By Mary Ward
The small shopping mall at Tramore Place in Killarney Heights looks a little more Normandy than northern beaches. There’s a patisserie and a bottle shop with an extensive French wine selection. Even at the Fuji Japanese Bakery, a basket of “French baguettes” sits on the counter.
Killarney Heights Public School students Alicia Preston, Anais Sales, Hugo Prud’homme and Ralph Korompis. It has been 25 years since the school started its French bilingual program, and the suburb now has the largest population of French speakers in Australia.Credit: Louise Kennerley
With 6.1 per cent of residents speaking French in the home, Killarney Heights is the Francophone capital of Australia.
But it was not always this way: as recently as 2001 the proportion of French speakers in the suburb was less than a sixth of what it is now, outnumbered by families speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Armenian.
Indeed, that Japanese bakery has been there for 37 years, much longer than the French shops.
The driving force behind the change is Killarney Heights Public School, which in 1999 struck a deal with the French-speaking Association of the North Shore (FANS) to offer French tutelage to one kindergarten class.
Twenty-five years later, 85 per cent of students participate in the French bilingual program, which offers additional French classes for Francophone (French speaking) or Anglophone (English speaking) students complementing the NSW curriculum.
The school has one FANS-employed teacher between two classes, who adapts the curriculum into lessons in French.
In a typical lesson block, children will learn in their class with a NSW Education Department teacher, before splitting into their language stream to cover the topic in French.
“If they are in literacy and learning ‘ing’, that might not translate as well, so we would adapt to teach the concept of the same grammar in French,” said FANS manager Anne Bentley. “But if it’s a geography class, then they would learn the exact same content and they are working on vocabulary.”
To fit it all in, the school runs additional morning French classes – every morning for the Francophones, and a couple of times a week for the other children.
There is a $4075 annual fee for children enrolling in the Francophone stream to cover the cost of the extra teachers and hours. Children wanting to learn French in the Anglophone stream pay $1620.
The school receives several overseas enquiries each year. While the special program means Killarney Heights can accept out-of-area enrolments, families new to Sydney often move close to the school.
Since 2016, the census has recorded French as the most common language, other than English, spoken at home in the suburb.
Jeremy Depuit moved to Australia from France 15 years ago. He has two children at Killarney Heights Public who he lovingly admits speak with “a bit of an accent”.
“But they are completely bilingual,” he said. “When we go back to France they are able to play with their cousins, talk with their grandparents. It’s really extraordinary.”
Jérémy Dupuit with his children Lucille and Bastien at Killarney Heights Public School.Credit: Louise Kennerley
In the playground, children swap between French and English. Principal Gillian Tegg says there is no division between the children with different home languages.
While 36 per cent of students speak French at home, 41 per cent speak English, with the remaining students speaking one of 32 other languages.
“We attract a very international community,” said Tegg, adding that a bilingual program is aspirational for many newer arrivals to Australia.
Year 6 student Alicia Preston speaks English at home, with a Spanish-speaking mother. While she is now a confident French speaker, she remembers some funny misunderstandings in the classroom when she was starting to learn.
“When I finished my work, I would say, ‘J’ai finis!’ My teacher was like: ‘You’re dead?’”
School captains Hugo Prud’homme and Anais Sales, both Francophones, want to do an exchange to a French-speaking country in high school, and possibly even move abroad for university.
“My dad is from Canada so we visit pretty much every year. Last time we drove past this big university called Magill and I think I want to go there,” Hugo said.
At the end of year 6, students complete the DELF, a French Ministry of Education diploma which certifies them as proficient French speakers for their age.
Tegg said the school also had strong NAPLAN results, even though the tests are entirely in English.
Killarney Heights Public School principal Gillian Tegg said the school’s NAPLAN results had not suffered by teaching classes in French.Credit: Louise Kennerley
More than 80 per cent of graduating students go to Killarney High School, which produced the French Continuers first in course winner for last year’s HSC.
FANS now also has a presence at the high school. Even the childcare next to Killarney Heights Public has started a French language program.
But Tegg said the school’s influence was being seen even further afield. She recently received an email from two French-speaking Australians working at the UN General Assembly.
“They had met and discovered they both went to Killarney Heights Public School.”
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