By Adam Siemieńczyk
My name is Marie. I was born in Lille, Northern France, in 1958, and grew up in a small town on the Belgian border, Quiévrechain. It was a coal mining town till the 1950s. One of my aunts used to work at the mine. The town had suffered a lot of destruction during the First and in the Second World War and accommodation was not an easy thing to find until the late 60s.
My father worked very hard as a steel miner. My parents wanted the best for me, as most parents do. They encouraged me to study. I loved reading, especially detective stories! My favourite childhood game was to play the teacher to my dolls and teddy bears, and I wanted to become a teacher! Luckily, I was selected in a competition to do “École Normale” (teacher training school) and could not wait to go into classrooms.
Until that time, Poetry was not my favourite subject. I found it false and pedantic as it was all about Récitation (learning by heart) and never for the fun of the language…There had never been any creativity in my French lessons at school. So this had to change!
I also wanted to live in London. I love the English language! So after my 2 year teacher training, there was this possibility of a one year exchange to teach French in an English school. At the time, they were going to experiment teaching English in nursery and primary school in Northern France, so they needed teachers who were fluent to do the job. As soon as I heard about it, I did all I could to be selected! The school where I landed was in Enfield, North London, St Ignatius College…Alfred Hitchcock’s old school. At the end of that year I met my future husband, Ken Presswell, so I had to find a position in a French school and ended up at Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle. I taught there for 33 years, mainly the equivalent of year 6 . I loved the fact that my pupils would become bilingual.
I could finally organise my teaching around children’s interests and abilities.I always wanted my pupils to feel happy in class, for them to learn while experimenting and by meeting people from the real world. If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is being bored! So we went out to a lot of Museums. In South Kensington, we were lucky as the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum are just across the road from the Lycée. Other visits included the Museum of London in Barbican and at Benjamin Franklin House in Craven Street. Every outing was an opportunity to encourage writing and drawing.
We also welcomed people from the outside to come and talk about their profession. We would prepare a questionnaire and everyone had to take notes and write after the visits.
We had the pleasure to welcome:
- Tim Judah, a war correspondent journalist
- Tabitha Suzuma, a writer (Ex-pupil)
- Dr David Leduc, a vet in Belgium (personal friend)
- Claude Haller, a photographer
- Michael Wills, a composer of music for films and performer (ex-pupil)
- Lars Laamann , a professor at SAOS, who introduced us to the History of Slavery
- Louis Leterrier, film director
- Adam Siemieńczyk , a personal friend, who would prepare an activity to encourage Poetry and Art.
We had a Poetry competition and the poem selected would become the next Récitation!
Many children would write poems of their own accord and too and would read them to the class. We would then post them on our classroom wall.
