News de Nous - 12/24/20 - French American School of Tampa Bay

December 24, 2020

Holiday Handiwork

One of many class projects leading into the winter break – this one was shrouded in secrecy, but we do know they were not going to eat it! NdN was not clued in on the rest of the plan, we were only told that such info was on a knead to dough basis.

Three big items in this holiday edition of News de Nous – our “Spectacle de l’Hiver” student performances presented in an all-encompassing video, our COVID holiday guideline reminder and our admissions & enrollment updates.

To our FASTB students, families, staff and friends, we wish you all a very happy and safe holiday, and look forward to seeing you in January. 2020 was clearly a year full of twists and turns and lots of uncertainty, but together we navigated through it and the finish line is in sight – here’s to 2021 !

COVID Guideline Reminder

We are now in the midst of our second big holiday in less than a month and COVID cases remain high nationwide, so in order to return safely in January, we are continuing to follow our guidelines, outlined below and in accordance with the CDC and our medical advisor, Dr. Gaetane Michaud.

Holiday Celebrations and Travel

The CDC continues to strongly recommend that we avoid holiday travel this year
The CDC also strongly recommends that we all stay within our households, i.e. the people we currently live with. Dr. Michaud is in full agreement with these recommendations.

School Policy to Return After Holidays

Families and staff who avoid travel and stay within pods may return to school without quarantine or testing.
Families and staff who choose to travel and/or mix with those outside their household** (visiting or hosting) may do one of the following to return to school:

Get a PCR test on the 4th day following your return from travel or your last day of mixing and return with the negative result
Quarantine 14 days following your return from travel or your last day of mixing

**There is no way to confirm that people we encounter during travel or outside of our households in holiday gatherings do not have the virus, so we have to err on the side of caution – finding out after a return to school is too risky and could seriously threaten our entire community.

As an example, looking ahead at the remainder of the break and a timeline to return safely on January 4, we have:

-December 27 – last day of travel/mixing

-December 31 – get PCR test

-January 2 or 3 – receive result

-January 4 – return to school

For the latest holiday tips from the CDC, you can click here. Thank you for your continued cooperation with our efforts to keep our school in-person and thriving!

FASTB Admissions – Live Virtual Tours Available Throughout January

We are very pleased to announce the addition of three new students in December, with more scheduled to arrive in January. Interest in FASTB is on the rise!

Whether you are looking at 2021-22 or joining us this year, if you want a school for your child that is small and adaptable, with COVID protocols in place, and offers full language immersion in an authentically French environment with excellent teachers and a supportive community, we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible to explore a fit and virtually tour our school.

Private Virtual Tours

With access to our school limited to students and staff due to our COVID-19 guidelines, the best way to experience FASTB is through a private virtual tour.

Our Director of Admissions, Audrey Talarico, is regularly conducting these tours, which take you right into our dynamic classrooms to give you a live look at our school in action – see and hear what French immersion is all about, observe the structure and content of lessons, view our welcoming environment and student artwork and tour the rest of the school and playground as well. You will see what makes our school unique in this region, so please contact Audrey to schedule a virtual tour.

You can also feel free to visit our Admissions page and website to further explore what we have to offer, and learn about our admissions process.

Additionally, FASTB also accepts Florida scholarships through Step Up for Students, which is still accepting applications for the 2020-21 school year for grades K & up, and we also accept French Bourses for students with a French passport.

We look forward to hearing from you soon – merci !

FASTB Spectacle de l’Hiver / Winter Show

Adapting to the times, our winter performance, or Spectacle de l’Hiver, is presented in video form this year. Each class worked hard to prepare a performance and then all joined in at the end for a group song! Here is the rundown of performances:

PS/MS/GS: Cécile’s class read Bon appétit ! Monsieur Lapin together earlier this month and this performance brings the story to life. Written by renowned French children’s author, Claude Boujon, the tale focuses on Monsieur Lapin – Mr. Rabbit – who is tired of eating carrots and wants to find out what the other animals eat.

CP/CE1: Magali’s class performed Chanson pour les enfants l’hiver, a song for children during winter, both as a poem and in song. This poem that is well-known among children in France, is about a snowman looking to escape the cold inside a warm house, and was written by Jaques Prévert, a famed French poet, songwriter and screenwriter.

CE2-CM1: Olivier’s class created a puppet theater to perform Bichou, le petit louveteau – Bichou, the little wolf – a play written by lesser known Ann Rocard, which also features a song written by Rocard, Chanson de la lune. The play is about a little wolf who gets separated from his family. After meeting several animals that do not want to help him, a large deer helps him get home and Bichou is able to return the favor by saving the deer from an attack by his pack!

Collège: Emmy’s class took to the stage, choreographing and performing dances to familiar holiday melodies. They also displayed their songwriting abilities by creating new lyrics to Vive le vent/Jingle Bells for the whole school to sing!

Special thanks to Olivier for compiling all of these performances and producing this wonderful video. This was a just a fabulous team effort by our students and teachers – bravo to all !!