The admin begins...

It has been a very busy weekend for me. First of all my first information pack arrived from my Académie in France (which corresponds roughly to our Local Education Authorities), along with a few forms to be filled in. In addition, the British Council sent a lot of stuff through for me to read, and finally, the head of English in my French school sent me a lovely email.

The stuff from the Académie was very simple, there was one form to return, a "coupon réponse", confirming my intent to take up my post on the first of October. They also included a lot of helpful reading material, which gives details of the average school week in France, the scheduling of their school holidays and other useful information. I also had to return a form (in English this time) to the British Council, to the same effect as the French one.

I think I've been very lucky to be placed in this Académie, as they have been very quick off the mark with letting me know my exact post, and getting in contact. As far as I know none of my friends in other regions have been quite so lucky.

Finally, I was advised by the British Council to write to my head of school (le Proviseur for a Lycée) and also the head of English there, who had already emailed me, so all that admin will be sent off tomorrow.

A Blog is Born

As this is my first post I should probably explain what this blog will be about. Chances are if you've found this then it's because I sent you a link, but just in case, I'm a second year student in university and in December I applied to be an English Language Assistant in France through the British Council in the coming academic year. Since then it's been a long wait until finding out more details about my placement, but finally...

Two days ago I got a phone call from a fellow ELA-in-France hopeful, Rachel, telling me that she'd finally found out which region she was going to be in. Having been waiting since December to find out, we were both pretty excited to know that the places were being allocated. Happily, I later got a phone call from home telling me that I'd got my placement too, so I know which region I will be placed in.

The letter, which was read out to me over the phone, listed a few helpful things for me to do next, such as checking out the British Council website again and looking around the stuff for foreign language assistants, but having read it it seems there's not much more for me to do now than sit tight and wait for contact from my school...