![]() “Those machines were bought by the school,” Mr. The ateliers can be a bit noisy from time to time, mostly when the students are using its large pieces of machinery, like a Haas OM2A milling unit and a Schaublin lathe, that are lined up against the walls. More recently it also has been used as a teaching aid but, teachers said, it will be returned soon to its home, the village of Valempoulières, about 50 miles southwest of Morteau. In 2014, teachers said, students spent about 300 hours restoring the clock’s mechanism, which is about 3.5 feet wide and about 4.5 feet tall. And in the middle of the room, on a wooden platform, sits an horloge de clocher, or bell tower clock, the kind of timepiece typically seen in a French village church. In a back corner of one atelier hangs a tall pendulum clock, a precise timekeeper with a hand to indicate seconds, which the school said had been used as a teaching aid for years. Grandvuillemin said), the chairs are adjustable and the tables are ergonomic. The laminate surfaces of all the workstations are pale green (the color is restful for the eyes, Mr. Labre said the horology class space was modeled on modern watch factories, with spacious rooms to house equipment and large windows to capture natural light (which sometimes is difficult as each morning in Morteau’s mountainous area is accompanied by dense fog). The highest level of achievement, after seven years of work, is the diplôme national des métiers d’art et design. In two more years, for a brevet des métiers d’art certificate, “they work on more complicated movements like automatic watches, chronographs, restoration of antique watches, refabricating some parts with equipment and machinery and, at the end, they have their own project,” he said. ![]() Teacher Shortage : While the pandemic has created an urgent search for teachers in some areas, not every district is suffering from shortages.High School Football: Supply chain problems have slowed helmet manufacturing, leaving coaches around the country scrambling to find protective gear for their teams.Turning to the Sun: Public schools are increasingly using savings from solar energy to upgrade facilities, help their communities and give teachers raises - often with no cost to taxpayers.Drop-Off Outfits: As children return to the classroom, parents with a passion for style are looking for ways to feel some sense of chic along the way to school.“We have a boarding school, so some live here on campus.” Labre said, referring to the island in the Indian Ocean governed by France. “Students come from all over France and territories such as La Réunion,” Ms. Students enter at about 15 years old - although older students are accepted in the professional programs - and, of its 1,200 students this academic year, 167 are studying watchmaking.Įdgar Faure’s reputation is well known. The school, named for a local politician, is what the French call a lycée polyvalent, offering general academic study as well as training in areas like machining, microtechnology, jewelry making and horology. “To enter the program, they do not need to take a test, but their application file is examined.” “They are the elite,” Sophie Labre, the principal, said of her students. Some students now have their sights on Asia. Since the school opened in 1987, it has been producing skilled technicians for some of the world’s best-known Swiss watch brands as well as smaller companies throughout Europe. And it has a large number of Comtoise clocks, a kind of grandfather clock with a pot belly, made in the region.īut “Morteau is known in the world of watchmaking because, despite its small size, it saw the creation of a watchmaking school in 1836,” said Grégory Maugain, director of the Musée de l’Horlogerie de Morteau. There also is an impressive horological museum, housed in the 16th-century Château Pertusier, with a collection that ranges from a 19th-century astronomical clock almost six feet tall to a Jaeger-LeCoultre mechanical movement that, weighing less than a gram, is said to be the world’s smallest. Nestled in a valley of the Jura mountains - in the heart of what is known nationally as le pays horloger, or watch country - the town is a quiet, picturesque spot along the Doubs river and home to some of France’s boutique watch brands, including Pequignet and Yema. ![]() MORTEAU, France - When you tell Parisians you are going east to visit the small town of Morteau, many will say you should sample la saucisse de Morteau, the smoked pork sausage that is the local specialty.īut to its 7,000 inhabitants and to industry specialists, Morteau is better known for watches.
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