A multilingual school in St Germain en Laye, in the west suburbs of
Paris, covering from nursery school up to the end of secondary school.
All pupils are fluent in the language of one of the ten sections. The sections are (in no particular order): British, German, Spanish, American, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish/Norwegian. The bulk of teaching is done in French, according to the French national curriculum but literature and history are taught in the language of the section. Pupils in primary school spend 2 half days with their section, the first half of secondary 6 hours a week and the second half 8 hours a week.
It was originally created after the Second World War as a multilingual school for the children of NATO officers. When France left NATO in 1962 the Lycee International
became a bilingual school open to all.
As it follows the French curriculum students prepare for a variant the French national exam, the Baccalaureate (not to be confused with the International Baccalaureate) known as the OIB (Option International Baccalauréat) which is basically the French Baccalaureate with papers in literature and history added.
Pupils who are not fluent in French spend their first year in Francais Spécial a special class that aims to teach them French very quickly. In such an environment the corridors are filled with the echos of many different lanuages and it is not uncommon to see students switching effortlessly from one lanuguage to another in mid-conversation or even in mid sentence. This obviously creates a very rich cultural atmosphere where cultures mix and intertwine.