Did I ever tell you I work at a chateau?

No? Well, that's because I don't, quite... This chateau is at the centre of the school where I teach English, and classes were once held in it, I suppose, but now it's just the fine centrepiece for more modern school buildings.
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As I mentioned, it was our school fête on Friday, and my pupils (the English-speaking children who take extra lessons to keep up their English) and I prepared a rather good stand:
But shall we have a tour around the stalls before I show you what we did?

'Tir aux profs' means 'throw at the teachers! The caricatures of the teachers are really good - I wonder who did them?

Hook-a-duck is staggeringly popular in any language...

These adorable hamsters were running around their maze

and being very well-cared for, I was pleased to see. An ex-pupil told me all about them. Too cute!

The children in the primary school have a gardening club, and I bought some basil that they'd grown. I hope it survives longer than most of my basil plants - Raja ate one, the first year, and this year the plants in pots died on a sunny day when I was away.

Now, would you like a look at our very red, white and blue stand?

6° to 3° means aged 11 to 14, by the way. We were advertising for more pupils - they all enjoy the classes and want the children from the primary school (and new starters aged 11) to join them - there are quite a lot of options and I've lost Anglophone pupils to some of the newer choices - we wanted to show off just how good we are!The 11 and 12 year olds have been having a great time sharing books they've enjoyed, with comprehension questions set by me. This swapping of book packs (read a chapter then answer the questions) is inspiring a lot more reading, which really pleases me.

Of course they all speak English, but if you've only been to French school, writing in English is really hard. We do a lot of writing, and I try to make it varied and fun, as well as matching the English National Curriculum.

Advertising is entertaining, and quite educational too, as they can learn just how powerful and manipulative it can be.

Help! For the first time we are aiming towards the International GCSE in English as a First Language. This is really hard for me as well as for them...

They can all do descriptive writing, thank goodness.

Back to basics - I'm a trained dyslexia teacher, and a lot of the ideas I have for differentiating work come from that background. This is a really super example of a spelling book - I'm so glad this pupil was prepared to share it.

We decided to share some traditional British Jelly Babies too. Thew went down EXTREMELY well with the French students! Did you spot a hint of CK and EB on the stand? Well, why not?

Back out of doors, the primary school pupils were lining up for their performances.

The audience was in the shade, and had access to a very pleasant bar and snacks, with a BBQ for later.

The primary school's theme this year was 'Around the World'. I enjoyed the Spanish costumes (flamenco dancing is quite popular down here, close as we are to the border).And I loved these boys in their African shirts.It was as hot as it looks! About 29°C at 5pm. Indoors with the displays, I found a cool breeze and checked out the other stands. There were plenty of photos of school trips to England,

and an exchange vist to a British school.I thought the Italian stand looked great. I told one of my pupils, as we began to set up, 'The Italian display is the only one that could beat us', and she innocently replied, 'Oh, is it a competition?'. It's always a competition between teachers, my dear...There was a whole room given over to art displays, including these floor-to-ceiling banners.They looked great.

These science displays were made by groups of children, and assessed. Very impressive work.

So, I'll leave you with one of my more inspirational weekly views...And a healthy dose of Americana and 'Big-up-Blighty', as Happy would put it!

Have a lovely week. I'll be back on Wednesday, with a rather interesting connection...