I closed my last letter of 2017-2018 referring to Heraclitus, who said that no man steps in the same river twice; everything changes from one time to the next – the water, its banks and those who bathe in it. It’s a pertinent metaphor when it comes to our school; everything feels familiar about this Read more about Back to school[…]

Every year the month of June brings with it a mix of celebration and anxiety. Watching Wednesday’s end-of-year primary show, it was hard to imagine that the children on the stage – dressed up and radiant – are the same ones we will meet in a few years as young adults preparing to face exams. Read more about From showtime to exams[…]

The hottest topic in French education news at the moment is Parscoursup, the new platform for managing university applications. In short, students select the schools or universities they would like to attend and, if their academic performance is up to scratch, they receive offers from the institutions they have chosen. Obviously, it doesn’t always work Read more about Parcoursup[…]

The end of the year is fast approaching and another school year has flown by. Last August, I wrote that the year ahead held numerous challenges for us and that we shouldn’t allow ourselves become complacent. A school that doesn’t move forward, that fails to call its practices into question, that always falls back on Read more about Innovations[…]

This weekend we are hosting the third edition of the Nuit du c0de (c0ding night). The event was dreamt up in 2015, not only as a fascinating pedagogical project, but also as a platform for us to show the world what a dynamic, ambitious school the French Section is; a means for us to make Read more about Nuit du c0de – 3rd edition[…]

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting the CM1 classes’ Wonder Garden exhibition – the result of their work in class with Mr Stracey based on the book of the same name by Jenny Groom. I was highly impressed by the quality of the end result and would like to congratulate the CM1 students Read more about A real audience for our students[…]

It is no secret that I attach great importance to the place of girls, in school and in the wider world; I have dedicated previous weekly letters to the topic (most recently here).  Schools are responsible for defending girls’ interests in what is only fair to call the on-going struggle for gender equality; schools have Read more about Our girls[…]

Last weekend Nicolas Blanc, Stéphanie Froissart and I attended a meeting (in Bali, I know, no one said life was easy) with our counterparts from other French schools across Asia. The need to hold such a seminar as well as the presence of an important delegation from AEFE-Paris emphasizes the complexity of the issues the Read more about Voter for your Section council[…]

This past week, we held two information meetings at the primary campus to present the updated pathways that will be on offer for the next school year. The changes to the pathways are not exactly revolutionary, more like evolutionary – in keeping with the developments in our student profile in recent years, as I discussed Read more about New pathways[…]

Head of school seminars are always special occasions. It is the moment of the year when we learn about current events at the AEFE (Agency for French Education Abroad) and about the directions it wants to take in areas such as human resources and finance. It is also the moment when we decide on the Read more about Annual heads conference[…]