It often happens to me, on Wednesdays, to publish photos in which my children are on the beach, in the library or doing sports. There is no doubt someone asks me why I am not at school, and every time I repeat the same explanation: French children do not go to school on Wednesday. Or rather: this was the custom from 1972 until 2014, when the Hollande government reintroduced the five-day week: an experiment that would have been shipwrecked in a couple of years. But let's go by order.
The week of four days
Traditionally, in France, Wednesday is the day dedicated to extracurricular activities. Children go to school on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, full time. The central day of the week is when you go to dance, swimming or football lessons. That was the case, at least, for over forty years.
Well, they are accustomed. Many employers know that those who have children are likely to ask for free Wednesday and most companies are well organized. In most families, at least one of their parents can safely get rid of them. When this is not possible, it is not a drama: the school, in fact, remains open. There is no lesson, but the children are welcomed anyway and carry out various recreational or educational activities.
The Hollande experiment
In 2014, François Hollande's government decided that children are more attentive and productive in the morning, so it would have been preferable if they had gone to school every morning and left school one hour earlier in the afternoon. An idea that might not even be wicked if it weren't for the whole of society that was organized differently. As a result of this reform, all schools of sports, languages, music and so on had to change their timetables, proposing their lessons in the afternoon and "spreading them" within five days of the week. In our country, even the ski club, which brought children to ski every Wednesday, had to suspend activities for children.
But one thing the reform did not take into account is that parents continued to have free Wednesday but they could not necessarily leave work one hour earlier in the other days. The result: the schools were obliged to offer an after-school service with various activities (including yoga, which I taught in the primary school in my country).
The fairy tale's moral: the children went to school every morning, they didn't have their midweek break anymore and they didn't go out one hour earlier as planned. Not only that: each school had to organize (and pay) the N. O. P., i. e. the extra activities proposed at the end of the day. Many parents (including us) signed petitions to return to the four-day week and in many schools (including ours) the application was accepted.
This is the first year of the return to the 4-day week and there is still some confusion: many of the sports and cultural centers that offer activities aimed at children have not had time to reorganize according to Wednesday free. It is likely that everything will return to order in the coming years.
The garderie
Another peculiarity of the French school is that it welcomes children who need it before school hours (if parents start working early) and after the end of classes (up to 18.30-19). In the morning children play and in the afternoon do homework. Once finished, they are involved in different activities waiting for parents to come and take them. This service is paid for, but the cost is calculated on the basis of income, so it is proportionate to the household's income.
Holidays
And that's not all: every eight weeks of schooling, the young French children have two weeks of vacation: a break that I personally think is beneficial for children and that, to us who have the family in Italy, allows us to move in periods that are not too crowded. The extra weeks of holiday that little French children have during the year are then recovered in summer: here you start in fact the first of September (sometimes even at the end of August!) and you go to school until the beginning of July.