Dear families,

you will find below the schedule for the back-to-school parent-teacher meetings. The exact schedule and the videoconference link will be or have been communicated by email (or via the liaison booklet in primary school). Do not hesitate to contact the primary or secondary office if you have not received them on the day of the meeting.

Again this year, due to the health crisis and the state of emergency in Tokyo, these meetings are held by video conference so the FLT Association cannot participate as it did before the pandemic.

We suggest you visit our website www.familles-lycee-tokyo.com. You can :

• find information on the different roles played by the association. 
• join or renew your membership (1000 JPY per year per family). https://www.familles-lycee-tokyo.com/en/subscribe-form/ . Thank you to the families who have already signed up for 2021-22.
• contact us if you need information.

At the primary level, In primary school, we recommend that you take advantage of these meetings to create a Line or WhatsApp group that will allow you to be connected among parents. This is useful throughout the year to exchange different types of information, as the health crisis reduces the possibility of physical meetings. 

In order to play our role in supporting parents as best as possible, the association is looking for a parent for each class who could be our privileged contact! If you would like to be this contact, please contact Jessica Cosmao, primary school vice president of the association, indicating the class or classes concerned. 

In secondary school, these meetings are also an opportunity to express your desire to be a parent delegate. Don’t hesitate to propose yourself: 2 parent delegates can be present at the class councils which will take place by videoconference, at least in the first term. The parents and alternates can take turns to participate. If you are hesitating, the association can support you in this role. An information meeting will be organized by the association in the near future to answer questions from new parent delegates.  If you want to know more, please contact Laurence Vermont, secondary school vice-president of the association.

Again, please feel free to contact us with any questions/comments or topics you would like to discuss with the LFI Tokyo with the support of the association.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide Japanese translation as our team of translators is too small. We are looking for volunteers!

The FLT team

Dear families,

The LFI Tokyo’s parents association, the FLT-Fapée hopes you had a peaceful back to school after these 2 months of summer break, and that your children are now settled back to study time!

You will find enclosed at the end of this email our Welcome Letter for this school year 2021-2022, where you can read more about our mission and our actions, representing you, parents.

 Please do feel free to contact us, would you have any further questions regarding our association and what we do for the school and for you!

If you wish to support our mission and haven’t been given the chance to do so yet, please take this time to register online directly on our website (the annual membership is a one time fee- 1000¥ for the whole family and allows a 10% discount on your purchase at the Omeisha bookstore in Iidabashi.)

You are all welcome to our general meeting, held on Thursday September 23 (holiday in Japan but school day for LFI Tokyo students), from 9:00 to 10:30 am, it will be online.

https://meet.google.com/ewo-xwuq-ccg
Or dial: ‪(JP) +81 3-4545-0450‬ PIN: ‪268 176 867 2105‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/ewo-xwuq-ccg?pin=2681768672105

We will submit our activity report and the balance sheet for the year 2020-2021.

At that time, you will also be given the opportunity to vote for the Bureau members (school year 2021-2022).

To be able to vote, we kindly remind you that you need to have a valid FLT-Fapée membership- if you haven’t at the time of the vote- no big deal! You can register online on our website.

(If you wish to become an active member of the association and be elected to the new 2021-2022 bureau, please send us your application by Wednesday, September 19)

Candidates as of 2021/09/22: Maxence BARBIER, Vincent BRANCOURT, René CARRAZ, Hugo CATHERINE, Jessica COSMAO, Séverin FERRAND, Célia HUGHES, Thomas LAUNEY, Stéphanie MOREELS , Bruno PEYRON, Simon SERVERIN, Tomoko TAKEUCHI, Laurence VERMONT, Pierre-François VILQUIN, Laurent WOLFF.

We hope you come along and meet us at our annual meeting!

Scholarship applications for the second review for French nationals pupils is now closed (08/27/2021). If you missed it, please contact the Consulate’s Social Service as soon as possible (affaires-sociales.tokyo-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr). For further information, please consult this page (French):  https://jp.ambafrance.org/Le-systeme-des-bourses-scolaires

FLT-Fapée Team

http://www.familles-lycee-tokyo.com

association@familles-lycee-tokyo.com

Dear families,

Following several departures from Japan, FLT’s Eco-team is recruiting new members.

If you want to get involved in ecological issues within the school community, please do not hesitate to join us. You can contact us via our email address: flt.ecoteam@gmail.com

We are looking for various profiles who can help with the following:

– managing social networks
– writing articles in French, Japanese, or English
– translating documents from French into Japanese
– delivering workshops for kids
– managing events (clean walks, zero waste picnic, school fair, etc.)
– producing illustrations

We would be happy to share our activity report with you if you want to learn more about our achievements in the last two years.

Your Ecoteam FLT

The reform of the language policy at the primary school is the result of a consultation process that took place in 2017-18 and 2018-19 for a gradual deployment from the beginning of the 2019 school year to the beginning of the 2022 school year, after the expansion of the lycée.  A complete description of the different paths and options is available on the lycée website.

After the reception of the responses for admission to the PARLE, bilingual, and SIA sections in mid-June, we have, in collaboration with the primary and secondary management, made a small summary of the selection procedures used.

In primary school, the committee meets every year in June to study the applications for the next school year. It is composed of 5 people: the Primary school principal, the Lycée principal (excused), the Lycée assistant principal, an English teacher, and the Japanese coordinator (composition for this year). This committee meets again in case of departures during the year, and all the files are again evaluated for the level at which a place would have been available.

Mr. San Sebastian, Director of the Primary School, has agreed to complete a chart listing the number of spots offered and the number of applications for PARLE / bilingual in recent years.

* the name of the bilingual section changed as the reform progressed.

We can see that the demand was still much higher than the offer this year, creating again many disappointments/frustrations because if the selection is done via a commission whose criteria are stated on the LFI Tokyo website, namely :

• French language skills (comprehension/expression),
• English skills (comprehension/expression),
• the student’s ability to follow a steady academic pace,
• the family project (which must be explained in a letter of motivation).

Nevertheless, among these students, priorities are applied, as follows

• Priority 1 – Pupils enrolled in SIA or in an hourly section in a school in France or in the AEFE network during the 2020/2021 school year
• Priority 2 – Students enrolled in SIA or hourly sections in a school in France or in the AEFE network during the 2019/2020 school year and who have received a favorable opinion from the LFITokyo teachers in 2020/2021
• Priority 3 – Non-SIA and hourly parity section students enrolled at LFI Tokyo in 2020-2021 and who have received a favorable opinion from teachers. In order to break the tie on certain levels, the earliest date of enrollment at LFI Tokyo is preferred.
• Priority 4 – Non-SIA and hourly parity students arriving at LFI Tokyo at the start of the 2021 school year, with a favorable opinion from their home school and/or the LFI Tokyo director on the family project.

Due to the low number of places in relation to the demand, some students do not get a place even though they meet the criteria announced on the website.

The chart has been completed by the number of students meeting the criteria for this last commission so that families have a more accurate view of the real application tension according to levels. We have observed that some family applications cannot be met due to insufficient French or English skills or a student’s limited ability to keep up with the pace. We encourage families who wish to apply for the bilingual/PARLE/SIA section to speak with the French and English teachers and possibly the primary school principal at the beginning of the year, and again during the school year, in order to work on the skills that are deemed insufficient and thus increase the chances of success.

We can also see that the tension will drop drastically at the beginning of the 2022/23 school year and should then be a little less than at present in the following years since there will be up to 50 places per level in elementary (and therefore a number of departures from each of these sections that will be a little greater than at present).

A question from the parent primary school council representatives was how the 2 groups (of 25) will be constituted (will the bilinguals be divided into the 2 SIA groups to ensure a certain heterogeneity between the 2 classes of up to 25, or will they remain in the same group?) The director recalled that “the goal of the evolution of the language policy being heterogeneity, there will not be one group with students from the BIL and another with students from general sections. The AEFE’s educational policy is very clear on this issue and studies show that level groups should be avoided”.

At the secondary level, this problem of high tension between the number of spots and applications is a little less prevalent, except this year in classes of 6e and to a lesser extent in 5e. For the other classes, there are enough places in SIA for students whose level and capacity for work/autonomy are judged sufficient by the teachers. In addition, the number of English literature groups (the most advanced group in English LV1 with a similar time volume to standard LV1) can be adjusted according to the level of the students. If there are enough students to make 2 or 3 groups of English literature, then these groups are created, so that each student can be in a level that corresponds to him.

For the 6th grade, two different approaches have been applied for the school years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Last year, all CM2 students (bilingual and non-bilingual) took an oral test in order to be selected for 6e SIA. This year, bilingual students were exempted, leaving it up to the CM2 teachers (English and French) to determine whether or not these bilingual students are fit for the demanding SIA program, and it turned out that 25/26 were found to be fit. This change is supported by the argument of pedagogical continuity (not interrupting the continuation in SIA of those who were in the bilingual section).

In addition, this year, the priority criteria used in the primary (Priorities 1 to 4 above) were also applied to the secondary. For 6e, 4 students with priority 1 applied and came in more than filling the 6th AIS (29/28 spots). The other students in CM2 (mainly from the P4 path with the maximum amount of English in CM2) could not be admitted to 6e SIA even though their level was sufficient. This refusal is not definitive and the families concerned will have to apply again for 5e SIA. Furthermore, these students will mostly be assigned to the English Literature group, the most advanced level of English LV1.

Finally, the subject of the next school years was discussed with Mrs. Doyhambehere, Lycéee assistant principal, since, starting in the school year 2023-24, all CM2 SIA (up to 50 students) would have priority for 6e SIA. It would therefore be necessary to create a second SIA group in 6th grade. The administration has taken this into account and will try to accommodate this request as much as possible, always in the name of pedagogical continuity between the primary and secondary offerings, even if this will require additional staffing and additional class/room time (the SIA program adding 4 hours of instruction to students in 6e).

Please feel free to contact us via this form if you have any questions/comments.

The Familles du Lycée de Tokyo team.

Link to the full CR in French

https://www.lfitokyo.org/images/2020-2021/Trimestre-3/CR/CR-CE-2021-05-24-prov.pdf

English Summary of the School Council :

Update of the internal rules for the 2021-2022 school year:

At the Primary level, this concerns in particular the suppression of the late bill (managed by pronote), “the prohibition of any personal object not requested by the teacher”, the mention “phones off or in silent mode in the bag”. At the secondary level, the explicit prohibition of plagiarism and the wearing of appropriate clothing, taking into account the rules of decorum (replacing the terms “decent dress”) are now mentioned.

Proposal of axes for the school project:

The school project will be finalized next year. At the moment, the proposal is oriented around the following 3 axes. The wording may change at the beginning of the school year. 

• A French high school in a multilingual context
• A high school that supports
• A high school concerned with promoting living together  

Provision of a software program to supervise students’ online activities

In order to avoid abuses in secondary schools (games, chat, web browsing…) during the pedagogical use of fixed or portable computers (Chromebook) in class, teachers are allowed to use software to supervise online activities. The proposed solutions (two free software: VEYON, for fixed computers, and DOZO for laptops) work without data retention. 

Rejection of the proposal to stop classes early for exam classes:

After debate and consultation, this proposal, which was being considered to reduce the risk of contamination of students in the run-up to exams, was overwhelmingly rejected by the EC. One of the main arguments was pedagogical, as teachers attach importance to the follow-up of students during the last days. The importance of educating students to avoid risky situations outside of class was emphasized, as the risk of being a contact case is greater than the risk of being infected.

Answers to main questions:

• Concerning thefts, there is no register. The “forget boxes” with padlocks are in the possession of the PE teachers, one of whom has confirmed that he uses them. At the beginning of the next school year, the classes will work in “Class Life” or in “Personalized Support” on the appropriation of the internal regulations.
• The educational commission was not formed this year, nor last year; it will have to be formed next year when the authorities are renewed.
• The daycare center will be open the first week of July and the last week of August (from August 23 to 27 and Monday August 30).