I’m headed to Wattrelos!

This week I received my school assignment!! I will be an Assistante de Langue for Cité scolaire Emile Zola in Wattrelos, France!

The school is located much closer to the city of Lille than I was expecting, as the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region is relatively large.  I’m so stoked!  An English teacher from my school emailed me providing some basic information.  It sounds like the English team is very enthusiastic, which will be great to be a part of!  Cité scolaire Émile Zola is both a junior school and a high school, which also has a vocational teaching section.  I suppose this means I only have to commute to one location!  Yay me!

This is my school’s location according to Google Maps:

I love that I’ll be working at a school named after the famous novelist, Émile Zola!  Based off the maps I have been looking at, it looks like the border to Belgium is walking distance from the school!  My school contact told me that there is a flat available for assistants that I can choose to take advantage of in Wattrelos, or I can choose to find a flat in Lille (where I would depend on public transport to get to work).  I haven’t decided one way or another yet – there are definite pros and cons either way.

According to our Assistants de langue : Lille Facebook group, no one has been assigned to Wattrelos other than me so far.  I may be wrong, but I believe I may be the only English assistant assigned to my school.  I guess only time will tell!  I don’t have photos of Wattrelos currently, but here are a couple of photos I took in Lille from 2013.  🙂