In the courtyard of the Albert-Camus school in Créteil (Val-de-Marne), the lime trees heckle under the gusts. Not the kids. There are five of them, aligned like pawns on a game of checkers. Elodie presses the play button on her phone. Music! In rhythm, Ignace raises his arms, Miya hops, Abdou, Aisse and Diaba raise their knees ... They laugh and work out, without a ball, without a perched cat and without touching each other. Recreational mission accomplished, for the adult with red cheeks under the white mask, who, this Monday, has reinvented his profession: teacher at the time of C ovid-19.
For this first day, only a third of the 15 children identified as “priority” because of the profession of their parents, took up their schoolbag, in this elementary school classified in priority education network. Nationwide, 1.5 million schoolchildren are expected to find their teachers this week, according to the Ministry of National Education.
Miya, 6, whose mother works "in these houses where there are all the grandpas and grandmas", says she is delighted, after two months with her three big brothers and sisters. She never leaves her cloth mask, as her mother asked her to.
“She also showed me the barrier gestures. I'm a little lucky to have it, my mom! She said, disarmingly, at lunchtime. There are more masked adults in the refectory than schoolchildren who, face uncovered, seem to float in the middle of the room in front of their disposable breaded fish trays. An animator sketches a dance step to relax the atmosphere. Miya laughs.
The comeback of slates
"You will help us, we will organize ourselves well and thanks to you we will become super-strong: we will learn together", encourages Margaux Loire, the director, as if to respond to the big disappointed eyes that Aïssé, 10 years old, walked at 8:20 am in the deserted courtyard. No girlfriend on the horizon. As soon as the rain has dried on the macadam, the municipal services will draw colored circles there: markers supposed to help the children to keep their safety meter.
VIDEO. Deconfinement: back to school for children from priority families
Adults also need benchmarks. In the class with the pistachio green walls, Cécile uses the large yellow ruler on the table, one meter long, like a pole to make words and syllables read to Diaba, in CP. "I think I will also make them work a lot on the slate, it will avoid having to look at the notebook" she anticipates.
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
It is far, this month of March when she imagined the deconfinement to come "like a day of great celebration". The heart is not there. "It is necessary to start again but there is no serenity," she explains. I don't want to be a vector of contamination, for children as well as for those around me. ”
"No, don't blow your fingers please"
Diaba on his chair squirms: impossible to open his jar of glue, welded after two months in the kit. And this incident, once insignificant, is today a problem to be solved: according to the health protocol, the pupils' material can only be touched by them alone. "Take the glue that is on my desk, yes there," orders the mistress, making sure to keep his hands behind his back. "And no, don't blow your fingers please." "
Next door, in the library transformed for this pre-entry into the meeting room, it smells of hydroalcoholic gel more than coffee. The teachers are considering how to organize the 4:30 p.m. outing so that families do not crowd in front of the gate. Forty children are expected next week.
"What worries me is the psychological impact on children"
We must also discuss the new educational organization - the team has set a gauge to six classes of 10 students. This is what the size of the rooms, the canteen, and the number of teachers present, ensures.
"What worries me most is the psychological impact for children, to see a school like this," notes Pascal, the CP-CE1 double-level teacher. We will have to find tracks so that it is still nice to be together ... "Violaine, the teacher in charge of students with disabilities, suggests" a choreography "to frame, without dramatizing, the movements. She laughs yellow in front of this "faux school". "School is not a student facing files to fill, without the collective it does not make sense," adds one of his colleagues. The end of recess empties the master room. "Come on children, in single file: We're making a nice little train ... well spaced!" "
The double school puzzle
It's like a team that must be held together. Reopening of the schools obliges, the teachers must ensure the class head-on, for a part of the children, and "pedagogical continuity" for the majority of schoolchildren not yet back in front of the blackboards. How to make sure that the students advance at the same pace, under these conditions? The subject is a real headache, "but not an insurmountable problem, if we rely on the collective: by sharing the work we will get there", reassured this Monday the teachers of the Albert-Camus school in Créteil, in the middle of a pre-entry meeting.
The formula found in this priority education establishment? All students at the same level, for example CE2 or CM1, will work on the same books or exercises, regardless of the teacher who teaches them, virtually or not. Each teacher can then adapt the homework according to the profile of their students. “The objective, explains a professor, is that the children all arrive at the end of the year having seen the same things. "
