Emmanuelle Monticino (principal of the Lycée Stendhal): “Give a new impetus”
After a first year punctuated by waves of Covid, the new management team of the French lycée Stendhal in Milan is developing its projects and initiatives for this school year 2021/2022. Meeting with Emmanuelle Monticino, principal of the establishment.
You have just started your second return to the management of the French lycée Stendhal. What is your background before arriving in Milan?
This is my first experience abroad. Previously, I taught Italian in France. I am very close to Italy since my parents are both from the same small village in Calabria. My father was a migrant worker. I am therefore a pure product of the republican school in which I believe deeply.
I come from priority education networks, fairly difficult establishments. So this is a big gap, the job is not the same. I am proud of this rich experience which allows me to approach the management of an establishment like Stendhal with distance and serenity, absolutely necessary in an establishment, a place where divergent interests converge. The school principal and the management team are always in the middle of this squaring of the circle. Our mission: to support students from the small section to the final year.
In addition to your own arrival, it is also the management team that has been renewed. Can you introduce it?
I really want to talk about our teamwork. Apart from Françoise Leroy, our assistant principal who was already in Milan, the management team has been new since last year. In addition to the new executive assistant Marie Boccacci, the team welcomes Vincent Joubert, administrative and financial director; Jérôme Galtier, director of the first degree, and Marina Bares, principal educational advisor (CPE), a function that exists in the French system but not in Italy. It was the wish of the former team to develop this role in our establishment, and this was made possible at the start of the last school year.
You took up your duties in a difficult context. How did you face this first year at the head of the establishment, in the midst of Covid?
The establishment had been closed for over six months, like an old house, everything had to be reopened and aired on our arrival! We have especially lived to the rhythm of the DPCM (decree of the President of the Council of Ministers), the color zones and their associated restrictions.
But this period was more difficult for the children. For our part, we – teachers, non-teaching staff and parents – have stayed the course to supervise them, with moreover results in the examinations rather convincing. Even if we aim for 100% success, the students obtained a nice percentage of mentions.
At last, “Anything that doesn’t kill you strengthens you”, said Nietzsche. And indeed, I think that we will emerge from the pandemic stronger than more fragile. Because isn’t one of its strengths knowing where its weaknesses are?
This year, how many students is hosting the Lycée Stendhal? And how are the different nationalities distributed?
The establishment has 1,183 students for this school year 2021/2022, or about twenty more students than last year. This increase in enrollment, mainly concentrated in high school, can be explained in particular by the arrival of 104 new expatriate families (not counting those who have left). The AEFE network offering continuity in education, the French high school is an anchor that secures children and expatriate families, even more after the Covid.
Moreover, 57% of the students are French. The establishment also has 33.5% bi-nationals and 9.5% third-party foreigners who choose the French education system in Milan. The Lycée Stendhal is indeed well integrated into the panel of schools in Milan, especially as French kindergarten is a model for education in Europe.
Besides the implementation of the role of childcare center, what are the novelties of the establishment since the start of the school year?
Sensitized by the AEFE on the management of possible post-Covid psychological difficulties, we welcome in the medical center a French psychologist, who studied in France and who is registered with the order of Italian psychologists. She is currently present half a day a week to accompany the children if they wish, but she will also be one of the active members of our watch cell which is set up this year. It is made up of management, medical staff and our Senior Education Advisor (CPE). As its name suggests, it is about putting on standby on student files that worry us. If the problem is purely academic, it implies support by the CPE and teachers. For a health problem, the care will be the responsibility of the nurse or the school doctor, while if it is a psychological dimension, the care will be that of the psychologist.
We are also preparing to rewrite a new school project, as soon as the previous one expires in 2021. The new roadmap valid for the next four years intends to give new impetus.
And in terms of education, have any new features been described or put back on the agenda?
We plan to continue to learn about the conditions of the sanitary protocol which last year for example, we welcomed to open the daycare. Since October 4 already, the Stendhal club is working again, but with caution. And if the health context allows us, we would like to reopen the daycare in early December 2021.
Cultural outings, to the museum for example, and educational outings, on the farm for primary school children, have resumed to the delight of the students. And perhaps in the third quarter the Agora / ADN-AEFE project will allow new exchanges of students between French high schools around the world. In the shorter term, first and last year students have an important meeting on December 3, the training forum. For half a day, we will host a total of fifteen French grandes écoles, Italian universities in Milan and Campus France which deals more specifically with the pursuit of studies after Esabac (double degree esame di maturita Italian and French baccalaureate). The goal for the students is to perfect or even build their guidance project. It is always a question of reconnecting with face-to-face events.