School year 2019/2020 is being shocked by the progressive expansion of the Covid-19 pandemic.

After the initial regular opening of tall the 36 scheduled courses, also following the provisions of the local Dutch authorities, ESI decided to suspend all in-person courses starting from the first week of March 2020. In the following days, in agreement with the teachers, it was therefore decided to propose to the adult students and the families of elementary/middle school students to continue the courses until the natural deadline of June in "remote" mode.

The response was positive in an almost uniform manner across the entire territory and for each type of course. Each teacher therefore took steps to organize their courses with the methodologies they deemed most appropriate based on age, level and type of students, using prepared platforms (Edmodo,…) and/or forms of remote connection (Zoom, Meet, Skype, WhatsApp, E-mail), both with video-recorded lessons and live online.

It was not possible to impose the same methodology for all situations both for the aforementioned reasons and for an objective lack of previous experience in "distance" teaching. Compatibly with the circumstances, we also tried to keep the duration of the single online lesson comparable with that of the corresponding in-person lesson.

Before the end of March 2020 all courses had been reactivated remotely (with the exception of one of the two courses of the French High School of Den Haag and one of the two courses of the French High School of Amsterdam)

At the end of the "in presence" courses, circa 320 students in total attended classes. It is therefore a source of profound satisfaction for ESI to note that of these, quasi 260 (over 80%) they continued to follow the lessons "remotely"! All courses ended when the scheduled lesson hours were reached.

It was ESI's hope to reopen all courses starting from September 2020 in traditional “in presence” mode.  Unfortunately, the resurgence of the Coronavirus pandemic upset the programming, both in relation to the decisions of the Dutch Government regarding the management of the general situation and the opposition of many families of students to the opening of in-person courses. It was therefore necessary to mediate between those who refused distance courses, still demanding "traditional" in-presence lessons, and those who claimed the opposite, i.e. only distance learning lessons. This led to the fragmentation of previously homogeneous classes (by level/age) with the need to adapt teaching techniques to each local reality.

 At the end of December 2020 (school year 2020/2021)  the number of elementary/middle school courses was 28 (in-presence and DAD) and the number of teachers 11, with approx 200 enrolled students (beyond 6 adult DAD courses with 40 students).

Summary graphs 2020-2021