Tell me about it, the first time I visited it was lunchtime and the tumbleweed blowing down the deserted mainstreet was a little alarming ... really NO playgrounds ?? at all?? that's worse than where we are now .. at least here you can drive to playground in 15 mins!

Well the boy seems to fit under criteria number 1. We have been in contact with the school and actually have a visit organised for tomorrow, so looking forward to that .. but I will be asking if it is appropriate given that he is bilingual now but has little active support in the language back home.

From what I read in the press, the school is ment to "francize" German speaking kids from Basel. The real goal of the bilingual school being to get a smooth transition from German- to French speaking school when there is no support in French in the family. If you are French speaking in the first place, you have to ask the school specifically if he is eligeable for it because of that. The offer is made for German speaking families so that they do not need worry for the schooling of their children when changing from German speaking Switzerland to Romandie. You case is kind of special. I don't know what they say to that.

__________________
Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

A big thank you to everyone who has joined in on this thread. It's been great to discuss this.

We spent the day in Delémont yesterday. Still alarming how empty the highstreet is on Friday morning (more tumbleweed ..) but were very impressed by the billingual class teacher. Seems it is exactly what eldest son will be after as it is to aid integration into the French speaking system whilst at the same time supporting their German so as to give them wider options later on.

What was striking was how welcoming and happy to help people in administration there were .. thinking particularly of the education department where they have gone out of their way to answer our questions and get hold of people who they think we would be interested to talk to. Of course the lack of language barrier is fantastic so if someone in the parks department could just expedite the building of a supa dupa town play park for the 3 year old, I think we're off ... or maybe we will just have to keep on coming into Basel for our urban playpark experiences (oh yes, like we do now!)

Thank you to everyone and keep your Delémont thoughts coming in...

To be honest, no playground in comparison to what you would find in Basel/Riehen but in the castle backyard (Chateau, cours d'ecole) there is a small one and it is also popular to go and watch the deers on the top of Delemont right hand side (sorry forgot the exact name but ask for the parc aux biches and people should be able to guide you. There is next to it also a very small playground).
cheers

Arrgghhh Nil - just seen this and realised we could have become neighbours and me a Granny surrogate... friend even lol. And now you are leaving us for Barcelona. By the time we come back from hols in Italy, you might have gone already - so keep in touch. Hasta la vista, ciao, à bientot.