News & Weekly Letters

I almost didn’t write to you this week as I was giving serious consideration to a radical career change following my debut last week as an Instagram starlet. Andria managed to make me see reason and talked me out of it. So I’m picking up my pen again this week on the eve of the October break to write a letter in praise of the girls of The École who have made their presence well and truly felt since the start of the school year.

One of the advantages of growing up in a small town was definitely being able to leave school alone from a young age and bike home (picking up a baguette for goûter on the way). No need to sign a nanny up on Focus or to call a friend panic-stricken because you’re caught in an interminable meeting or your train is stuck in a tunnel. No need for an air tag to track your child and make sure they’re moving in the right direction.

When I was growing up in a small town in the Ardèche, my parents signed me up for football and tennis. It was the trend at the time for children to do one team sport and one individual sport. By doing so, parents felt they were checking all the boxes in terms of character development–children learned the art of teamwork and discovered the joys of solitary victories (or, in my case, the despair of solitary losses, which I, of course, blamed on everyone else / the wind / my racket–take your pick).

I always say that once the Back-to-School Picnic has passed (and what a spectacular picnic it was this year, from the sheer number of guests to the cinematic closing deluge), it’s time for me to shift my attention to planning for the next school year (in this case 2025-2026.) It might sound like an exaggeration, but it is, in fact, quite accurate.

We could not let you go without one final “Weekly Letter from Jean Yves.” This one will be even more special and will end this amazing year with a bang. We are excited to write to you today to share some major news about the development of our school. Upon retiring four years ago, Yves Rivaud, the co-founder of The École, correctly identified that securing a long-term lease for our Elementary and Middle School building, as we had done for the Maternelle building, represented one of the most pressing challenges to come.