By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent

We may still start our day with corn flakes while they begin with croissants, but there are signs that in education, if little else, the British and the French are beginning to learn from one another.

This week a distinguished group of education policy-makers whizzed through the Channel Tunnel to Paris for a conference on Reforming Education for the 21st Century, hosted by the British Council and the Policy Network think tank.

The conference centred on a joint address from Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, and her French counterpart, Jack Lang. They sang from remarkably similar hymn sheets.

Of course, both represent leftist, social democratic governments. But British and French socialism have rarely meant the same thing.

Moreover, the English (one can no longer talk about "British" education in these post-devolution days) and the French school systems are very different.

Moving together

English and French educators have not always shown much tendency to move in the same direction at the same time.

Perhaps our primary schools have reached some sort of middle ground?

I recall that when Kenneth Clarke was education secretary under a Conservative government he tried to push primary schools towards a French model of whole-class, formal teaching.

Yet at the very same time, some French school inspectors were urging their teachers to incorporate more of the informal, group-based teaching found in English primary schools.

Perhaps, with the recent spread of whole-class, interactive teaching in England, our primary schools have reached some sort of middle ground?

Centralisation

However, just ponder for a moment how different these two school systems, now separated by no more than a short train journey, continue to be.

Teachers don't welcome change

Estelle Morris

In France, the central power of the state is all. While it may not quite be the case that at any hour, on any day, every French schoolchild is turning the same page of the same text book, it is nevertheless a highly centralised school system.

The French Government even pays for the staff and determines the curriculum in France's private (mainly church-based) schools.

By contrast, despite a big growth in central government powers, the English school system still has local differences and local autonomy.

The government can impose targets and threaten sanctions but the implementation of change remains with local education authorities, head teachers and classroom teachers.

Effecting change

Indeed, in a revealing aside, Estelle Morris said she spent more of her time worrying about the problems of managing the relationship between central government and the 24,000 individual school units than about anything else.

Managing change, she said, was very difficult in such a "fragmented" school system - especially when teachers "don't welcome change".

By contrast, Jack Lang spoke with ease of the changes he was implementing.

"We wanted our 60,000 schools to have a new programme and that has been validated over the past few weeks."

Just like that.

Common ground

The simple truth is that school systems are the product of national history. As Jack Lang eloquently put it: "If we looked at the history of the French education system we would have the whole of French history before us."

The differences between school systems have made it difficult to exchange ideas and practices. But in Paris this week one sensed it was getting easier.

Policy-makers and educators from France and Britain, and several other countries too, found they shared some key challenges.

Key themes at the conference showed a commonality of concerns on issues such as finding and re-skilling enough good teachers, how to expand higher education, how to teach the values of "citizenship" in school, and how to adapt to the use of new technology in the classroom.

Where next?

From being a policy area shut in behind national boundaries, education is fast becoming a global issue. With businesses and employees now moving across national boundaries, it is inevitable and necessary that education follows.

Perhaps she and Jack Lang can get together and devise an Anglo-French scheme to send undergraduates across the Channel to help as language assistants

Undergraduates are doing it: Some 10,000 British students are currently studying in France while the same number of French students now travel in the opposite direction.

So where are the French and English school systems heading?

One area both have just set as a priority is language learning. Estelle Morris has set a 10-year target of making the learning of a foreign language an "entitlement" from the age of seven.

The French are travelling the same route but with their foot harder on the accelerator. Jack Lang is introducing a foreign language programme from "kindergarten onwards".

As he told the Paris conference, his aim is that "every child by age 11 should already be proficient in a foreign language so that in secondary school they can start a second foreign language".

Student exchanges

The Germans are also travelling this route. England has its particular problems - primarily a severe shortage of foreign language teachers - but we need to try to keep up with the pace.

Estelle Morris has indicated that one solution is to pay undergraduates on language courses to spend half a day a week helping teach French or German in primary school.

It is an excellent idea. Perhaps she and Jack Lang can get together and devise an Anglo-French scheme to send undergraduates across the Channel to help as language assistants in primary schools?

An offer to reimburse student tuition fees could be an added inducement to students to get involved.

Imagination

There are other areas where the French and the English can learn from one another.

As Jack Lang himself admitted, the French have been "laggards" on the introduction and use of computers and the internet in schools. England, by contrast, has led the way, although much remains to be done.

But perhaps the most useful lessons of all lie in the very pressing problem of finding the right balance between equipping children with basic, utilitarian skills while still finding time for the development of creativity and imagination.

Jack Lang told the Paris conference the French system was "very autocratic". He wants to allow "more room for imagination and initiative" and for "creativity for teachers and students".

I suspect many teachers in England would like to hear Estelle Morris saying the same thing. For the English system has become more prescriptive and centralised under Labour.

Immeasurable

Ms Morris - in a remarkably candid speech - acknowledged that the government had imposed tight frameworks on schools.

Ms Morris confessed there was a danger that trying to measure everything produced a school system which valued only what it could measure

She made no apology for this - indeed, by contrast with her French counterpart, she expressed concern that the government could still not feel assured that change was spreading to every one of the 24,000 schools.

However, there were also some hints that the government is realising that its focus on targets and tests in the basic skills could have a down-side.

She confessed there was a danger that trying to measure everything produced a school system which valued only what it could measure.

The ability to read and write can be measured. Creativity, artistic expression, moral and citizenship values are not easily quantified.

Schools need to deliver both. Young people need to learn both.

Perhaps by keeping a closer eye on each other, and being willing to borrow policies, the English and French school systems can find a balanced and progressive way forward together.