Junior Cycle Curriculum

The Eurocampus (established in 2005) is a joint venture between the Lycée Français d’Irlande and St Kilian’s Deutsche Schule.

It is an integrated educational programme offering pupils from 1st to 3rd year the opportunity to study in both English and French and to sit both the Junior Certificate and the Diplôme National de Brevet at the end of 3rd Year.  This programme allows pupils of the LFI to meet other pupils of many nationalities and cultures (we currently have more than twenty nationalities enrolled and St Kilian’s have more than 30) and thus benefit from the richness a multilingual multicultural education can give.

Preparation for the integrated programme begins at primary level in 5th Class.  Pupils currently have 1½ hours of teaching of the history and science syllabi each week in English in addition to their normal English classes. This preparation continues in 6th Class (which, in the French system, is part of the secondary school).  Students study art, music and sport in English as well as a portion of the history syllabus.

In 1st year, a common stream has been created where pupils from both schools come together for half their classes to study a common syllabus which is taught through English.  This syllabus has been created by combining both the French and Irish national syllabi.

For the remaining half of their time pupils from the LFI study the French curriculum through French, while the pupils from St Kilian’s pursue the Irish curriculum.  This results in a challenging programme for the LFI pupils with approximately 33 hours of class time per week in 1st year.  Subjects studied in English include history, geography, English, Irish, sport, music, art and economics.  Those subjects taught in French include biology, physics, history, geography, civics, maths, Latin, French, music, German and Spanish.  As can be seen from this subject list, our pupils finish their junior cycle at secondary level studying three and often four languages (including those students who study Irish).

With a combined total of approximately 75 pupils per year, the children are separated into three classes each with 25 pupils – two thirds of whom come from St Kilian’s and one third from LFI.  At the end of 3rd year the LFI pupils sit both the Brevet and the Junior Certificate while the St Kilian’s pupils sit the Junior Certificate only.

LFI is the first, and currently the only, secondary school in the network of French schools abroad to offer this integrated multilingual education.