Member of British House of Lords Michael Bates
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Students at the International School of Geneva are having an eventful week before breaking up Friday for a holiday week: an inspiring visit from Lord Michael Bates of the British Parliament Wednesday is being followed by the inauguration of a major building project for a new primary school in Founex which opened in September.
Bates, whose Walk for Truce is taking him on foot some 4,800km around the world, is determined to get nations to act on a UN resolution signed in October 2011, namely to use the 2012 London Olympics to take one active step each to promote peace.
The resolution has been signed before each Olympics Game, since 1993, when the practice was revived by the International Olympic Committee.
The British member of the House of Lords would like to see it become more than a handsome gesture, he says.
He met with middle school students, ages 9-12, from the campus at La Grande Boissière to give them pointers on how they can help encourage their governments to take concrete steps.
Bates notes on his Walk for Truce web site that 193 nations come together to sign:
“a Resolution declaring their commitment to observe to “pursue initiatives for peace and reconciliation in the spirit of the Ancient Games”—in the past everyone has signed it but no one has ever implemented it. We think that is a missed opportunity. We want to see the Resolution brought into reality. I have decided to walk over 3000 miles in the hope that we can persuade all signatories to the Truce to do just one thing to implement it. Not only would this bring the flame of hope into conflict zones around the world it would mean that we would rediscover the central purpose of the Ancient Games which was to provide for a pause in the endless cycle of violence through the observance of the Sacred Truce. If they could do it 3000 years ago, then surely we can do it now.”
The International School, which has grown to 4,300 students from 125 countries with the addition of a new primary school this year, Thursday celebrates the official inauguration of the school at the La Chataigneraie campus. The campus now has 1,400 students and will gradually add another 300 students in Founex, which will have a significant impact on the recent shortage of places in international schools in the region.
Will also create more secondary school places
ISLL, new international school, opens in Morges, September 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two schools, one new and one expanding, will significantly ease the pressure on the local English language and bilingual primary school offer starting in September. The continually growing international population in the Lake Geneva region has resulted in a worsening of what was already a shortage of places in schools where English is one of the teaching languages.
Morges school finds a home, thanks to regional development agency and town of Morges
The LLIS (Lake Leman International School) opens at La Gottaz in Morges 12 September, with kindergarten starting at age 3 to grade 5 (ages 9-11) opening during the first year, as well as a multi-lingual crèche or daycare centre for children from age 3 months. The school is planning to open a secondary school for the 2012-2013 academic year, with International Baccalaureate (IB) preparation.
It can take several years for a school to receive IB accreditation, but the new school, opening in its first year with seven classes, is basing its education programme on the IB, particularly for language learning, it says.
Finding a location for the school, especially given high rents in the Lake Geneva region, was not easy, but the Vaud Economic Development Agency and the town of Morges worked with the school, which is in a commercial complex next to the BAM regional train line and the A1 autoroute exit for Morges Ouest.
Anna Kaeser, who has several years experience in education in the UK and Switzerland, is the director of the school and a group of investors is working with management to ensure the financial viability of the school.
International schools also attract local Swiss famililes in part because they often offer a full-day programme, unlike Swiss state schools. The new LLIS will be open from 08:00 to 17:00, including the lunch hour, with a lunch service. The Cap Canaille crèche is located in the same building and is open from 06:30 to 18:30, five days a week, year round.
La Chataigneraie, part of the Int’l School of Geneva, adds 500 new students this September
New primary school at La Chataignerai, Founex
The oldest international schools in the world and a founding school of the IB programme, the International School of Geneva, has had waiting lists for several years.
This September it increases its intake dramatically at La Chataigneraie, its canton Vaud campus in Founex, thanks to a major construction programme. The school, with four campuses, had more than 4,000 students in September 2010.
Atrium in the centre of the new primary school creates light and airy space
The La Chataigneraie campus has built a new primary school that will house 642 students, and it added another storey to the old primary school, which is being turned over to the secondary school. Seven new classes are currently planned in the primary school and three in the secondary school, “but more classes may be added in the primary school if demand warrants it,” Catherine Merigay of the development office told GenevaLunch.
Total additional capacity is 500 students, potentially bringing the campus’s population to about 1,700 students.
La Chat, as it is popularly known, has been able to get rid of a number of portacabins and it is offering a “reception”, or kindergarten class for the first time, for children age 4 and up, starting in September.
Portacabins are disappearing thanks to an additional storey on La Chat's old primary school, now handed over to the secondary school
La Chataigneraie - Int'l School of Geneva in Founex
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A group of students who are in their next to final year at La Châtaigneraie in Founex are safe, according to the International School of Geneva, after arriving in Marrakesh Thursday morning 28 April and finding themselves only a few hundred metres from the blast that shook the Arguna Cafe and killed at least 14 people.
La Châtaigneraie is one of four campuses of the International School of Geneva. The students are on an International Baccalaureate programme geography field trip and in a letter being sent to parents today the school says that “all of our students are safe and well and though they were aware of the explosion [they] were at no time in any danger. The group are now in the hotel and will stay there whilst the details and cause of the explosion are determined.”
School officials say they are “keeping an open mind about the continuation of the trip. As and when further information becomes available we will review it, make a final decision.”
The cause of the blast is not yet clear, although Morocco’s Interior Ministry said early Friday on state television that it was a terrorist act.
The official death toll is 14, but local TV reports in Morocco say 15 people died, including six French citizens, five Moroccans, a Russian and a British citizen, but the government has not officially confirmed the nationalities. France has confirmed the deaths of its citizens.
Nations campus, ISG, in Geneva
Celebrating a new sports hall at La Chataigneraie, Founex, part of the ISG
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nicholas Tate, director-general of the International School of Geneva (ISG), will retire in August 2011, the school’s governing foundation has announced. It has begun a search for his successor to head the world’s oldest and largest international school.
Liam Bates, aka Li-Mu, back in Switzerland
Update: Liam won third place in the 2010 competition
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Liam Bates arrived home to the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland from China 28 July with more than the six-month scholarship he won from the Chinese government as a finalist in its international university competition for Mandarin speakers: he had a broken leg plus damaged shoulder from a motorcycle accident and headed straight for the CHUV (university hospitals) in Lausanne, scheduled for an urgent skin graft.
He also had several hundred new fans from among the two million television viewers who watched the popular annual “Chinese Bridge” competition that rewards the world’s best students of China’s language and culture.
The competitor who hobbled onto the stage to give a speech four days after surgery on his leg, explaining why he wouldn’t be showing them wushu (kung fu) moves, caught the crowd’s eye.
But it was the large-screen background clip from a film of his travels across their country – a journey few Chinese have made – that sent his Chinese web site traffic zooming up by almost 10,000 percent in just days.
"Mao, Motorbikes and a Yak" film: the journey
Bates and three friends had completed a 7,000 km journey on motorcycles across China shortly before the competition, filming conversations with young Chinese about their dreams and hopes for the future.
Update 13 July Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 17-year-old Swiss youth from Nyon is in critical condition following an accident at the Nyon train station shortly after midnight, early Thursday 9 July. [Ed. note, 13 July: GL has just learned that he was a 2009 graduate of La Chataigneraie, part of the International School of Geneva] He was sending friends off on the train after an evening out in Nyon when he pulled himself up to the window of one of the rail cars and held on, briefly, then slipped and fell under the train as it began to move. Both legs were severed by the train’s bogies, the right one below the hip and the left at the tibia, below the knee.
And 23% call themselves Swiss (image: Nick Zeller)
Founex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Graduation day at the La Chataigneraie campus of the International School of Geneva offered a surprise Friday 30 May, when the nationalities of the students were announced: Swiss topped the list with 31 of the 133 students, followed by British with 26. Sweden and the US each had seven in the graduating class and there were six Canadians.
The students were asked to record their nationality and where they were planning to go next academic year. This was the first year that dual- and multi-nationality students were asked to select which nationality they wished to be recorded, and the result was a boost in Swiss students listed.
P Pardeshi, right
Founex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – La Chataigneraie (International School of Geneva) final year student Pratyancha Pardeshi is one of six students to win a top award and CHF500 prize for an economics essay she submitted to the Swiss National Bank’s economics teaching programme, iconomix. Her paper, “How can government intervention be used to correct the market failure occurring in Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary?” was written as part of the International Baccalaureate diploma programme’s “extended essay” requirement.
Iconomix gold winners 2009
La Chataigneraie, Founex, new sports hall
La Chataigneraie students approve new sports hall during pre-opening visit, October 2008
Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A series of open houses in the Lake Geneva region will showcase recent contemporary architectural works during two weekends and the week between, from 18-26 April. The 15n is organized every year by the Swiss society of engineers and architects to allow the public to see a variety of public and private buildings in French-speaking Switzerland. Details and visiting hours for buildings in six cantons are on the group’s site. A highlight this year is the growing number of Minergie (energy efficient) constructions and renovations, both homes and public buildings. The buildings that can be visited in Geneva and Lausanne:
