Boarding school to beat kid problems

DISADVANTAGED youngsters are being given a chance to make the best of their years at school with an innovative programme that provides boarding school internat places for youngsters in difficulty in their family lives.

The scheme, in Aubervilliers, near Paris, will see selected primary school youngsters offered free places to give them the opportunity to study in better conditions than they would find at home.

It may be that they are in a small apartment or share a bedroom and there is no place to study or do homework – or there may be deeper-rooted family and social problems.

Aimed to support well-motivated youngsters and give them a chance to learn how to do their best, the project starts in November at a holiday village owned by Aubervilliers at Bury (Oise).

Pupils from CM1 and CM2 will be put forward as candidates by their teachers or social workers after the Rentrée in September and Daniel Auverlot, schools inspector for Seine-Saint-Denis, said they would start looking for the final 20 candidates in October.

By November they would have made their choices for the scheme which is the first to offer primary boarding places in France and is very much an experiment.

He said they hoped it would help the children: “We have children who have everything to succeed except proper room to work and do their homework.

“The aim is to help them and get them working in tranquil surroundings. We will bring them to the internat by bus on the Monday mornings and they will go home on Friday afternoon.

“They will do school work during the day and after 17.00 will have sports activities and homework to follow. The Bury village has large rooms, which can take five pupils in each with space to work.

“Obviously their families have to support the project, but there is no cost to them, because the national education department provides teachers and Aubervilliers provides the other posts.”

The idea is not to keep the youngsters in the internat throughout their school career – it is to teach learning practices. They will be in the project for one or two years at most, although their school progress will be followed afterwards.

There are nine internats for state secondary school pupils in the country and they are mostly for pupils with particular difficulties or the children of fairground performers who are often travelling.