Recommendation Letters
Collège Aimé Césaire’s Principal’ Assessment note June 2013
Mrs Coulaud arrived in our school in 2010 as a young teacher.
She has adapted to our school remarkably well and quickly. She is a teacher of high quality, she cares to pass on her love for Arts as well as her cultural and intellectual knowledge.
She has set up numerous projects in which students have produced great works of Art of which they are very proud.
She is very dynamic; she managed to run a PAC class (a special class made of students with deep class difficulties) through a photographical project, an artistic workshop in partnership with the Mac/Val, and a cultural project with an experimental class.
The classes’ works are exposed around the school and on a blog accessible from the school’s site. She also runs Art workshops at lunchtime, which are highly popular among the students. Finally, she tries to make the Art final exam more interesting among her colleagues.
She is a very good head-teacher, she always tries to improve the supervision of her classes.
I thus demand an increase in her grade of 0.2 points.
Yveline Puault.
Collège Aimé Césaire’s Principal’ Assessment note June 2013
Mrs Coulaud arrived in our school in 2010 as a young teacher.
She has adapted to our school remarkably well and quickly. She is a teacher of high quality, she cares to pass on her love for Arts as well as her cultural and intellectual knowledge.
She has set up numerous projects in which students have produced great works of Art of which they are very proud.
She is very dynamic; she managed to run a PAC class (a special class made of students with deep class difficulties) through a photographical project, an artistic workshop in partnership with the Mac/Val, and a cultural project with an experimental class.
The classes’ works are exposed around the school and on a blog accessible from the school’s site. She also runs Art workshops at lunchtime, which are highly popular among the students. Finally, she tries to make the Art final exam more interesting among her colleagues.
She is a very good head-teacher, she always tries to improve the supervision of her classes.
I thus demand an increase in her grade of 0.2 points.
Yveline Puault.
Inspector’s assessment note April 25th 2013
During this lesson, Mrs Coulaud works on the notion of time in Arts: she first asks the students to draw on their notebooks a square in fifteen seconds. After this, she gives them five more minutes to draw a spiral inside the square.
Following this exercise, the students write the following thesis: “How does Art enable us to change our perception of time?”. She asks for the meaning of the difficult words and draws their attention on the word “perception” and the pronoun ‘us’. The class then brainstorms on this pronoun and all the people concerned: the audience, the author, the artist…
Following this group reflection, Mrs Coulaud proceeds to an individual constructive evaluation, which deals essentially with the comparison between the term “duration” and the term “moment”. The assessment id based on the analysis of the duration of a movement and the artistic result of this latter.
After that Mrs Coulaud gives them a work to do: “draw a diptych which confronts ‘duration’ to ‘moment’”. They can use two supports with similar size, they can chose whichever technique they wish. The teacher also suggests that four volunteers in the class try to do the work on the computer in order to analyse the gap that exists between a substantial image and an insubstantial one. The students are given twenty minutes to work before presenting their work to the class and explaining their choices.
The cultural part of this lesson deals with the works of Roman Opalka.
Mrs Coulaud’s personal and class work is rigorous, linked to the national programs and with interesting thesis. The documents released to the class are adapted to the students’ level and each time there is some self-assessment, which makes the objectives of the lesson clearer.
Mrs Coulaud’s commitment in numerous projects makes her teaching attractive. Arts has become an even more important subject in the school thanks to the workshops she has put in place. Finally, she is a tutor for young teachers and very active in the continuing education of these latter, all this reinforces her seriousness and loyalty.
Isabelle Herbet.
Inspector’s assessment note March 16th 2011 :
Mrs Coulaud welcomes her class with attentions and efficiency.
She shows the students the new thesis: “what is the reality side to an imaginary work?”. Right away, she asks the meaning of this sentence, she then shows them all the drawing possibilities when using graphite. A worksheet is handed out which consists in drawing an imaginary shading vase which comes as close as possible to a real one. Mrs Coulaud progressively draws her students from the image of the vase towards the reality of the vase.; from the observation of their drawings to the model of the vase. They notice the precision of the shape of the vase due to light and volume effects. At the end of the class, Mrs Coulaud makes an oral analysis of Morandi and Richter’s works.: this explanation aims at making a link between a representation of something and the technique used, as well as to deepen the explanation of notion and procedures.
The students are working with interest. Mrs Coulaud is present and supports the work of each and every student by making individual and collective comments, by asking them further questions and by giving them more information.
Mrs Coulaud gave me different documents: her class preparation, her pedagogical advancement and the class agenda. She also gives me the students’ notebooks and reports in which she writes positive comments.
In the interview the follows the class lesson, we talk about Mrs Coulaud’s implication in the development of the final exam concerning Art and History and the consistence of the different missions of an Art teacher. Already she takes on these responsibilities very well.
I am favourable to the granting of tenure of Mrs Coulaud among the Art teachers.
Marie Zenderoudi.