"At Bayers Road, in a shopping centre of 10,318 square metres, the 8 teachers hired have been working for a long time to prepare for the new school year," explains Sylvain Olivier, Director General of "LIFPA" and Rector of the Don Bosco Salesian house in Nice. Six of them have been trained in France and already have extensive experience acquired either in mainland France or in the United States. "The other two already have a job in Halifax and come to do a few hours of Arabic and physical education."
This is a solid team of teachers who have been tasked with writing an important story: that of a new Salesian school in Canada, which will be a member of the Don Bosco network of schools in the Saint Francis de Sales" Province of France and Southern Belgium (FRB).
After the official opening, which took place on 3 September, in the following days the new students were welcomed, from kindergarten to the following grades. As Sylvain Olivier also explains, they are students from Halifax who are the children of emigrants or teaching staff, or even young French people from Europe.
Mélina and Maëlys, who attend Don Bosco in Nice and the Pastré in Marseilles respectively, arrived on Thursday, 5 September in the company of Fr Jean-Marie Petitclerc, Vic-Provincial of FRB. Both will be hosted by English-speaking families, for three and four months, and joined the second class on 10 September.
At the end of August the school held its first open day, attended by a hundred people who were able to get to know the place and talk to the teams, in the presence of the new Consul General of France in the Atlantic Provinces.
France has a worldwide network of French schools abroad, which includes about 580 institutes in 139 countries. It is the first time that one of these institutes has been part of the Catholic education network.
