News & Weekly Letters

I had the good fortune to sample some delicious hot chocolate and scrumptious freshly baked madeleines during Noémie Tessier’s visit yesterday. Noémie, Executive Pastry Chef at Angelina Paris, New York came to meet our 7th and 8th graders as part of the World of Work (WoW) program, masterfully coordinated for eight years now by Franck Le Martelot with the assistance of Gayle Hampton.

The World of Work is back for its eighth season at The École in 2021-2022! We are delighted to be welcoming a variety of industry experts to meet our 7th and 8th Grade students in their classroom—either virtually or in-person—and share their professional experience, values, background, and knowledge with them.

As the first part of the school year draws to a close, it’s time to take stock of how things are going so far. With that in mind, I set time aside this week and last to meet individually with colleagues that are new to the school this year. First impressions are always invaluable and provide us with a fresh perspective on our identity and our way of doing things. In the same ‘taking stock’ mindset, we also sent a questionnaire to parents of newly enrolled students at The École– I will undoubtedly discuss those responses with you in a future letter.

Transparency has been a hot topic this week. Primarily due to news of a positive COVID-19 test–a result that turned out, as we now know, to be a false positive, with the subsequent tests being negative (the flipping of values that makes a negative result a good thing and a positive test a nightmare continues to perturb me).

At the Lycée Chateaubriand de Rome, where I had the pleasure of teaching for three years, there is a slang that is spoken only by those who have passed through its walls: Chateaubriannais.* At The École, we seem to be going down the same path–we will soon need to compile our own glossary of untranslatable terms that only The École insiders understand. After last week’s “Les afters schools” come, quite naturally, “Les curriculome nights.” A great many of you attended, and I know that the teachers put a lot of time and effort into preparing their presentations, which managed to be concise yet informative and will enable you to confidently navigate the school year ahead.**