Making the school [faire l'école] is the sentence we use to describe the way children and teachers work everyday to make live the school.

In this text, you'll find some links to pages explaining how the school is made everyday.

Everyday life at La Neuville
(a text written by Hélène, 13 years old, in 1990)

In the morning, at 8.00, Jacqueline and Sandra shout "wake up". But nobody gets up, we wait for the bell to ring. Then we go downstairs for the breakfast. Ezechiel slices the bread, Christophe gives out butter and jam, and Sacha brings the chocolate. After breakfast, everyone clears the table. (…)

Then we go upstairs to tidy up the bedrooms. I make my bed and brush my teeth. Then the bell rings for the classes. We have lessons from 9.00 to 12.00. We are 9 pupils in our class, I sit next to Jacqueline. We really get on and we work together.

After that, we have sports. Today, we do athletics. During the sports, some are cooking. Sometimes I do so, especially in wintertime, during the cross-country season.

At 13.30, we go to eat. The dish carriers [chercheurs de plats] bring the dishes and the table head [chef de table] can give warnings. After lunch, a team clears all the tables. Then there is a big spare time. At the moment, we have ping-pong and table football contests.

In wintertime, we can go to the meeting room to listen to music, or sometimes we stay in our bedrooms.

At 15.00 we have a planner [repartition], everyone chooses a craft [atelier]. Sometimes I do music, sometimes Mah-Jong, sometimes cooking. At the moment I go to the musicals craft almost every day. (…) There are many crafts.

Then it rings for a craft and for the groceries [l'épicerie]. (…)

At the end of the day, it's time for the posts [postes]. There are some big posts : the bins, the meeting room, and the toilets. All the things needing to by cleaned up. It longs half an hour, and then it's time for dinner.

After dinner, we go and play outside. There are games in the park. (…) In wintertime, we get up in the bedrooms, we play, we have a shower, and we go to bed. In the girl's floor, we go to bed at 22.00. But on Mondays we go to bed earlier, because we are tired. So the day's ending.