Proud, joy, relief, sense of achievement, a bit of sorrow, but also great happiness: When the 109 ESF bacheliers celebrated the Proclamation of the European Baccalaureate on 3 July 2021, students, teachers, parents and directors shared many of those feelings and looked back together on the joined educational, but also emotional journey. As in previous years, with a 100% pass rate and an average of 81.78% the BAC results are among the best in the European Schools’ system this year.

Academic excellence alone, however, does not match the complexities and challenges of our modern life. The ESF’s curriculum is also geared towards fostering tolerance, co-operation, communication and concern for others throughout the school community and beyond. In order to emphasize the importance of diverse engagement and sense of community, the ECB awards prizes to ESF students each year who stand out for their excellence both in performance as well as in conduct, having a keen interest in school events, projects and activities. While the extraordinary pandemic circumstances have limited student’s involvement in the selection process in 2021, the ECB’s BAC award aims to identify the winners in a joined procedure between students and teachers. The discussion on initiatives and values perceived in individuals and for the community as a whole is meant to trigger reflection on role models and recognition of individual contributions which give orientation. The proposals by students and teachers serve as basis for the decision-making by the directors. It has been a pleasure to grant the ECB prizes to four students in 2021, among them Laetitia Lehmann, Alicia Daniels and Elena Kybett Vinci. Their engagement has been very diverse, ranging from committee work, fundraising via cultural events, library tasks to supporting their peers and actively reconciling differing interests with others. There are, indeed, many ways to contribute to a thriving society in the European spirit.

Best wishes to all our bacheliers for their continuing journey!

As of May we have had a buddy bench in our Primary playground. Matthias Kappes, one of our caretakers, was very kind and painted it in the KiVa colours and installed it for us.
The idea of a buddy bench is to provide a safe place where a student can go when they have no one to play with. Other students and teachers will notice the student on the bench and offer help and support in finding a friend.
The class teachers have discussed the idea and the rules of the bench with their students. You can read their thoughts below.

P3-P5 L1 Spanish students

Nuestra opinión sobre el banco es muy positiva:
El banco sirve para acompañar a quien está solo.
Para jugar con los que están solos.
Para hacer nuevos amigos.
El banco refuerza la autoestima y la confianza.
Hace felices a los niños tristes.
Pueden aprender nuevos juegos.
Además, el banco no es para descansar ni ocuparlo innecesariamente porque ..... ¡ES UN BANCO ESPECIAL!

Our opinion of the bank is very positive:
The bench is there to accompany those who are alone.
To play with those who are alone.
To make new friends.
The bench strengthens self-esteem and confidence.
It makes sad children happy.
They can learn new games.
Moreover, the bench is not to be used for resting or to be occupied unnecessarily because ..... IT IS A SPECIAL BENCH!

P4 FR

Le banc est pour se faire des amis quand on n’en a pas et qu’on s’ennuie. Quand on est sur le banc et qu’une autre personne arrive on doit jouer avec lui ou elle. On a de la chance qu’il y ait pleins d’enfants dans notre école. Ce banc n’est pas pour se reposer, boire, manger… Ce banc n’est pas comme tous les autres bancs car il est de toutes les couleurs et il n’y en a qu’un. Ce banc est aussi fait pour t’enrichir d’amis et peut être de meilleurs amis pour la vie.
Les règles sont simples: il suffit de s’asseoir dessus et attendre qu’une autre personne arrive et après jouer avec lui ou elle. Je trouve que ce banc est une bonne idée car je vois souvent des enfants seuls qui s’ennuient ou qui n’ont pas d’amis.

The bench is for making friends when you don't have any and are bored. When you are on the bench and another person comes along you have to play with him or her. We are lucky that there are lots of children in our school. This bench is not for resting, drinking, eating... This bench is not like all the other benches because it has all the colours and there is only one bench. This bench helps making new friends, perhaps friends for life.
The rules are simple: just sit on it and wait for another person to come along and then play with him or her. I think this bench is a good idea because I often see lonely children who are bored or have no friends.

P5 DE B

Freundschaftsbank

Die Freundschaftsbank dient dazu, dass wenn du allein bist, die anderen zu dir kommen können und dich vielleicht zum Spielen einladen können. Wenn zwei Leute sich allein fühlen, können sie zusammenspielen und Freunde werden. Die Freundschaftsbank ist bunt, dadurch unterscheidet sie sich von den anderen Bänken. Man soll sich nur daraufsetzen, wenn man sich allein fühlt! Die Bank dient nicht dazu sich darauf zu setzen, wenn man sich ausruhen oder essen will. Die Bank hilft uns allen neue Freunde zu finden. Ich finde die Freundschaftsbank war eine gute Idee, weil ich schon öfters gesehen habe, wie manche dort sitzen und, dass sie jemanden zum Spielen eingeladen haben. Die Freundschaftsbank ist sehr gut, da man durch sie Freundschaften auch mit anderen Klassen finden kann.

P5 EN A

We think that the buddy bench is good to have, but due to corona, students do not have the ability to move around the playground to sit on the Buddy bench.
When corona is gone, we can hopefully use it more frequently, Overall, it is a very good idea to bring children from other classes together.

Auch während des Homeschoolings haben die Kinder der Klasse P2DEC mit Unterstützung der Klassenlehrerin Frau Jana Kukwa, fleißig im Fach Kunst ihre kreativen Werke präsentiert. Bei der Teilnahme am Hessischen Landeswettbewerb "JUGEND MALT" zu dem Thema "Was treibt uns an", hat Liam Sottocornola den Wettbwerb, in der Kategorie 6-8 Jahre, gewonnen.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Erfolg.

The ESF S1-S4 students have been awarded with the second prize in the The Art-Science Competition organized this year by the European School of Brussels IV. The theme of the competition was "Dreaming Green”. Congratulations to our students!!

The catalogue of the exhibition on www.eeb4.eu.

The Art-Science Competition has been organized this year by the European School of Brussels IV. The topic is the connection of art and science with the specific theme of "Dreaming Green”.

The competition was open to all pupils enrolled in a European School from s1 to s7. Each school submitted 5 artworks.

All pupil entries (art work and accompanying text) have been judged on artistic merit, creativity, mastery of medium and interpretation of the theme. Also, innovation, uniqueness and overall bravery. The prizes given for Junior (s1-s4) and Senior (s5-s7) categories selected by EU level jury1 will be announced during the online Award Ceremony on Friday 11/06 at 17:00.

Invitation and program as pdf file.

To watch the ceremony, we invite you to follow this link to Teams meeting.

In occasione delle celebrazioni per i 100 anni dalla nascita dello scrittore Leonardo Sciascia, il Consolato Generale d’Italia di Francoforte ha realizzato l’iniziativa “Sciascia100: studenti e scienziati leggono La scomparsa di Majorana”, un ciclo di letture, di quest’opera dello scrittore siciliano, affidate a diverse voci, tra cui quelle degli studenti delle scuole bilingui di Francoforte.

All’iniziativa ha partecipato anche la Scuola Europea e gli studenti della sezione italiana Cristina Calvi (S6) e Luca Commisso (S7) hanno letto il decimo capitolo del romanzo.

Il loro contributo, disponibile insieme agli altri sul canale You tube Italyinffm, è stato particolarmente apprezzato dai promotori, ricevendo parole di encomio dal Dirigente Scolastico, dott. Alessandro Bonesini, che ha definito i due ragazzi veri “ambasciatori della letteratura e della cultura italiana nel mondo”.

“Un progetto che ha avuto un grande significato anche per noi giovani – afferma Cristina Calvi - non solo per conoscere meglio la figura e l’opera di Sciascia, ma anche e soprattutto per ricordare l’esistenza e la vicenda di uno dei maggiori scienziati italiani del ‘900, scomparso misteriosamente.”

La Direzione, le docenti di L1 e gli studenti sono grati all’Ufficio Culturale e all’Ufficio Scuola del Consolato Generale per il coinvolgimento e per l’occasione offerta di ripercorrere, in modo corale, un momento cruciale della storia attraverso due figure di grandissimo rilievo nel panorama culturale del nostro Paese.

The construction of the new European School Frankfurt has been on the agenda for many years, the future pupil forecast and the space requirements were officially recognised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) a couple of years ago, but unfortunately a suitable site has still not not been found yet. At the beginning of a modern school building process, a so-called "Phase 0" is carried out to develop a pedagogical concept, one of the fundamentals for the later building project in the interaction between architecture, pedagogy, politics and administration.

Which school will meet the requirements of the future? How and where will children and young people learn in the future? What will learning and living at school look like in the next 50 - 100 years? What synergies are there between school and after-school learning? How can successful synergies be created? All school stakeholders are involved in this quality discussion: Pupils, teachers, parents, administrative staff, school authorities, school partners, etc.

This process is accompanied by a professional company - in our case "die Baupiolten BDA" from Berlin, with a multi-professional team consisting of architects, school developers and project managers. In various workshops, interviews, simulation games, discussion rounds, etc., the different perspectives are explored and discussed in order to ultimately draw an educational learning landscape that our school community envisions for our school of the future. The results of "Phase 0" are finally incorporated into the concrete planning of the school's architecture and will be presented to the school community at the end of this school year.

Karolien De Wilde, teacher of Dutch L1, had her students participate in a translation contest. The contest was organised by an organisation for Dutch language teachers. The assignment was to translate the poem ‘Telescope’ from Louise Glück, Nobelprize winner of literature 2020, into Dutch.

More than 1500 students participated, but our students won the first prize. Their translation was unanimously chosen by the members of the jury (all professional poets and poetry translators) as the best translation.

They won 200€, a few books about poetry (for in the class library) and a workshop translation of poetry given by a professional.

In the texts you can read here, Willem (S3de), Jorinke (S4en) and Thijs (S6en) write about their experience.

The ESF 2020 Advent Calendar highlights collective Christmas artworks that were produced in December 2019 by Nursery and Primary school students from different year groups at the ESF. Each day seasonal wishes, recorded by pupils in November 2020, are expressed in the many European languages. We hope that on the evening of December 24th you will be able to express your Christmas wishes in several languages. Advent Calendar 2020

On 1 September 2020, Ms Marion Kazda officially took up the post of Deputy Director of Finance and Administration at the ES Frankfurt. Furthermore, the Board of Governors decided to enlarge the management teams of the European Schools in the 2019/20 school year. We are very pleased to welcome Mrs. Una Clancy as Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Nursery and Primary School and Mrs. Kyriakoula Chatzivassiliadou as Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Secondary School in their new roles. We congratulate the new members of the Management Team on the successful completion of the respective selection procedures. Together we will tackle the pedagogical and administrative challenges.