Foreign Perspectives

James went on his first school excursion last Friday.

Not a massive one, of course, since he’s in the nursery school. As we’re in a wine growing area it was to a vineyard where they gathered some grapes and went through the whole process of wine production (except the fermentation, naturally). Thoroughly enjoyed by all and each child was sent home with a bottle of the grape juice that was produced on the day.

One difference from the equivalent schools in the UK is that small excursions such as this one seem to be very common in the schools here with an average of around one a month throughout the year. As in most things in France, they usually ask for a “contribution” towards the cost of these but aren’t terribly insistent on actually getting the money.

As we’re in a country area, this excusion even qualified as news and the photo on the left is from the Independant which managed to run up a 1/4 page article on it in todays paper.