In France, children go to nursery school from 3 to 6 (3 grades). This is not compulsory but concern 99% of young children. Then, we have the public school system "free, compulsory and non-religious", I must add that the nursery schools are a part of the public system, they are also completly free. Primary school goes from 6 to 11 (5 grades), next we have what we call "collège " (Jr high school)) from 11 to 15 (4 grades), next is "lycée" (high school) from 15 to 18 (3 grades). At the end of lycée you have to pass a very important exam, "baccalauréat", to be allowed to go to university. 

There is also a private system, similar to the public one, the only differences is religious teaching ( these schools are mostly catholic, for historical reasons), and of course you have to pay for it, some of the private schools are affordable, some are very expensive...

Currently my children attend to a private Catholic school, this school is frequented by middle-class families, with Christian values.

In the past (until the 50'), the teacher were nuns, but it's not the case anymore.

My older daughter is in the last grade of primary school (CM2), she 'll go to "collège" next year.

My son is in 3rd grade of primary school (CE2), and my youngest daughter is in 2nd grade of nursery school (moyenne section).

We have 3 terms in the school year.

- First one from september to december, we have 10 days of vacation for All Saints day, we celebrate  All Soul's Day, on this day we use to go to cemetery (we don't celebrate Halloween in France).

At the end of the First term, we have 2 weeks of vacation for Christmas.

- During the Second term, we have 2 weeks of vacations, in february, and next 2 weeks for Easter.

During the Third term, there is no vacation, but several  legal holidays, (Labor day and so on...)

Summer break start in the begginings of July, until september...

I know it seems to be a lot, and it's not always easy to organize for busy parents, even if we have both 10 weeks of vacation that's not enough

About the school days now:

In primary school my children go to school on monday, tuesday, thursday and friday 9am-4.30pm, and every other saturday morning, 9am-noon.

In France, most children have school meals (most of the mothers work outside their home).

The schedule is the same for nursery school, except saturday morning.

Voilà ! Of course, I'm interesting in discovering school organization of other countries, please share yours

Lynne ask me if I own a dryer for the laundry. I don't !

Dryer are quite common in France, but mostly for people living in apartment, people living in a house, as I do, use to hang their laundry outside on a clothes line. During cold monthes, where I live from november to march, I hang my laundry in the laundry room.

I don't like electrical dryers because I think they are a great waste of electricity, I also think that driers damage the clothes, all those pills you find in the filter when you clean it !

Of course, I understand the convenience of a drier when you live in an apartment, or in a place with long spells of bad weather.

I already have posted here  about my laundry schedule.

I'm never overwhelmed with my laundry because I use a schedule that fits exactly the needs of my family, I have a delate fonction on my washing machine, I program it for very early in the morning so I hang it before leaving to work.

Today I have finished off my kitchen spring cleaning and I'm going to share it with you;

Of course, you can't see the major decluttering and organizing I have done inside the cupboards and cabinets...

But, I can tell you everything is clean and sparkling, I'm so happy that I have done it.

As you can see this not a conventional kitchen, it's also the foyer of our house, with a bench for putting away sports bags and purses, and several pegs for hanging coats and a little drawer chest for scarves, gloves, caps...

We don't have planned to renovate the kitchen for the moment ( we are doing the upstairs bathroom right now), so I mainly use my children art work to decorate walls

There are exposed beams on the ceiling, as the kitchen is in the oldest part of the house, they give a certain style to the room but they are a den for cobwebs !