SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AWARD

Katia Limoge Walicki

Transmitting with tomorrow in mind

"Certain life experiences impose major career changes. For my part, I had a precocious child who did not adapt at all to the school system. And I was confronted with the same scenario with my second son," asserts Katia Limoge Walicki. As an HR professional, she realised that having a good profile was not enough. "What made the difference was skills, being autonomous and able to find solutions," continues this committed woman, who then dreamt of creating a school of tomorrow. A project that led her to visit the Green School in Bali. "I was bowled over by this school in the middle of the jungle with its outdoor classes and students of all nationalities. So at first, I looked for a piece of land in the woods to create a forest school. Then I wanted to set about an environmentally-friendly school - which does not exist here. But each time the costs were too high.” She finally set up her school in the ZAC des Travails in Cagnes-sur-Mer. And it is perhaps in town that she is quite rightly most useful, training future citizens to respect themselves, others, and all living beings.

Private bilingual eco-citizen school

"I did several training courses to find out which one was most in line with what I felt, and I chose Maria Montessori’s method. This visionary Italian educator created her first school in 1907.” Very attentive to recent developments in neuroscience, she was also inspired by Sophie Rabhi-Bouquet's Ferme des Enfants (Children's Farm) and her educational methods focused on benevolence, giving a central place to nature in education. A member of FCE Nice, Katia is part of the generation that was awakened to the environment by the first episodes of Ushuaïa. A flexitarian, she buys a lot of products in bulk to limit plastic waste and participates in clean-up operations on our beaches.

Localisation : Cagnes-sur-Mer
Création : 2017
Activité : Enseignement
Dirigeant : Katia Limoge Walicki
Capital : 7 500 €
Collaborateurs : 7

My School Montessori

Although there are many private Montessori schools, not all are linked with the International Montessori Association (AMI) like the one in Cagnes-sur-Mer. In the school founded in 2017, certified AMI-trained educators support the children: around 30 pupils split into three levels (2 to 3, 3 to 6, and 6 to 11-year-olds). They work here with Montessori equipment made from natural materials. As teaching is bilingual, there are two educators per class. Training time takes place between 9 and 11.30 am, so as not to interrupt the active learning process that respects the rhythm of each child. Wishing to focus on sustainable development, the children make compost, have an insect house and on Fridays, as soon as weather permits, school moves outdoors into the countryside close to the river, lulled by birdsong, in the Parc des Rives du Loup. Drama, music, sport… all the activities are linked to an educational project, such as this year's protection of endangered species project.