledge and skills.

What is FLE?

French as a Foreign Language, abbreviated FLE. It is the French language taught to non-French-speaking learners both in France and abroad. It is a subject with specific methods for teaching.

French as a Language of Schooling: FLSco?

The National Education defines French as a second language as the language that allows a student in France to access a qualification. In this context, the acronym FLS can be translated as “French as a language of schooling.”

It is a complex language, simultaneously involving oral and written skills, learned in a school setting, thus always in a secondary stage. It contributes to the cognitive development of the learner, evolving around a body of knowledge that is gradually constructed in class. It requires the construction of a meta-discursive and meta-cognitive competence, involving complex linguistic material.

FLSco is offered to students whose mother tongue is not French, but for whom French must enable not only communication with others but also the ability to follow courses. The difference between these two practices is that, in France, the newly arrived student most often stays in the country and becomes French, giving a different finality to FLS: that of being a transitional language.

Language Certification:

• French: DELF level
• Vietnamese: none

What is DELF?

DELF (Diploma in French Language Studies) and DALF (Advanced Diploma in French Language) are the only French as a foreign language diplomas awarded by the French Ministry of National Education. They are valid for life and recognized internationally. They allow you to officially validate your learning of the French language. These diplomas recognize your educational, university, and/or professional achievements in the French language. Additionally, DELF and DALF can help you study, work, and immigrate to a French-speaking country.

Levels A1 and A2

According to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), level A1 (introductory or discovery level) is the most basic level of language use for personal purposes. At level A1, the learner is capable of simple interactions. They can answer basic questions about themselves, where they live, the people they know, and the things they have, and ask similar questions. A level A1 learner can make simple statements in areas that concern them or are familiar to them and respond similarly, without simply repeating set phrases.

At level A2 (intermediate or survival level), most descriptors of social interactions are found, such as: using common forms of politeness and address; greeting someone, asking for their news, and reacting to the response; carrying out a short exchange; answering questions about their work and hobbies and asking similar questions; inviting and responding to invitations; discussing what they want to do, where, and making necessary arrangements; making a suggestion and accepting one.

At level A2, there are also descriptors related to outings and travel, which are simplified versions of the full transactional specifications for adults living abroad, such as: conducting a simple exchange in a store, post office, or bank; inquiring about a trip; using public transportation: buses, trains, and taxis; asking for basic information; asking for directions and giving them; buying tickets; providing necessary daily products and services and asking for them.

• What is the program ?

The lessons are organized into five learning areas:

1. mobilize language in all its dimensions
2. act, express yourself, understand through physical activity
3. act, express yourself, understand through artistic activities
4. build the first tools to structure your thinking
5. explore the world

Each of these five areas is essential to the child’s development and must find its place in the organization of daily time.

The primordial place of language is reaffirmed as an essential condition for the success of all. The practice of physical and artistic activities allows you to develop interactions between action, sensations, imagination, sensitivity, thought and language.

The areas “Building the first tools to structure your thinking” and “Exploring the world” focus on developing a first understanding of numbers and the first mathematical tools, of the children’s environment and to encourage their questions.

Young students’ need for exploration, discovery, manipulation, experimentation, play and exchange is stimulated to lead them towards the progressive mastery of new skills and knowledge. By relying on initial knowledge linked to their experiences, preschool sets up a course which allows them to order the world around them, to access usual representations and knowledge that elementary school will enrich.

• Are we entitled to the scholarship?

Only children of French nationality can apply for the school grant.

• Are you part of the AEFE?

Yes, we are an AEFE partner establishment from cycle 1 to cycle 3. From Kindergarten to CM2 (Grade 5).

• Can my child join the French School after “Boule & Billes”?

Yes because Boule et Billes is a school whose 3 cycles approved by the AEFE follow the same programs as all French schools approved in France and abroad.

• Is the teacher French? What diploma does he have?

Yes, FLE (French as a Foreign Language) or PE (school teacher) graduate, with at least 3 years of teaching experience.

• What time can we drop off our child?

The establishment is open Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 16:30 a.m. Reception is from 7:30 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. for preschool and elementary classes.

• Can the child have breakfast at school?

No, breakfast must be taken before arriving at school.

• What kind of meal is served at lunch?

Varied dishes, European and Vietnamese. We favor fruits and vegetables. see Menu of the month

• Is the meal included in school fees?

No, lunch is charged additionally. See fees

• Is the child still napping?

Yes for First Year and Second Year. For the Final Year, a quiet time is offered to them after lunch.

• What time is nap time?

The children of First Year (Petite Section) and Second Year (Moyenne Section) go to sleep after lunch at 11:45 a.m.

• Do they have snacks at school?

Yes if they are registered in an extra-curricular activity.

• What time can we pick up the children?

For children who do not participate in extra-curricular activities:

Wednesday after lunch, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m.

And at 4:20 p.m., every day after their extra-curricular activity for those who do it.

• Is there a shuttle for preschool children?

Yes in the morning, after classes at 3:05 p.m. and after extracurricular activities at 4:25 p.m.

• Do you give showers to children?

No, no longer in preschool unless it proves necessary.