Five-year-old Etienne de Fombelle is starting kindergarten on Monday but he's been attending school since he was two.
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The de Fombelles call France their second home, and their four boys Etienne, Thibault, Eric, and Arnaud spend their time between the bilingual Telopea Park School in Barton, and a small village school of about 50 students in what Paul de Fombelle calls "the French Outback".
Children in France can start attending school from the age of two-and-a-half, as long as they're toilet trained, and the de Fombelles travel across for seven weeks of schooling every September.
Etienne joins about 8,900 public school children in the ACT starting kindergarten or pre-school on Monday, while most of the 49,000 children returning for years 1 to 12 will start the new school year on Tuesday.
"Every year we go at the beginning of September, which is the start of the French school year," Felicity de Fombelle said.
"[My sons] attend a small village school, so it's very different [to Telopea] but they adjust very quickly. They've got friends there that they remember from previous years and it's just a great experience."
The de Fombelles, who live in Curtin in the ACT, organise their French national sons' education through the local council in France, who are responsible for looking after schools.
They have a home in France, and visit Mr de Fombelle's French family when they are in town. The children move up a grade because of the late starting date, and get the chance to move slightly ahead of their peers back at Telopea, who they join again in February the following year.
Arnaud, Thibault, and Eric, who are going into years 5, 4, and 2 on Tuesday, will move up a grade in just eight months when they start the French school year.
"Arnaud was quite upset when we left last year because he graduated from the local primary school - in France, they finish it in Year 5, and there was only five children in his class," Mrs de Fombelle said.
"But he'll see them this year at college, which is year 6. They learn Latin and another language there, which will be German for him."
The days are long in France - school generally starts at 8.30am and ends at 4.30pm - and the teachers are strict: "there's very little interaction with parents," Mrs de Fombelle said.
But the de Fombelle boys love the food they get at their school in France - a four-course hot meal, served in the canteen - and the two-hour play break that follows.
"There’s menus every day and you just go and you eat. Then you go outside and you play for two hours, so there's lots of sunlight and soccer," ten-year-old Arnaud de Fombelle said.
"But when we do our English tests, Eric, the teacher and I get to correct the other students' - even if they are older than us."
The Telopea Park School is a binational French-Australian public school funded by both the French and Australian governments. All students at the school are eligible to organise a short or long stay at a school in France through the government.
While Madame de Fombelle acknowledges the logistical difficulties most parents would face trying to make such an arrangement, and the competetive nature of getting into the school - her sons, as French nationals, were guaranteed entry - she said it has been hugely valuable for her children.
"There's a French school in Sydney and a French school in Melbourne but they’re both private," she said.
"The fact that we have a school that’s funded by the French and Australian governments in Canberra - it’s a real privilege."
Canberrans are reminded to observe 40km/h speed limits in school zones from 8am to 4pm on Monday as children across the territory return to school.
“Children are some of our most vulnerable road users and we want to ensure their safety travelling to and from school,” Acting Station Sergeant David Wills said on Friday.
