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Information for assistants allocated to primary schools

You have been accepted as a foreign language assistant in France and will be working in one or more primary schools. The following is an explanation of terms specific to primary education that you should know before you take up your post.

France is divided into 30 geographical sectors for education called académies. Generally, the name of the académie is the same as that of the main city situated in the area. Each school and each assistant are attached to an académie.

The Rectorat is the académie's headquarters where its offices are located.

Another expression used to denote primary education is premier degré. The administrative and educational management of primary education is the responsibility of the Inspection académique (I.A.). Each French "département" or county has an inspection académique. The head of the inspection académique is the inspecteur d'académie (D.S.D.E.N.) - directeur des services départementaux de l'Education nationale.

Each inspection académique is divided into several zones called circonscriptions. The inspectors, inspecteurs de l'Education nationale (I.E.N.), who are in charge of teaching matters in the circonscription are based at an inspection de circonscription. They are assisted by teaching advisors called conseillers pédagogiques (C.P.). You are likely to be in frequent contact with the conseiller pédagogique (for languages) who is responsible for providing support to language teachers.

Primary schools are composed of l'école élémentaire (junior school) and l'école maternelle (infants school):

	name of the class		age of pupils
école élémentaire	Cours moyen 2ème année	CM2	10-11
	Cours moyen 1ère année	CM1	9-10
	Cours élémentaire 2ème année	CE2	8-9
	Cours élémentaire 1ère année	CE1	7-8
	Cours préparatoire	CP	6-7
école maternelle			2-6

Primary teaching consists of three cycles :

• cycle 1 : early learning - maternelle classes;
• cycle 2 : core learning - maternelle, CP, CE1;
• cycle 3 : in-depth learning - CE2, CM1, CM2.

Schools have a head teacher, (un directeur) who manages the school. He may also do some teaching depending on the size of the school. Pupils call primary school teachers maître but their official title is instituteur or professeur des écoles. They are in charge of one class for the duration of the school year. Certain primary school teachers teach foreign languages. Otherwise, these lessons are taken by locals who speak the foreign language fluently. They are called locuteurs natifs, recrutés locaux or intervenants extérieurs.

Foreign language assistants have different roles according to the length of their contract. Assistants recruited for nine months from 1st October to 30th June are chargés d'enseignement. In this case they are entirely responsible for the teaching and evaluation of their language. They may also have to take part in meetings and training sessions.

Language assistants recruited for seven months will work from 1st October to 30th April. Their role is to take whole classes together with the teacher or small groups alone in order to develop speaking and listening skills and enable the pupils to discover their culture.

Before arriving in France you will receive an arrêté de nomination or d'affectation. This document shows your inspection académique, your école de rattachement administratif and the schools in which you will be working (écoles d'exercice). The école de rattachement administratif will be responsible for administrative matters concerning your post but you will not necessarily work in this school.