New French School Opens in Meydan
Lycée Libanais Francophone Privé – Meydan has opened a new campus, in Meydan, with 400 students. The school, which opened this week with Pre-K to Grade 5 year groups, will be available to all grades from 2022-2023. The school has a total capacity for 1,875 students.
Three quarters of the students attending the school (around 300) used to attend the original Lycée Libanais Francophone Privé in Al Muhaisnah, while 100 are new to the LLFP brand. The school is popular with the Lebanese community in particular and had just over 1,200 students aged three to 18 years in the last academic year.
The Al Muhaisnah school was rated Very Good in its 2018-19 KHDA inspection.
Lena Tahan Khalil, who is Principal of the new school said:
“This project has been years in the making, and we’re delighted that we can offer children an enhanced curriculum with our facilities and resources. We’re very confident that this will raise the bar even higher, and our children will grab the opportunity with both hands. This is a really special project and we’re delighted that we can offer this to our community”.
Fees at the school range from AED 38,000 - AED 66,000, quite a leap from the original, sister school where fees went from AED 24,622 - AED 52,764. The newly built school, located on the Al Ain road, says it will offer its students "world-class facilities".
The new school's campus covers an area of 35, 686 sqm arranged in seven buildings "with vast green spaces", and social areas built into the masterplan. The campus also features two indoor gymnasia, a football field and running track.
All classrooms, laboratories and language rooms are equipped with interactive LED screens. The school also has an auditorium that will be used to celebrate "the cultural heritage of the pupils with performances, conferences and film screenings" while a greenhouse will allow students to discover the living world as part of the teachings of the program. A key focus for the school will be ecology and plant science with various spaces where students can grow vegetables and study these topics.
Dorsch Gruppe is the architect of the new building, which despite only just being complete has already won two awards for the school project for "sustainable and efficient architecture" and as the "Design Education Project of the Year" 2021, both at the Architecture Leaders Awards 2021.
In a release sent to the media, the school said it was taking advantage of "strong demand" for the French curriculum in the UAE: The school will provide the National Curriculum of France through all four cycles covering pre-KG, into KG 1 and 2, and through Grades 1-12, namely: the école maternelle (pre-KG, KG 1-2), école primaire (Grade 1-5), collège (G6-G9) and lycée (G10-12). All students will receive the French National Diploma, and the French General Baccalaureate when they leave the school.
Apart from a strong academic provision, the school says it will offer a "stimulating and creative learning environment, conducive to the personal development of their academic, artistic and athletic potential, as a whole."
The official inauguration of the school will happen at the launch of the Expo Dubai. The school will be joined by ambassadors and high ranking officials from the French government, in coordination with the French Cultural Section of the French diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi.
