On the first Thursday of every month, members of the school’s administration have a meeting with the officers of the parents association Recently, coming together over coffee and croissants has been replaced by Zoom meetings, but it would take more than not being able to meet in person to dampen the enthusiasm of the PA officers.
These monthly meetings are an opportunity for us to settle on and coordinate activities that the PA would like to organize for our students, teachers, and families. We’ve seen some such projects in action lately with dragon dances and red envelopes to celebrate the Lunar New Year at both buildings, the organization of a uniform swap, and the time-consuming work of winding down the Inside Out project—putting names to faces so that the photos from last year’s amazing exhibition are ready for children to take home as soon as the rain stops! If you have been at 111 this week, you’ll also have seen the excellent slideshow in the lobby prepared by the PA for Black History Month.
These projects followed on from other popular initiatives earlier in the year: the book fair, the end-of-year gifts, the galette (ah, the galette), the Halloween festivities, and doubtless countless others that I am forgetting. And there are more coming—like the photography exhibition that is currently accepting entries. The PA is full of life and it is a real pleasure to see so many volunteers coming into school working together for the children’s benefit.
The work of the PA goes further still; it donates equipment to the school (microscopes for the laboratory this year, 3D printers last year) and provides financial assistance to families in need. To a certain extent that is where the heart of the PA lies. Those actions are less visible but just as praiseworthy.
The meetings, the projects, and the pleasure of working together give us a glimpse of what we will be able to achieve once the COVID restrictions are nothing but a bad memory. It’s stunning to think that I have only ever known The École in the shadow of COVID. I’ve been working here for the past 18 months, like everyone else, with a constant eye on the hurdles in our path. A school assembly? Impossible. A show? With a reduced capacity audience. A museum outing? Groups are no longer welcome anywhere. An outdoor activity? And if it snows, freezes, rains…
Suffice it to say we are all exhausted—it’s probably the word the team uses most to describe itself at the moment—but we know we can count on the strength of the PA to support us and on its willingness to lead projects, to lend a hand, to dedicate some free time to a good cause. We are limited in what we can do together for the time being, but with a bit of patience, we should soon be able to give our imaginations free rein and let the children reap the full benefit.
Thank you to all of the members of the PA, to the ones who breathe life into it on the first Thursday of every month, and on all the other days in between.