ANGLOPHONE SECTION

End-of-year message from the APESA Board

We would like to take a moment at this very busy time to express our sincere thanks to you, the parents, for your supportive roles as members of the APESA section all year long, and in particular to our volunteers who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes on many projects.  We’d also like to give special thanks to our APESA Staff for their hard work during the 2020-2021 academic year; on behalf of all APESA parents, we greatly appreciate all that the administration and teaching staff do for the Section, for the parents and, of course, for the students.  We know that this year has not been easy - perhaps even more challenging than the previous one - as we’ve all tried to come to terms with the ongoing pandemic and the uncertainties it has brought to our lives.

Students, parents, and staff, alike, have had to manage changing models of learning, timetables, 

and exams this year. This has not been easy to navigate and everyone deserves commendations for meeting the moment with both flexibility and integrity.

Staff have had to: adapt to new and constantly changing COVID-19 protocols; manage the administration of the Section; teach and learn from both school and home; adjust to sporadic class closures or half-presential student attendance; calibrate to sudden changes in the CSI timetable; and, in secondary, adapt evaluation strategies due to exams having been modified or cancelled at short notice by the Education Nationale.   

This school year was also marked by the numerous Zoom and Google Meets which took the place of normal face-to-face meeting and activities: this included admissions testing for applicants to collège and lycée, which were held almost entirely online this year. The Board commends the staff as a whole for finding creative solutions and “silver linings” in the face of yet another year of unprecedented challenges.

With your confidence in the Board, the Section has accomplished the following items this year:

• Agreed on a triennial staff-salary agreement.

• Initiated a 'structure review' process, whereby recommendations on how to improve the Anglophone Section as a workplace will be generated directly by staff.   

• Launched a new and improved Anglophone Section website.

• Installed new information systems in the primary and secondary libraries.

• Enhanced the IT inventory with updated equipment.

• Supported various pedagogical projects.

The Board also supported the HOS and administrative staff in the development of policies and procedures with two major objectives: to protect Staff by ensuring the APESA is a fair employer; and to protect the Association. By eliminating ambiguity, it is our goal that the Section has the resilience to cope should any key staff members take leave for any reason. It is also important to provide Section with stability as Board members, themselves, change through the years. Seeing to the completion of these written documents has been an onerous but absolutely necessary task and we thank everyone involved. 

Last, but not least, we’d like to offer our warmest congratulations to the Class of 2021 for their accomplishments at the CSI! We trust that our new graduates are leaving not only with valuable knowledge, but fond memories of the Anglo Section as they move up and onward with their lives. 

We wish you all a healthy, restorative, and sunny summer vacation and we remain hopeful that the new school year will bring us together, face to face, once again.

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Best wishes,

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The APESA Board