In January 1999, the first bilingual class opened at Killarney Heights Public School. According to the principles of total bilingualism, the children have two qualified teachers, an Australian teacher and a French teacher.

The French teacher is employed by the FANS Association to work every day for half the day in a classroom.
He/she team-teaches with the Australian teacher and on the basis of the NSW curriculum.

This initiative, monitored by the NSW Department of Education, has the following objectives :

• To give the French speaking children the opportunity to receive a bilingual education in a local public school.

• To keep a group of French speaking children in the same school, which helps them assert their identity and develop their self-confidence in being bilingual.
• To give non French-speaking children the chance to learn French as a foreign language within their public school.
• To expose children to other languages and cultures and to teach them the respect for each other.

On the basis of the bilingual Kindergarten's great success, more classes opened in the following years. Since 2005, the school has bilingual classes from Kindergarten to Year 6.

Since January 2006, the Killarney Heights High School offers to children who have participated in the primary bilingual classes or have a frenchspeaking background an accelerated French program that will enable them to take their French HSC (High School Certificate) in year 10 instead of year 12.

This is a parents' initiative and the fees are directly used to pay for the French teacher's salary.

Read the Bilingual school FAQ sheets to learn more (in French only for the moment)