Dear Families,
This is the first contribution to the Principal’s blog, “Talking Head”, which I will use to update you on new developments as we look forward to the opening of the British School of Monaco on autumn 2022.
Preparations for the opening are proceeding apace, with classroom furnishing going on alongside much work getting all the necessary curricular documents, policies, procedures, resources and teaching materials in order for our first cohort of new students. We have a fantastic team of teachers that we can’t wait to introduce to you. We are greatly looking forward to meeting our new families and students, and getting to know each other as the British School of Monaco family takes shape. These are exciting times for all of us, and dates for welcome sessions will be published soon.
The British School of Monaco will offer the best of the British education system and tradition in a Monaco context. Speaking of British tradition, it was just a few weeks ago that the world turned its eyes upon London and the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. At just the tender age of twenty-seven, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey, the scene of every English coronation since 1066.
A focal point of the service was the administration of the Coronation Oath where the Archbishop of Canterbury laid out the new queen’s key duties and responsibilities. When he had finished she responded, “The things which I here before have promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.”
The many years of service have followed, and throughout changing times and circumstances, Queen Elizabeth has striven to faithfully observe the promise she made on that day. Respected worldwide, she has remained a constant symbol in the British and international landscape.
The British School of Monaco is starting its journey, and ours, is one that begins with the same serious commitment. The key founding principles of the school have been clearly established by our founders, Luke and Olena, and provide The British School with its mission and vision. They realised the need to create a school where learning was part of a nurturing environment, where through utilising traditional approaches to education and embedding British values together in innovative ways, its students would be enabled to become reflective, resilient and adaptive learners. Through creating an ethos that provided “an enriching and stimulating learning environment where academic success is coupled with strong moral purpose and respect for others”, their school would aim to work to develop fully-rounded young people who would be “confident risk takers” and “recognise that valuing themselves and others is essential to being successful world citizens.”
Their visionary ideas have now become a reality and the school opens its doors this September. It will be a truly exciting moment as the initial cohort of students meet their classmates for the first time. Much work has been done to plan for what and how they will learn through a truly excellent curriculum, rooted in strong values and principles that will permeate every area of school life. These principles give The British School its unique mission and purpose, and provide the core values of « integrity and responsibility to oneself, respect and kindness to others, and courage and curiosity to the world », which will become the hallmark of our students. The clear founding statements provide the mission that every member of staff has accepted to undertake. It is our collective responsibility and duty now to realise the powerful vision of this new and wonderful school in its daily life and through all its members This is the commitment which we “will perform and keep ».
As we look back on this moment in the decades to come, it will be with pride at what was accomplished this inaugural year.
