About
Collège des Frères-Jerusalem
Collège des Frères has been a prominent Palestinian institution of education in Jerusalem for 135 years, serving students irrespective of religious affiliation or national identity. Founded in 1876 by the La Salle Brothers, a Catholic order dedicated to teaching, the purpose of the School was to provide quality education for children in Palestine, especially the poor. After more than a century, the Lassalian aims of quality and accessibility of education to all children is still the cornerstone of Collège des Frères, Jerusalem.
Throughout the years, Collège des Frères-Jerusalem has worked, along with the families and local community, to provide youth with knowledge, skills and courage to realize their potentials and successfully step forward into the world. Among the rosters of alumni who graduated from Collège des Frères-Jerusalem one will find names of many highly regarded leaders in the community in different fields; medicine, business, science, art and academia. To name but a few Aref al-Aref , Afif Safieh, Dr. Bernard Sabella, Dr. Emanual Hassasian ,Judge Michel Abdul Masieh etc. In the year 2000, Collège des Frères-Jerusalem updated its enrollment policy to a co-educational system that embraces both male and female students.
Mission of the school
In its constant quest for development, Collège des Frères is keen at providing outstanding scientific, educational, spiritual and cultural programs and at the same time offer a variety of extracurricular activities that are designed to help develop the students’ personality, social capabilities and skills. The schools policy aspires at nurturing creative and responsible individuals, armed with civilized human values based on freedom, love, tolerance, and respect for others. Collège des Frères devotes the bulk of its resources to promote cooperation between all the parties of the educational process, at the core of which, the students themselves in order to build a generation that is not ashamed of the past nor afraid to conquer the future, a new generation that can compete and face the enormous challenges of this age of technology, information systems and globalization. The school is proud of its history and continuous policies of rendering its services to the poor both academically and financially.
Collège des Frères is one of over 1,000 schools world-wide that is owned and operated by the Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers, based in Rome, Italy. Collège des Frères-Jerusalem belongs to the Near East District which includes Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey. The Near East District’s main office is in Beirut, Lebanon and is headed by Fr. Georges Absi, the Provincial-Freres-Visiteur who is responsible for overseeing these schools and appointing the director of each school in the District, and nominates the Brothers of each community. The District is now under the umbrella of RELEM Europe.
Collège des Frères-Jerusalem provides classes from Kindergarten through 12th Grade. The School is divided into three sections: Little Lassalians -Kindergarten and 1st Grade, Primary School – 2nd Grade through 8th Grade, and Secondary School – 9th Grade through 12th Grade. There is a total enrollment to-date of 1390 students, 590 at New Gate, and 800 at Beit Hanina. The school employs 90 teachers and 35 employees.
Each section in the School is headed by a Vice Director who is responsible for the administration and development of the students in the section, upholding the rules and regulations, the implementation of the curriculum, supervision of the teaching staff, and extra-curricular activities. Together the Director with the vice directors form the Administrative Council that oversees the running of the school
The Director and Vice Directors are assisted by a team of First Teachers for Social Studies, Mathematics, Sciences and the Languages. They give support to teachers in planning, teaching and evaluating. They team up with administrators to oversee the curriculum and monitoring its implementation in the classroom.
An Academic Board, comprised of the Director, Vice Directors and First Teachers, and representatives of teachers, students and parents, is responsible for the quality of education at College des Freres-Jerusalem. This Board meets regularly to review and evaluate programs, instruction and performance of the students, and to further develop the academic and extra-curricular content of the programs of the School.
Academic programs
Collège des Frères is a non- profit private Palestinian school that teaches the Palestinian Curriculum and graduates more than 65 students every year in both Scientific and Literary Tawjihi streams. The school, also, offers the option of student enrollment in a GCE class (British system) and offers subjects at the Ordinary and Advanced GCE levels. The school is known for teaching languages such as English, French and Hebrew. The school is run by a director, administrative and academic councils and supported by the community of Brothers.
Specialized Departments
The school has a social work department that caters for the students who have social and psychological problems, and at the same time, work on a number of programs and projects that would reinforce leadership skills, democratic values and help the students in their choices concerning university specializations and careers. The Special Education (SE) department is also a special feature of the school. The SE department has 5 teachers who work with more than 100 students with learning difficulties and provide all the services possible to reabsorb kids with Learning disabilities in the normal school cycle and life.
Curricular and extra-curricular activities
Part of the vision of the school is to offer the student a holistic education. Students, in their social and epistemological formation, need to participate in all kinds of curricular or extra-curricular activities that help them develop their personalities in an interesting learning environment. The school offers art, music and sport classes in its curricula and offers more than 35 extracurricular activities. Some of its extra-curricular activities include, clubs for English, French, Cinema, Heritage, Dabka dance, Drama, Astronomy and Science. In addition students are given the opportunity to learn a variety of instruments and perform and participate in various concerts inside and outside the school.
