English National Programme Lycée International de Ferney-Voltaire

P.1

inside

The new St Genis site of the Ly-

cée International will be opening

from September 2016. In the

2016-17 school year 2nde and

1ère pupils will be divided be-

tween the two sites. ENP will pro-

vide teaching on both.

A SINGLE SCHOOL: the two sites togeth-

er (Ferney and St Genis) will form one

International Lycée. About 60% of ENP

pupils in 2nde and 1ère will transfer from

Ferney to the St Genis site; that is, 3 out

of 5 teaching groups in English. At pre-

sent the Lycée plans that all ENP Maths

teaching will be at St Genis, while ENP

English and History-Geography will be

taught on both sites.

This article sums up what we know at

present about the new site and teaching

structures and ENP’s part in them. It out-

lines the education that will be available

to pupils on both sites.

Which Lycée pupils next school year will

be moving to the St Genis site...

...and what will be the effect on ENP?

The new site is Lycée only, and 1ère and 2nde

only next school year. Collège and primary

pupils will stay at the Ferney site. ENP will be

the only international section on the St Genis

site. Ferney will continue to be the Pro-

gramme’s main base.

What will be the effect on families?

Pupils will be placed on a site according to

three criteria M Jacquenet, the proviseur, has

stated. These will be place of residence, sub-

jects to be taken (and where they are

offered) and the wishes of the pupil, if these

are compatible with the first two. It is hard to

see ahead of time how this will affect most

ENP families. It is clear, however, that for

many who choose the St Genis site, it will

become a new, valued, educational resource.

SUBJECTS AVAILABLE ON EACH SITE

Will all ENP subjects be offered on both sites?

ENP Mathematics will be available only on the

St Genis site. So only students with a place at

this site will be able to take this subject.

But ENP English and History-Geography will be

taught at 2nde, 1ère and (in due course, from

2017) terminale levels on both sites.

Will all options be available on both sites?

Some options will be available on only

one site. For example, LV2 Chinese will

only be available at Ferney, as will Sci-

ences de l’Ingénieur (SI) . The impact of

combining these significant option choic-

es with ENP Maths is being looked at.

LOGISTICS

Will all Lycée levels be taught on both

sites?

Next school year, terminale will stay in

Ferney: from September 2017, all Lycée

levels will be split across the sites.

What will the proportion of ENP pupils

taught in St Genis be?

Between 60 % & 66%. So the majority of

ENP Lycée pupils will be in St Genis.

Is any extra public transport planned?

School buses for home-school-home

transport to all parts of the ‘pays de Gex’

will serve both sites, we are told. New

bus services between the two sites are

not planned, as pupils will generally be

educated on one site or the other and

will not routinely move between the two.

ST GENIS SITE OPENING

IN SEPTEMBER 2016

Will all ENP teachers teach on both sites?

Next year, approximately two thirds of ENP second-

ary teachers will teach on both sites.

PLANNING

Will timings of lessons on the two sites be the

same?

A single Lycée time-table will be made, encompass-

ing both sites. Lessons will start at the same time on

both, we are told. Teachers who have to travel will

have at least one period of 55 minutes between

lessons on different sites.

Will there be an ENP office in St Genis?

Yes. It will be open for parts of the week. These will

be advertised to pupils and parents.

Will there be ENP class-rooms?

Yes: allocation of teaching rooms and their equip-

ment in terms of furniture, etc. is being discussed

with M Jacquenet. We wish to teach in rooms with

an ENP ‘flavour’, as the environment for learning is

important to us. A large ENP library space has been

placed off the main CDI (library).

Will facilities in St Genis match those in Ferney?

Generally, yes. They will in due course no doubt be

better. There will be a start-up period: elements

such as ICT installations for the school are defined in

‘broad strokes’ only for the moment.

How is ENP planning for the move?

Final stage planning is now in hand, with a focus on

what we see as priorities – planning teaching

groups, teachers’ movements and how lessons can

be best placed.

How will work on the new site be managed?

There will continue to be a single leadership/

management structure for the Lycée. The same will

be true of ENP.

Will there be a canteen on the St Genis site?

Yes.

Will ENP communicate further with parents?

We will try to keep parents abreast of major

developments and relay information and decisions

once they are definite. Please read all communica-

tions from the school on these important changes.

Peter Woodburn, Head of Programme

LA SEMAINE BRITANNIQUE British week (‘La Semaine Britannique’), a new venture in the Lycée/

Collège, and one of several periods celebrating cultural diversity, took

place from March 7th-11th. ENP devised a programme of events to cele-

brate British and English-speaking culture.

ENP Mathematics published a

maths puzzle for the day from

Monday, March 7th.

On Tuesday, American twin singers

Sarah and Abbie Ginsberg (6ème)

performed songs for voice and gui-

tar to a full house (140 or so) of

pupils and ENP staff in the ‘salle de

conférence’.

The Ginsberg twins

A writer’s workshop was run on

Wednesday by Nick Grey, ENP Eng-

lish teacher and novelist. At the

same time, an information session

on university applications to the UK

for French students (not in ENP) in

1ère took place, run by ENP’s Lead

Counsellor, Alan Ackroyd. Our

Thursday event was a ‘performing

poetry live’ session for lower school

pupils. This was attended by staff as

well as the performers, who gave

their performances everything they

had.

On Friday two different events took

place. There was a very popular

bake stall which was besieged by

students and sold out within

minutes, making over 160 euros for

our partner school in Ghana.

There was also a lunchtime reading

(open to parents as well as stu-

dents) by Canadian poet Carla Drys-

dale, which was a unique and mov-

ing occasion. Her performance held

a small audience spell-bound. A

copy of her latest book,

‘Inheritance', was bought for the

ENP library poetry collection.

Carla

Drysdale

Much was gained from an enjoyable

week. Some very large and some

small but enthusiastic audiences

joined in celebrations. Some new

ideas for ENP events emerged. And

British traditions and icons were

placed centre stage. School uniform

was celebrated by the school on

Friday. The Collège bell between

lessons played Queen all week. The

Lycée bell followed with the Beat-

les’ ‘Yesterday’ in an arrangement

that recalled the work of their pro-

ducer, George Martin.

Peter Woodburn,

Head of Programme

SAVE THE DATE:

‘JOURNEE PORTES OUVERTES’/OPEN DAY

Saturday April 30th, 9h00-12h00

Lycée International, Ferney-Voltaire site

You are invited to join us to get an inside view of the work of

the Collège and Lycée International, including both Primary

and Secondary parts of ENP.

PRIMARY BOOK CELEBRATIONS

This year our book celebrations lasted a month! The dress-

ing up day was a great start. The costumes were amazing.

There were some really interesting characters, including Cru-

ella Devil and Disney princesses. The teachers had to dress

up and this was VERY funny.

During the afternoon the children took part in lots of book-related activities. The aim was to have fun and enjoy reading.

Competitions

Design a bookmark, take an interesting photo, and write a story

were just some of the competitions set which enabled the children

to continue the book celebrations during the holiday. All entries

were brilliant and it was very difficult to choose winners.

Readathon

1455 books were read by pupils during the Primary book celebra-

tions. Fantastic reading, everybody!

Baker Books

The Baker book order totalled 1,950 euros. The children will have

lots of new books to share at home. With the commission earned, it

also means that ENP can spend 400 euros on new books.

World Book Day

To celebrate World Book Day ENP students from the Collège and

Lycée spent time in class sharing books with the Primary children. It

was lovely to see children of all ages reading and talking about

books together.

Ghana

Akosua Kimberley Tenkorang (an ENP parent) shared Ghanaian tra-

ditional stories with the CE1 classes. The children had fun compar-

ing stories and learned a lot about Ghana too. Mrs. Tenkorang is

organizing a book drive to collect educational materials and books

to create a library for a school in Ghana.

Judith Slade and Carolyn Howson, primary teachers

BOOK WEEK:

SIXIEME VISITS TO CM1 CLASSES

Amongst the activities planned for the ENP Book

Week was the pairing of classes from Collège with Pri-

mary classes to share their reading habits.

CM1 pupils were delighted to receive a visit from 6ème pupils

carrying copies of their favourite books and full of enthusiasm to

impart their knowledge. The younger children enjoyed hearing

about what their older partners had enjoyed when they were their

age and also what books and authors they had discovered in the

past two years.

VALUED AND ENCOURAGED

The older students felt their opinions were valued and encouraged

the CM1 pupils to talk about their own literary preferences. This

experience was valuable not only from an educational point of

view but also from a social one. Some CM1s commented on how

kind and friendly the Collège pupils were and how they now

seemed far more approachable. The 6ème pupils felt that they

had connected with the younger pupils and would look out for

them around the school.

Sarah Elder, Head of English; Carolyn Howson CM1 teacher

‘I hope we have book week next year – it was

awesome. If we do, I can’t wait.’

CM2 WORKSHOP WITH SIMPLY THEATRE

“Director!” “Mouse on the Floor!” “Lights are falling!” “Upstage!” “Downstage!”

“Hamlet!”. These are just some of the commands our facilitator, Dafydd, used in one of the

games CM2 enjoyed in their workshop! He took us into another world of fun and theatre

which was new for most of the pupils. All the pupils really enjoyed this work.

Over two weeks, each class spent a couple of hours with him in one of the large class-

rooms or the Salle de Conférence. Mrs Bradley and I had arranged for him to play some

theatrical games as well as helping to prepare the classes for our performances of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, which we presented

to family and friends on 6th and 8th April.

We began with warming up games: speaking and voice projection, a “forest sounds” game, exploring different kinds of movement

around the stage, following commands, responding to others in character and knowing the different parts of the stage.

We moved on to practising different parts of the play and we saw the classes transformed into fairies and elves leaping around the

stage. We saw a boy and a girl taking on the characters of King Oberon and

Queen Titania; we laughed at the Mechanicals trying to work together; we

marvelled at four pupils bravely learning how to show love for one another

then move straight into arguing and fighting.

How encouraging it was for the teachers to see the classes taking on

“Dream” roles, getting into character and finding new ways of expression in

the English language. We both think that these 10-year olds will increasingly

love English literature as a result of working on the play.

All in all we had a great time and became even more enthusiastic about our

performances on April 6th and 8th.

Mrs Meadmore, CM2 teacher

‘The Dream’ was performed by CM2 classes on April 6th & 8th

‘The Dream’: onstage on the opening night, April 6th. The full story in our next edition….

A CHILD’S GUIDE TO CERN

Hi! I am Dr. Quark and I represent CERN, the Conseil Européen pour la Recher-che Nucléaire. In other words, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Nuclear research looks at some of the smallest building blocks of the Universe. At CERN we have built the biggest research machine in the world to help us with our investigations. But what exactly are we investigating? Well, at CERN we are trying to answer fundamental questions such as: why is air not solid?

Our biggest project is the Large Hadron Collider, more commonly known as the LHC. This is a 27 km long pipe running underneath part of France and Switzerland. Parts of the LHC are the coldest in the universe, the hottest and the most airtight. In this breath--taking apparatus we are trying to make the smallest components of the Universe, known as particles, collide at a very high speed. One day, we hope, this will help us to understand all the mysteries of the Universe. If you want to learn more about CERN, check out these two sites: CERNland.net and www.CERN.com!

Some particle-busting facts CERN was officially inaugurated in 1954. That’s 61 years

ago!

Counting the staff, the scientists and all the other workers, CERN employs more than 15 000 peo-ple!

The heaviest project weighs 140 thousand tons. That’s 28 thousand...

...elephants!

CERN cameras take 600 million photos of speeding particles per

second!

The particles do 110 000 circuits of the LHC in under a second!

In our day-to-day life we use two CERN inventions: the World Wide Web and the touch screen!

UNIVERSITY PLACES GAINED BY ENP

‘BACHELIERS’ IN 2015

The ENP counselling team worked with students last year to make sure that university places gained matched their interests, aptitudes and ambi-tions. Over 80% of graduates from the ENP terminale class of 2015 obtained a place at their first choice of post-secondary destination. I’d like to thank last year’s counselling team, led by Alan Ackroyd, for their dedicated work in helping students gain the places summed up below. Countries applied to included, in order of numbers of places:

UK

Switzerland

Holland (mainly courses taught in English)

France

USA

Canada Subject areas successfully applied for included: - in Social Sciences: PPE (Oxford), International Relations, Economics, Business, Psychology, Criminology, Management , War Studies (King’s London), Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Childhood Studies; - in Arts, Media, Creative and Literature: Architecture, Eng-lish, Theatre Studies and Literature, Film; Drama (combined); - in Pure Sciences: Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Sciences (McGill); - in Applied Science and Engineering: Mechanical Engineering, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Computer Games , Video Game, Micro-technology (EPFL), Marine Biology, Bioengineering (EPFL), Biochemistry, Design Engineering; - in professionally-oriented courses: Medicine, Law, Primary Education, Accounting (combined) - in languages: German (combined). Places were gained at many universities ranked within the world’s top 100. These include: Cambridge (2 places); Oxford (2 places); McGill, EPFL (Lausanne); EPFZ (Zurich); University College, London; Imperial College, London; King’s College, London; Amsterdam University; Leiden University; Durham University; Erasmus University; Rotterdam; University of Freiburg; Groningen University. Based on information supplied by Alan Ackroyd, Lead Uni-versity Counsellor

ENGLISH TEACHERS’ FANCY DRESS

FOR WORLD BOOK DAY

To celebrate World Book Day, the secondary English department

dressed up as literary characters. Students were invited to take part in

a ‘human treasure hunt’, guessing each character. The winners of the

treasure hunt were: Maureen Bartsch and Kayleigh Twomey, both

5ème pupils.

Staff and characters:

Mrs Woodburn - Miss Havisham

Mrs Wainwright - Aunt Petunia

Mr Grey - Long John Silver

Mr Breteche - Sherlock Holmes

Mr Woodburn - James Bond

Mrs Moriarty - The Woman in Black

Mr Banfield - Thomson/Thompson

Mrs Elder - Scout Finch

Mr Ackroyd - Eddie Carbone

DATES TO REMEMBER

‘Journée Portes Ouvertes’/Open Day Saturday 30 April, 9am to

12pm

6ème Admission Test for CM2: Wednesday 11th and Friday 13th

May (during class time)

Pont de l’Ascension (school closed): Thursday 5th and Friday 6th

May

Secondary Admission Test (for external candidates): Friday May

13th

Lundi de Pentecôte (school closed): Monday 16th May

CP Admission Test: Wednesday 8th June in the morning

UK Theatre and University trip: 27th to 30th June

Sports Day (for Primary): Wednesday 29th June in the afternoon

Baccalauréat results: 5th July