CSI or ISL (Lyon)

Dear all,

We are moving this summer with our kids to Lyon. Choosing a school, otherwise already a big decision, proves to be even more difficult now that we cannot visit the country.

First of all a bit of background on our kids: they are bilingiual Dutch- German. We speak Dutch at home and they have done all their elementary school and part of kindergarten in German. They have just started learning English, the oldest 1 year at school and the youngest now in quarantaine-homeschooling. The do not speak French.

One option could be the CSI, german section. Our doubts there is that they would need to accommodate fill 18 hours of French from the start. Does anyone have experience with the on-boarding of non-french speaking students there? Is it realistic for them to be able to follow the rest of the students? Also, since we do not speak German at home, the 6 h of German in school would be the only contact with that language.

The other option is ISL. I understand that they are very accustomed to introducing students. English is also easier for them to learn, so I feel they will suffer less at start. Downside is that they might loose their German (important if we move back to Germany after 3 years) and learn very little French (important for any integration in France of course, for any activities they want to do outside of school).

I have also heard that the academic level of ISL, especially in the higher grades is not so good compared to CSI and that the atmosphere between students is not so nice. Can anybody comment on that?