The children had a wonderful time during our snowy days in January. We made the most of this magical time with snowman building and outdoor story time.

Our last week of school saw us exploring the beauty of the forests next to our school. Children in our elementary class developed their knowledge about the fauna and flora around them and even built a forest hut and found some low climbing trees. We welcome every opportunity for our pupils to be in close touch with nature so as we can all better understand how to preserve and create sustainable solutions to protect our planet in the future.

Lots of fun was had by all age groups - toddlers, nursery and elementary - as the children searched for chocolate eggs in the chateau gardens. Well done to all egg hunters who succeeded in collecting all the eggs that were hidden and which were divided equally amongst all the children in a grand division.

We had a lovely time celebrating our 100 days of school. We celebrated by writing 100 things that made us happy and there were lots of other opportunities to count all the way to 100 !

Carnival day is always a special day in our annual school calendar and this year was no different. Parents worked hard to make their home-made costumes around the theme of food which is this year's annual theme. Well done to all our participants and to Aria for the beautiful drawing of our carnival fun.

Pupils in our 9-12 class work on division problems (left hand photo) and on the prehistoric timeline (right hand photo).   The Long Division material forms the bridge to abstraction for the decimal system exercises of division. It includes the division boards as well as Since division is basically the act of separating things into equal parts, pupils spend time getting to know this material so that they fully grasp the rules related to division before then transferring this knowledge onto paper. Montessori long division material allows students to work with a single-digit divisor, double-digit divisor, triple-digit divisor, or even a quadruple-digit divisor.

Children in elementary become fascinated by large numbers, including large measurements of time across generations or even eons. Elementary children are also emerging as social beings, seeking to understand their place in a greater context. For both of these reasons Elementary children are introduced to the structures of timelines, first as part of the Great Lessons and then in many other areas across the curriculum, including geology, geography, botany, zoology, anthropology and more.

One of the materials we present is the long black strip (see photos above) which represents the age of Earth, from its very beginning. A small 1cm strip of white at the very end of this very long strip which measures many metres represents the whole time that humans have been on Earth. This impressionistic lesson is designed to give children perspective on how recently, in Earth’s timeline, humans entered the scene.  

The prehistoric timeline (left hand photo) shows the story of the human journey from the end of the Pliocene (the emergence of our hominid ancestors) to the beginning of the Holocene, ending at the Bronze Age. Key events, such as the uses of fire and development of hand tools, are correlated with physiological development, such as the emergence of H. sapiens sapiens and the disappearance of H. neanderthalensis.

Children also explore geography (middle photo) and literacy in both French and English in the 6-9 and 9-12 classrooms.

Congratulations to all the pupils and our families for raising 300 euros which will go towards Nepal Sentiers d'Avenir, a not for profit association that supports education of children in Nepal. Well done to all!

Our permaculture club kicked off this Summer thanks to the hard work of our elementary pupils and a volunteer parent who oversees our new permaculture garden. Tuesday afterschool club now includes a regular permaculture workshop.

Well done to all our budding musicians who prepared some wonderful pieces for our music day. A big thank you to our music teachers (both our violin and piano teachers) for all their hard work in preparing our pupils.

Children have been enjoying sports lessons and the variety of new sports equipment that we have at school.

A big thank you to all our pupils who entertained us for our 2021 school music day this year. We thoroughly enjoyed the concert and look forward to inviting pupils back next year. We look forward to offering after-school violin lessons from next year as well as continuing with piano lessons with our wonderful piano teacher.

We had a wonderful turnout of costumes for our annual carnival day which took place inside the chateau grounds. All of our pupils did a wonderful parade and loved wearing all the wonderful costumes families made!

Well done to all our pupils who put together a wonderful Winter show outside in the children's gardens! We hope you all have a wonderful festive holiday.

The International Day of Peace is celebrated every year by nations all across the world.  The Coronavirus has added a new dimension to peace day. For the first time in history, all nations across the world are sharing the same concerns on how to rebuild the world beyond the pandemic. The United Nations has asked that this day be focused on listening and dialogue. This year our pupils spent part of their school day talking about what peace meant to them. In addition, our elementary pupils were asked to mime what peace is for them.

Photo (below): 6-8 year old pupils miming peace in the school's pedagogical gardens

We are learning about the different things that make our body healthy at the moment. We are learning how to eat a balanced diet which includes plenty of fruit and vegetables as well as what exercise we need to keep our body healthy.

Thanks to all parents and children who have been helping with the big leaf clean up that we carry out each Autumn. We have been having lots of fun playing, jumping in, raking, admiring, wading through and watching the leaves falling.

We all had a very yummy day on the Friday before the holidays celebrating United Nations Day. Thanks to all parents who brought delicious food with them and for many of our children who came in costume representing the country of their choice. United Nations day is celebrated to commemorate that 51 countries came together to promote peace throughout the world post World War II. We work together with pupils in our classrooms to also promote the importance of peace and non-violent communication.

 We marked peace day by planting some shrubs which now adorn the front entrance to the Orangerie. It was a beautiful day.

We had a wonderful school show presenting the musical "The little red train", a special musical made for our school in partnership with the American Children's Theatre based on the story of "The Little Train that could". Thank you to all the teaching team who worked hard to prepare the show and to all the children who were magnificent!

Our annual family picnic and sports day was very well attended and we were so lucky with the weather after a very rainy June. Well done to all our participants including all the dads and mums who took part in the races including the egg and spoon as well as the sack races. 

1st year children in our Children's House (3-6 class) were very proud after making these gorgeous picture frames for their mummies!

Our pupils have been very busy at work over this first half of the year. It's been a joy to observe them.

Pupils in our elementary (6-12) class have recently been exploring materials related to learning about balanced nutrition and how to put together a healthy shopping list.   

We had a wonderful parade for carnival day. Thank you to all the parents and children for dressing up in their fantastic 'human body' related costumes. Many of the different medical professions were represented...doctors, dentists, surgeons, nurses...and several teeth and skeletons joined us also along with parents for our 'skeleton dance'!.

We were treated to a lovely Christmas show on the penultimate day of the Winter term. Pupils in our elementary (6-12) class put on 'The little Christmas tree' and children from our Children's House (3-6 class) sang and danced as snowflakes. Thank you for a lovely show and to all parents for helping to clean up at the end.

The United Nations was created to "preserve peace, advance justice and constitute a permanent structure for international cooperation." It acts as a world forum to help countries work together to achieve peace and human rights. 

We believe that we can adhere to many of the values associated with the creation of the United Nations within our small but culturally diverse school community. For example, we support positive, peaceful and collaborative play and work in the playground and in the classroom. We actively learn techniques for resolving conflict when it arises including learning how to recognise our own emotions as well as the emotions of others. 

Every October, we come together to celebrate United Nations day by sharing food from different regions and cultures.  We use this wonderful opportunity to celebrate the diversity and richness that each and everyone of us brings to our community thanks to being part of different cultures. Thank you to all the parents and children who went to great lengths to allow our pupils to explore a "taste of different food cultures"!

....some of the food cultures represented this year included... Italy, Norway, Holland, United Kingdom, Turkey, Algeria, Poland, France, Bavarian region of Germany, Iran, Spain, USA, Morocco, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Australia ….representing the countries or regions where our pupils and/or their parents are originally from.