In alcoves lined with celadon green paper along the walls of this multi-purpose room, the children, at playtime, snuggle up on cushions to read a book. Outside, in the small courtyard, ladybugs and butterflies flutter around the vegetable plots; In the hallway, a babbling swarm of students rushes in gray sweatshirts flocked with the Harrypotterian logo: welcome to Union School, the most expensive primary school in France, 20,400 euros a year, not counting the canteen for 2 650 euros for five meals a week.
Installed in 1,000 square meters, rue de la Faisanderie, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the bilingual establishment, private without contract, opened its doors in September with 70 children. “A materially spoiled population”, agrees Barbara de Baudry d’Asson, the founding director, ex-business lawyer and lively blonde speaking English and French in the same sentence. Its clientele: a third of young French children returning from expatriation, binational families or foreign couples stationed in Paris, Asians, Indians, Latin Americans, a few families from the Middle East, a Franco-Russian family returned from London and no Ukrainians. Already 120 registered for next September, from the small section of kindergarten to CM2, and the appointments are accumulating this spring.
In this unique school, where everything exudes prettiness, expertise and fortune, half of the lessons are given in English by English-speaking teachers: “We are the only totally bilingual school in Paris.” From 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., these privileged little ones, with breathtaking politeness, play tennis, they practice yoga, learn coding (in kindergarten, without using a screen), they do theatre, sculpture , they dance, they philosophize, they meditate and make small packages of DIY toys for an association helping hospitalized children. Never more than 20 per class, two teachers per level, they obviously also study classic school subjects according to a program combining “the best of the British curriculum with the fundamentals of a French course”, mathematics being taught, via a dedicated teacher, according to the Singapore method.
Union School was inspected twice this first year by the National Education, satisfied. The notations follow a color system up to CE2, then place in a seven-page bulletin; it is that in return for such tariffs, it is necessary to give an account. Moreover, via the SeeSaw mobile application, teachers post photos daily, “the day’s learning, small moments of class life”, and of course, “all their file, their work”. No homework, on the other hand during the holidays, which start a day ahead of the official calendar – “it’s so much more practical to take plane tickets, or avoid crowded trains”, comments the director relaxed – children should read twenty minutes a day. Everything was meticulously thought out by the founder, who worked on her business plan for four years: eight shareholders, “all individuals, no investment funds” she specifies, share 28% of the shares, when she owns the two- third.
The therapeutic tuning fork
13 full-time salaries, four assistants, and a host of professionals to be paid (yoga, chess, dance teachers, etc.). Tuition fees bring in 1.4 million euros this year, still insufficient to generate a profit, balance expected in three years, dividends thereafter. Beyond this proven business sense, the neophyte has built a thoughtful educational ambition: “I want to invent the ideal school, that our students like to come, that their schooling is joyful and efficient.” At the operational controls, an engraving of the English headmaster, Ian Tysoe, striped tie, light-coloured eyes, frank handle, former member of the excellent boarding school of Cottesmore in the United Kingdom and of the prestigious Saint George’s International School of Montreux in Switzerland, teachers, graduates in France, Great Britain or the United States and a swarm of expert contributors.
For writing, Danielle Dumont, doctor of language sciences, author of an eponymous method, convinced that “doing spelling to learn to write is like writing Chinese to learn Arabic”. The septuagenarian has been working for forty years on writing, “which is much more than a trace on paper”. Before holding a pencil to draw letters on a line, she postulates that children must learn “spatial contingencies”, exercise their fine motor skills (for example, sorting bean seeds in a jar of semolina), walk at four legs, dancing according to choreographies which make them feel the verticality, the horizontality, notions facilitating the writing of an “f” or an “m”. “If it’s done well, everyone will be able to write at the end of the small section, and their cursive writing will be fluid in the middle section”, she assures.
In this holistic spirit, the practitioner of “Body Mind Centering”, Estelle Corbière and her team teach the “fundamentals of movement”. Trained in the Rudolf Laban method, Hungarian choreographer of the 1930s, she awakens to “coordination, anchoring, stability, the workshops link with learning, they guide towards concentration”.
© / UNION SCHOOL
On vocals, the artist Camille, three times winner of the Victoires de la Musique, and her assistants. Barefoot around her, the children practice her fetish “mandala la”, a spontaneous song in a circle, warming up their voices by producing the sound of a moped. During the break, sipping an organic raspberry juice, she shows them her “therapeutic tuning fork” emitting the Schumann wave, that is, she explains, “a very slow vibration, set of spectral peaks, extremely low frequency, in which bathes the living”. Placed on the rib cage, or on the skull, the tuning fork diffuses this vibration, “in unison with the earth’s magnetic field”. Little receptive to this high-pitched explanation, the children giggle, because here it is: the terrestrial wave tickles. In the canteen, climatarian meals, prepared by chef Emmanuelle Riboud and her collective catering workshop, Ressources. “100% organic, local, seasonal, respectful of living soils, delivered by bike”, something to “re-enchant the canteen”. “Learning about sustainable food is a school subject”, explains the committed cook, who adds that the children are trained, via the Good Planet foundation, in eco-gestures.
A very small world
Stunned by so much perfection, we say to ourselves that they are very lucky, these children born in homes with abundant finances and with delicate ways of being able to grow up in this cocoon, closed and homogeneous. A very small world that showers the director with bouquets of flowers on her birthday, and invites her to dinner, everyone hangs out, knows each other, connects. Mobile phone prohibited, strict secularism, Union School delights – in particular the mayor of the borough, Françis Szpiner, “I only think well of it, I always help those who want to undertake” – and questions, as we cannot prevent thinking that this beautiful energy would have better benefited others.
A criticism for which the impeccable Barbara de Baudry d’Asson has prepared herself, forming a partnership with Grégoire Borst, professor of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience of education at the Sorbonne, director of LaPSyDe at the CNRS, the first and the oldest psychological scientific laboratory in France. It is here, on the fourth floor of a shabby building at the Parisian university, that 18 researchers and 23 doctoral students are working on the laws of a child’s learning in order to fight against educational inequalities. Starting from the fact that when arriving in CP, a child from a wealthy background knows 1200 words, when his less well-off comrade only masters 525, and knowing that for both of them the National Education broadcasts a unique program, these scientists seek to establish how the brain learns. An expertise that Union School wished to benefit from. Contract concluded: the private school assumes the full annual salary of a doctoral student – around 65,000 euros –, in exchange, she trains her teachers on the best way to learn how to learn. In addition, in the summer of 2024, Union School will offer its tools to outdoor centers so that around a hundred children from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from them. When the school will be full, in three years, the director is thinking of opening a crèche, “we can’t just keep the babies, there is so much to do to stimulate them, awaken them”. A bilingual nativity scene where ladybugs will happily dance and say hello in English.