AESH in French Schools: How to Get a Classroom Support Assistant for Your Child

The Accompagnant d'Élèves en Situation de Handicap, universally shortened to AESH, is the French state's classroom support assistant for children with disabilities. If your child needs 1-on-1 help in the classroom — for mobility, communication, behavioral regulation, or learning support — an AESH is the resource the French system provides.

But getting to that point is not simple, and receiving the official approval notice is not the end of the story. France is in the middle of a serious AESH staffing crisis that means many children with valid MDPH approvals start the school year without an assistant in the room.

What an AESH Does

The AESH's role is defined by the child's PPS (Projet Personnalisé de Scolarisation) — the individualized school plan issued by the MDPH. Their tasks can include:

• Helping the child with physical tasks (managing materials, mobility, equipment)
• Supporting communication and social interaction in the classroom
• Providing behavioral support and prompting during transitions and unstructured time
• Assisting with accessing lesson content (reading aloud, scribing, adapting materials)
• Supporting the child during extracurricular activities, lunch breaks, and field trips if the PPS specifies this

The AESH works under the authority of the school and the direction of the class teacher, but their legal mandate comes from the CDAPH notification. Without that notification, the school has no authority to assign an AESH from the state system.

The Three Types of AESH

Not all AESH assignments are the same, and the type granted has significant practical implications:

AESH-Individuel (AESH-i) This assistant is assigned exclusively to one child for a specified number of hours per week. They work only with your child and provide consistent, predictable support. This is the strongest form of AESH allocation and is typically granted for children with the most significant support needs.

AESH-Mutualisé (AESH-m) This assistant divides their time among several students within the same school or a network of nearby schools. The CDAPH notification for a mutualized AESH does not specify a fixed number of hours per child — the local educational authority distributes the assistant's time based on immediate need, which can fluctuate. For families requesting mutualized AESH, it's important to understand that this is less predictable support.

AESH-Collectif (AESH-co) This assistant is not assigned to an individual child but to a ULIS class (a specialized inclusion unit within a mainstream school). They work with the specialized teacher and all the students in the ULIS device, rather than following one child throughout the school day.

How to Get AESH Approved

AESH support can only be granted through the MDPH process. There is no school-based route to a state-funded AESH assignment. The pathway:

1. Submit a complete MDPH dossier (Cerfa 15692-01 + Cerfa 15695-01 + GEVA-Sco) requesting human support.
2. The MDPH's EPE evaluates the dossier and formulates a recommendation.
3. The CDAPH issues a formal notification specifying the type of AESH (individual or mutualized) and the number of hours per week.
4. The notification is forwarded to the Ministry of Education's local directorate (DSDEN), which is responsible for actually assigning a person.

Step 4 is where the system frequently breaks down. The CDAPH approves; the DSDEN is supposed to find and assign an AESH. But the DSDEN operates from a pool of available AESH workers, and that pool is significantly smaller than the number of approved positions.

The AESH Staffing Crisis: What Expats Need to Know

France's AESH workforce is in structural crisis. In the 2024–2025 academic year, approximately 136,000 AESH workers were supporting over 340,000 students with approved needs. The gap is real and acknowledged at the highest levels of government.

The root causes are systemic:

• AESH workers are employed on precarious part-time contracts, often earning between €600 and €800 per month — close to the minimum wage for work that is physically and emotionally demanding.
• High turnover means that even when positions are filled, continuity for individual students is frequently disrupted.
• New recruitment cannot keep pace with the expanding population of students with approved PPS plans, as the push for inclusive mainstream education adds thousands of students each year.

In late 2025, the "Déposons nos cartables" (Let's lay down our schoolbags) strikes drew attention to AESH working conditions. Advocacy groups including UNAPEI have documented thousands of cases where children are receiving only part-time schooling — or are being excluded from the classroom entirely — because no AESH is available.

For expat families, this means one thing: receiving the CDAPH notification is not the finish line. It is the beginning of a second phase of advocacy.

What to Do If Your Approved AESH Never Arrives

Many families begin the school year with a valid CDAPH notification for AESH support, only to be told that no assistant is available. The school may present this as beyond their control. Legally, it is not.

Under Article L112-1 of the Code de l'éducation, the State has an absolute obligation to provide the financial and human resources necessary for the schooling of a disabled child. An AESH shortage cannot legally be used to deny a child classroom access.

If the school year starts with no AESH in place:

Step 1: Document the absence. Write to the school director confirming in writing that the AESH notified by the CDAPH is not present, and requesting a written explanation. This creates a paper trail.

Step 2: Contact the ERSEH. Your Enseignant Référent (the specialist teacher who chairs ESS meetings and liaises with the MDPH) has a formal role in monitoring PPS implementation. Alert them to the situation.

Step 3: Send a mise en demeure to the DASEN. A formal demand letter (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception) to the Directeur Académique des Services de l'Éducation Nationale demanding immediate compliance with the MDPH notification. This is not a complaint — it is a legal demand for the state to execute its obligation.

Step 4: Consider emergency injunction. If the DASEN fails to act within a reasonable timeframe (typically two to three weeks), a référé-liberté filed before the Tribunal Administratif can legally compel the State to assign an AESH under threat of daily financial penalties (astreinte). Families who have filed these injunctions have consistently won.

The Pôles d'Appui à la Scolarité: A New Interim Option

From 2025, the government is rolling out PAS (Pôles d'Appui à la Scolarité) across all academies. These are local teams — combining a coordinating teacher and a medico-social educator — who can provide immediate support to students struggling in class without waiting for MDPH validation.

The PAS is explicitly designed as a "first-level" response to unmet needs during the waiting period. It cannot replace an AESH, but it can provide adaptive materials, pedagogical strategies, and specialist input while the formal process moves forward. Access is requested directly through the school.

The France Special Education Blueprint covers the full AESH advocacy pathway — from writing the initial MDPH dossier to escalating against a non-compliant DSDEN — with letter templates for every key step in the process.

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