French Summer Camps

Our ambition is to give children a love for the French language and culture. We host both residential and day camps at our farm in Co. Laois.

Our creative summer camps aim at teaching French through activities such as cooking, crafts, music and outdoor games. The idea is to recreate a small corner of France in Ireland.

SUMMER 2025 CAMPS:

Residential camps: (from Sunday evening to Saturday midday) - €680

1 - 7 June

1st / 2nd year students

(3 spaces left for girls)

8 - 14 June

1st / 2nd year students

(full)

29 June - 5 July

10-12 year olds

(full)

Day camps (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm) - €160

2-6 June	1st / 2nd year students (3 spaces left)
9-13 June	1st / 2nd year students (full)
30 June - 4 July	10/12 year olds (full)

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

Booking: Please send us an email using our contact page here. Subject to availability, you will receive a booking form and an email with payment options.

Size of the group: 14 residential children and 4 day children.

Supervision: The children are under my supervision with the assistance of 3 French and/or francophone assistants.

Venue: Solenn's School, Bealady Farm, Rathdowney, Co. Laois, R32P2T8

Accommodation: There are 3 bedrooms in the house for the children (4, 5 and 6 beds). The house is spacious.

Allergy or fear of animals: We live on a farm and are surrounded by animals (sheep, cows, horses, hens) including two dogs who live in the house. Please be aware of this if your child is allergic to or afraid of dogs. The livestock are in the fields around the house. The house and the garden are separated from the farm and the children are supervised at all time. They are not allowed to go to the farmyard on their own and they are under the supervision of an adult when they go to a field.

We advise that you do not send a child with a severe pollen allergy to our camp as most of our activities are outdoors.

Meals: All the meals are prepared here with fresh food. The children have breakfast at 9.15am, a snack at 11am, a light lunch at 1pm, a snack at 4pm and a full dinner at 7pm. Coeliac and lactose intolerant children are welcome.

There is always extra food for children who might not like a particular dish.

Snacks: Children are not allowed to bring snacks (for allergy reasons).

Use of mobile phones, tablets and computers: The children have access to their mobile phone or tablet for only 20 minutes in the evening to ring their parents. The phones, tablets or other smart devices are not allowed otherwise and will be held by Solenn the rest of the time. The children who don’t have a phone can ring their parents at any time on Solenn's mobile phone. The use of computers, tablets, video games or other smart devices is forbidden during the whole stay at Solenn’s School.

Make-up: The use of make-up, artificial nails and artificial eyelashes is forbidden at Solenn's School.

Full attendance to the camp: We strongly recommend that a child spends the full week here without interruption for other activities (sporting etc...) during their week as this disrupts their programme and the sequence of learning, group games and pair activities.

!!! Please show the above video to your children and make sure that they are happy to come to this camp before enrolling them!!

A typical day:

Weekly day camp

10am-11am	Fun activities for learning new vocabulary. We use card games and activities specially designed for teaching French as a foreign language and for developing communication skills while having fun.
11am	Cooking (the children cook a French dish)
11:30am	Small breakfast
12-1pm 1-2pm	Outdoor games Songs, music Lunch
2- 4pm	– Craft activities under the hay shed – Games in the garden

Residential Camp

9am	Wake up call
9.15-9:50am	Breakfast
10am-4pm	Same as above
4pm	Snacks and drinks
4:20-5:30pm	Free time to go for a walk with the assistants in the fields and either kick a ball or have a rest on a rug.
5:30-5:45pm	House chores (the children have to do one small task every day in order to help with the everyday house chores such as helping in the kitchen, feeding animals...)
5:45-6:45pm	-Work in groups with the assistants -Scrapbook about France and French culture/ Recipe book
5:45-6:45pm 6:45-7pm	Shower Phone time
7-8:15pm	Dinner
8:15-9:45pm	Movie time ! Selected French children movies with subtitles.
9:45pm	Bed time
10:30pm	Turn off lights

During the week, the children will become familiar with French culture by singing French songs, playing French games, cooking and tasting French food, filling a scrapbook about France and watching French movies.

They won’t have time to be bored or homesick!