School’s in at PSG’s Cité Éducative

For the first time ever, Paris Saint-Germain's pre-academy youngsters are being taught in-house at the club's "Cité Éducative" school, which is a pioneer in its field due to the fact that its curriculum falls in line with recent years' developments regarding research into educational theory, meaning that lessons are divided into half-days. Essentially, students attend classes in the morning and enjoy sporting activities in the afternoon (and vice versa on Mondays).

Three classes of 15 pupils each (of ages equivalent to Year 8, Year 9 and Year 10 in England) are led by a team of teachers, all of whom come from France's national education system and are qualified to educate elite athletes.

After a successful start to the day with a full team of teachers, attentions then turned to the players' school projects, known as PJS (Projets scolaires du joueur), with each player receiving a personalised plan following an analysis that will be carried out at the start of each year and that aims to evaluate the students' strengths and areas for improvement, all whilst allowing the teachers to track the progress of each of their pupils. The PJS is based on close collaboration between the pupils' families and the school's teaching teams.

In fact, that tracking of progress is one of the key elements of the Cité Éducative, which allows teachers to accompany their students from school level all the way up to college level.

Welcome back to school, everyone!