The Mazzini Garibaldi Charitable Foundation
La Scuola Italiana a Londra, is a full time bilingual Italian and English Nursery and Primary School based in Holland Park (London).
The project for an Italian school in London started in 2005 to meet the request of the Italian community of having a school that could preserve its cultural heritage, but also looked for an education programme that would provide a connection with the experience of living in London.
The general plan is for the school to take students from nursery (age 3) up to the end of high school (maturità).
The school offered Early Years, from September 2010, while Primary school opened, from September 2012. New classes will open as the children grow older.
As the Italian institutions, i.e. the Italian Embassy, Consulate and Ministry of Foreign Affairs were interested in supporting the project - in the curriculum development and the recognition process - but only if the school was to be operated as a non-profit organisation, they decided to create an Italian school that would be bilingual and that would operate as a non-profit organisation. The school was registered and achieved registered British charitable status in July 2007.
The School opened on the 8th of September 2010 with two full time teachers, one Italian and one English, and some part-time assistants. In the first year there was only the Scuola d’Infanzia, which goes up to the age of 5, with the plan of growing year by year until they’ll have the full complement of the Primary Years (up to age 11).
From January 2011 the school held also after-school activities in Italian, based around topical workshops such as Art, Drama, Dance, Cookery and Music.
During the Autumn of 2011 the school won two competitions. One was the photograph of some of their children, taken in March, chosen as one of the 13 best shots in the photographic competition “London: Italian, Contemporary Portraits”, organized by the Italian Consulate in London, together with Italians of London, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italy. The other was a painting, by a three year old, for the calendar competition ‘Road Safety & Green Travel’ held by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.
In the Autumn of 2012 the Italian Ministry of Education granted the school the status of “scuola paritaria”, which means it is considered on a par with the education in Italy.