The Lycée Léonard de Vinci (Leonardo Da Vinci high school) is a general, technical and vocational public high school located in Soissons (50,000 inhabitants with the surroundings), in one of the most socially deprived region of France.
Our school is situated on a 10 ha green area. About 850 students (25% girls) are studying in our school and about 80 stay in the boarding school during the week.
One of our most important daily challenge is to allow a good integration of each student whatever his background, religion or culture is.
The school employs approximately 90 teachers, 25 administrative employees and 25 agents (maintenance, canteen, cleaning, etc).
The school has sport facilities (gymnasium, 9-hole golf course), a vocational and technical training centre for adults, a special department for early-school leavers and another one for students with learning difficulties who are accompanied by professional and most of the time integrated in normal classes.
In the school, we offer full-time courses covering different fields: electricity; mechanical/productics; materials engineering; industrial maintenance; boilermaking; modeling/prototyps; metalwork; car mechanics; sciences; physical education; industrial science, technology and sustainable development.
We also have a learning resource centre (LRC) and an entertainment place where students can go during their free time to find paper and computer resources, table-football, table-tennis, TV and bar.
Owing to the social difficulties/inequalities which our area is suffering from, it is absolutely needed for us to implement strong and innovative measures to reduce as much as possible these inequalities. That’s why we’re used to implementing numerous projects in various fields with local, regional, national, European and international partners, from the world of education (eg. local or regional education institutions), from the world of work (eg. local firms which are welcoming our students for their vocational training sessions).
That’s why, since 2010, one of our major objectives, part of our overall school project, is to develop cooperation projects by creating exchanges with other countries:
-to encourage students’ mobility for future employment opportunities,
-to increase students’ awareness of the necessity to learn a foreign language,
-to develop their citizenship, at national, European and global levels
-and above all, to develop their ambition and motivation, which is a key factor for the success of their study life.
Our « International projects team » has already coordinated (or participated in) numerous European and international projects since 2010, more than 20. With partners in numerous EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Austria, Spain) as well as in the USA or Morocco (and currently Japan), our school is now recognized as one of the most active and dynamic of the region in terms of EU & international cooperation.
The team is coordinated by an experienced teacher, also regional adviser for the educational authority. He’s coordinating these activities with a team of various subject teachers: physics & chemistry, biology, library, electrotechnics, history & geography, foreign languages.
Most of them are experienced in project management and we are always happy to welcome new members in the team… to build the future!
