Violently Happy: Olivia's Lycée *that's school for you Americans*

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Olivia's Lycée that's school for you Americans

Yesterday Antz and I went to the Head of school presentation for her French dream school. I felt like an empty glass being poured with inspiration lemonade. Wait...that was a weird analogy, well I was super inspired. The head of school, Elizabeth, is brilliant. She wasn't selling me on the school, she sold me on Liv's education, her development, and her future. I was ready to enroll her that day but I have to hold my horses. The school starts enrollment a year before kindergarten but I'm pretty sure we won't enroll her there that early. I really love her current preschool so we're applying this year for kindergarten 2015. When we were there we saw a few parents from Liv's preschool, but their kids are 2 years older than Liv. We spoke to the admissions director and she told us the earlier we register, the greater our chances of getting accepted. One downfall is many of the parents are French, which is a huge advantage to those students however Elizabeth reassured us that it will not affect Liv's fluency. All the students are taught at the same learning degree and it's an immersion curriculum, so don't think of it like your 9th grade French class. I am so excited! This school has everything I imaged for Olivia. The campus is gorgeous, it feels like a boarding school on 6 acres. All my worry about not speaking French was for nothing, the school has an online program that parents utilize along with their kids for learning French. I was concerned with the International Baccalaureate program and heavy academic curriculum, Liv would end up with 6 hours of studying in 2nd grade. One of the parents asked if the school was fun. Elizabeth told us, the students never have more than an hour of homework starting in 6th grade because they spend so much time studying in class, they just use home for reading or research for the following day. The school has a strong philosophy of balancing school, home and extra curricular activities. This school is pretty identical to Rushmore. I can imagine Olivia wearing a beret and founding the Beekeepers society.