Sunday, January 13, 2008
École élémentaire Marie-Curie is a public French first language elementary school in London, Ontario, Canada. It is located in north-west end of London on Hunt Club Drive. Opened in 1972 it was originally the "London French School" and located on King Street in downtown London. The school was renamed "École Alexandra", after Princess Alexandra, but was simply known simply as "École". Today the school serves from junior kindergarten–6, in 1999, grades 7 and 8 were moved to École secondaire Gabriel-Dumont when the high school relocated to its present site.
In the early 1990s the then-principal, Jean-Claude Imbeault, made a number of changes to the school. He changed the school colours from blue and white, to black, silver and white; had the school renamed to "École élémentaire Marie-Curie"; gave it a new logo and a motto "Savoir faire et bien faire"; and, most significantly, created a plan for a multicultural school population.
London has an extremely small francophone population; however, it qualifies for French language services under the French Language Services Act, and also qualifies to have French schools. Most students are from mixed families and are notorious for conversing in English in the school yard; the students usually view themselves as "bilingual" rather than "English" or "French".
While this was the first French language elementary school in London, there are now four elementary schools (another public school and two catholic schools), two French high schools and one community centre.
Notable alumni
Notable alumni include:
Jeffrey Buttle, figure skater