École Jeannine Manuel

Educatus was delighted to meet with École Jeannine Manuel this autumn to find out what they can offer to families seeking a truly bilingual education in London.

Established in London in 2015 with a vision shared by its very successful sister school in Paris, École Jeannine Manuel London is set out over three sites to accommodate students from age 3 through to 18 – the lower and senior school are on leafy Russell Square, the middle school a short walk away on Bedford Square. The lower school benefits from an outdoor playground and green space, whilst the middle school compensates with breakout rooms for the students to meet outside of class, and dedicated spaces to relax in with table tennis and table football. All three sites have been renovated to combine light and bright classrooms with period features but modern décor. Everything is compact but clean, tidy, and fresh. The school is well connected to public transport and also runs five of its own bus routes to the local area.

This is a very international community with over 45 different nationalities represented, the school does however remain committed to the French curriculum for the majority of subjects and offers the IB (International Baccalaureate) diploma or French International Baccalaureate in the senior years.  French speakers at all levels are welcome to apply, as well as beginners in English up to Year 7, although children will need to be able to aim to study in both languages to an equally high level, evidenced by the many students chatting away in a real mixture of fluent French and English when we visited.  Mild Special Educational Needs (SEN) would be considered in this bilingual context; the school has no dedicated SEN team as such but believes it’s teaching to be sufficiently tailored to offer support where it’s needed. Class sizes remain small for this purpose, the school never has more than twenty students per class (and numbers are often even less).

Academic results here were very strong in 2023, with all French International Baccalaureate students passing with some level of honours. IB results were also very good, and higher than the UK IB diploma average. A roughly equal number of students take each pathway, and the school sends students on to some really excellent universities in France, the UK, the US, and Europe. University offers in 2023 included Cambridge, the Sorbonne and NYU.

The school runs one main round of admissions each year, starting in the autumn, but is open to enquiries all year round. Integral to the admissions process is a family interview, and prospective parents can expect to be educated on the school’s mission and educational philosophy. Those wishing to learn more would do well to look up the school’s namesake, Franco-American Jeannine Manuel.

With a real dedication to its founding ethos of international understanding and bilingual education, The Educatus Explorer finds that École Jeannine Manuel truly amounts to so much more than a French school in London.

École Jeannine Manuel is inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) and was last visited in early 2019.