Oak Hill is a half-day programme designed for students with learning differences such as dyslexia and/or A.D.D. (ADHD).
We will be holding an Open Morning on Tuesday 31st January from 10.00 until 11.00 am.
Come and see a demonstration reading lesson. Ev
Link out: http://www.oakhill.ch
Date: 31 Jan 2012
Start time: 0:00
End time: 0:00
Chateau de Coppet, home to the International Menuhin Music Academy (source: IMMA)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The International Menuhim Music Academy (IMMA), newly based in Coppet, Tuesday 23 August named Maestro Maxim Vengerov, “the greatest violinist of his generation”, its new music counselor.
The IMMA was founded 30 years ago in Gstaad by Yehudi Menuhin, widely considered the finest violinist of the 20th century. It has 16 students from throughout the world and its mission is to offer a three-year scholarship every year to a number of violin and other string instrument virtuosos the opportunity to perfect their education by working with maestros and professors.
Gstaad remains the centre for IMMA’s week-long “Rencontres Musicales” every summer, where students and teachers work and offer performances that are open to the public.
The students, who are selected based only on talent, follow individualized programmes, including master classes at the IMMA. Their academic musical studies are designed to lead to a Master of Advanced Studies, MAS, and the academy is currently working towards its programme being recognized by the HES SO and expects to offer the MAS by 2012.
Students have a second part to their education, public concerts, as part of the newly renamed Menuhin Academy Soloists chamber orchestra.
Tuition is free for the students, who live with families in the area (see Editor’s Notepad: appeal to local families).
EPFL in Lausanne: foreigners pay just a bit more than Swiss students in fees
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss universities have the legal right to limit the number of foreign students in specific disciplines and they may charge higher fees than those for Swiss students, to reflect the real cost of providing the education.
A report to this effect was delivered to the Swiss Universities Rectors Conference (Crus) earlier in the year, Matthias Stauffacher, the group’s director general, confirmed Tuesday 2 August.
Swiss university students pay annual fees that are well below the cost of their education, between CHF500 and 1,300 a semester for basic fees for undergraduate students. St Gallen, which is the only Swiss university that currently has a quota for foreign students, 25 percent (it offers several programmes in English), charges foreign students less than CHF300 a year extra for foreign students.
Crus brochure, “Studying in Switzerland, Universities 2011″
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 16-year-old girl has died in hospital two weeks after a ski accident on a closed piste in canton Valais. The girl died Tuesday 15 February at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne.
She was on a school ski trip with her class from Neuchatel 3 February in Isérables, part of the Nendaz ski system in Valais. She and a group of students were skiing in the Siviez area and decided to ignore signs saying the Fontaines piste was closed, in order to get to a lift. She took a bad fall on the run at 11:15 and was taken to hospital in Sion, then transferred at 16:15 that day to the Chuv due to the seriousness of her injuries.
A 12-year-old girl from Biel/Bienne died while on a school ski trip in Valais 10 February, after sliding down an icy towbar path. In another slippery slope accident, a 65-year-old Vaud woman lost her life after sliding down a closed path near Champery 6 February.
Police in Valais have opened an investigation into the accident.
Head of a tiger (Panthera tigris), India (photo: ©2010 Vivek R Sinh, WWF-Canon)
Nyon / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three of the six students who were working in Assam for the WWF, counting tigers, when they were kidnapped Sunday, have been released unharmed.
The three women were released but the three men abducted with them remain captive. WWF-India says it is working closely with local governments and organizations to secure their release.
Full story, 7 February, GenevaLunch
Reading results, especially for non-Swiss students, improve sharply since
The start of a Pisa study mathematics question for 15-year-olds
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss students age 15 are among the world’s elite when it comes to mathematics, the latest Pisa study by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) shows. The average score of 534 is well above those of European countries, and 24 percent of Swiss students achieved the top two marks, 5 and 6, compared to the OECD average of 13 percent.
At the other end of the scale, only 14 percent of Swiss students are considered weak in mathematics, having failed to achieve level 2, compared to an OECD average of 22 percent. The world’s best mathematics students: Shanghai-China (600), Singapore (562), Hong Kong-China (555), Korea (546), Chinese Taipai (543). The first non-Asian country for mathematics is Finland, followed closely by Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
Clear overall rankings are not part of the Pisa results: OECD countries are ranked, but not “partner economies” such as Shanghai-China region, which had the highest scores in all three areas. Remarkably, 14.6 percent of students in Shanghai-China and 12.3 percent of students in Singapore attained the highest levels of proficiency in all three subjects, compared to only 4.1 percent of the total group tested. The Pisa study also asssesses educational equity, the size of the gaps between best- and worst-performing students, and gender differences.
The Pisa (Programme international pour le suivi des acquis des élèves) research has been carried out every three years since 2000 by the OECD. The goal is to measure how well students are equipped for the future. Students are tested in mathematics, science and reading each time, but one of the three is selected each year for in-depth testing and research. The 2009 theme was reading. Seventy-five countries and OECD “partner economies” took part in the 2009 Pisa research of which 34 are OECD member countries. The first study in 2000 had 31 participating countries/economies.
Overall mean scores put Switzerland in top 15 OECD countries
The mean scores provide an indication of where a country sits in international comparisons. The Pisa executive summary to the 2009 report, issued 7 December, notes for the overall results in mathematics, science and reading, the three areas where students are tested:
“Korea and Finland are the highest performing OECD countries, with mean scores of 539 and 536 points, respectively. However, the partner economy Shanghai-China outperforms them by a significant margin, with a mean score of 556. top-performing countries or economies in reading literacy include Hong Kong-China (with a mean score of 533), Singapore (526), Canada (524), New Zealand (521), Japan (520) and Australia (515). The Netherlands (508), Belgium (506), Norway (503), Estonia (501), Switzerland (501), Poland (500), Iceland (500) and Liechtenstein (499) also perform above the OECD mean score of 494, while the United States, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal, and partner economy Chinese Taipei have scores close to the OECD mean.
Reading results up strongly in Switzerland, better than neighbours’
Students in France are on a ten-day mid-term break but have vowed to continue opposition to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s controversial pension reform plans, which are set to be approved by the Senate on 27 October. The strikes and demonstrations have paralyzed parts of France, leaving others relatively unscathed.
France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde, has said that the strikes are costing the French economy up to €400 mn a day and threaten a feeble recovery. Seven out of 12 fuel refineries are still closed, all the country’s fuel depots are open, and the energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo says four out of five petrol stations will be operating normally on Tuesday 26 October.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, BBC, Washington Post
Upper house of Swiss parliament
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A hotly debated measure has passed in parliament, to allow students who do not have Swiss residence permits but who are registered for school to take up apprenticeship places.
The two houses of parliament as well as cantonal parliaments have been struggling with the issue for months, with Green and Socialist politicians arguing for more help for children of illegal immigrants while right-wing politicians have insisted the system should not help them.
Reliable figures are difficult to come by, but the Tribune de Geneve recently cited an official register as saying that of 5,000 registered students in canton Geneva, only 250 were between ages 15 and 20, the age for apprenticeships, which are a key part of the Swiss education and training system.
Many students do not register, out of fear of being sent away from Switzerland, although the school registration system offers some protection.
Swissinfo in an article early in 2010 estimated the country has 10-30,000 unregistered children up to age 16, when compulsory schooling ends.
The upper house vote to adopt a measure earlier accepted by the lower house was relatively close, 23-20.
GenevaLunch photo album of the Rolex Learning Center 52 images by Mr Kio and Peter Brodbeck (best viewed as a stream)
Rolex Learning Center reflects shift to group and project learning, digital sources
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
Update 30 March 21:45 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The bad old days of sitting in fusty dark and silent libraries pouring over books are definitely a thing of the past at EPFL‘s new Rolex Learning Center (RLC). The building itself is airy and light, with a multitude of open spaces where students gather in small groups or stretch out on bright beanbag chairs.
The architects of this extraordinary building were named the winners of the annual, highly coveted international architectural Pritzker Prize Monday 29 March for the body of their work. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the Japanese architecture firm Sanaa, created the space for the RLC in response to changes that have come from students themselves, says the university.
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
“Our students are using our libraries more and more frequently, but less for the purpose of borrowing books and more to work, either individually or in groups,” the RLC blog before the library opened in February. “The Bologna reform and a general trend in education towards learning through projects and group work are having an impact on students today. They are looking for a mix: a place where they can either sit for several hours and work or where they can find information on paper and electronically, and where they can choose to work in silence or interact with their fellow students.”
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) - France is reacting to a pre-Christmas letter distributed by its famed grandes écoles, which turn out the majority of the country’s top managers and politicians. The group says it will not follow President Nicolas Sarkozy’s order to accept a large number of lower-income students. The universities have long been criticized by some of the public for catering to the elite. They have been told that 30 percent of their students should come from less privileged groups, but the universities argue that the tough entrance examinations do not discriminate and are therefore fair. Accepting quotas for poorer students will lower standards, they argue.
Sarkozy himself is the rare political leader in France who is not a graduate of the École Nationale d’Administration and he famously failed his examinations at Science Po, the political sciences university which now provides his model for finding gifted students in poorer areas.
Links to other sites: Figaro (Fre), Le Monde (Fre), Times, UK
Eight students have died and 26 are injured, the result of a stampede in a middle school stairwell in Hunan province, China. Authorities say that a student tripped and fell as students were rushing out of evening classes, causing others to fall. Seven boys and one girl, ages 11-14, died, apparently from head injuries or being smothered, based on students’ descriptions of the accident. The school’s 3,500 students were rushing back to their dorms and most used one stairwell to avoid rainy weather, according to Xinhua, although the school has four exits. The Chinese news service says the private school has a reputation as one of the best in the region of Xiangxiang, a city of 900,000, and most of the students are from well-off families in the area. The head of the school and chairman of its board, as well as the local education director, are being held by police while the accident is investigated. The school remained open Tuesday, but the stairwell, less than 1.5 metres wide according to Xinhua, was cordoned off by police.
Links to others sites: CNN, Xinhua
Title: Students introduce families to Red Cross Museum
Location: Geneva, Red Cross Museum
Link out: Click here
Description: Young students from the International School of Geneva introduce families (children 8-15) to the Int. Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum – no registration necessary and event is free if under 16
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 11 Oct 2009
Life Sciences, EPFL, Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The EPFL, one of Switzerland’s two federal polytechnic institutes (the other is in Zurich, EPZ), has just been awarded eight European Research Council starting grants for young researchers, worth CHF2.2 million each. For the second year in a row the university has been awarded more grants than any other school, including Cambridge and Oxford in the UK: in 2008 the ERC awarded advanced grants to older researches and the EPFL was awarded 11 grants of CHF3.7m each.
To Facebook or not? That is the question in Payerne
Payerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several students of the Gymnase Intercantonal de la Broye (GYB), a secondary school in canton Vaud, thought when school re-opened last week that they had lost access to Facebook and Messenger while in school. Online chatting and access to social platforms is still alive and well for the 900 students at GYB, the principal says.
According to school principal Thierry Maire, the bans, reported 1 September by some Swiss media, is not quite what the school is implementing.
Allinges, France (Dauphiné Libéré, Fre) – Seven young students were killed and 25 injured a year ago when a TER train travelling from Evian, France to Geneva’s Eaux-Vives station smashed into a school bus at a level-crossing near Allinges, Haute-Savoie. Judicial authorities organized a reconstruction of the events today, 16 June, by driving the train out of the tunnel 125m from the crossing. Tuesday’s test confirmed that traveling at the legal 93km/hour, the train driver wouldn’t have had the time to avoid hitting the bus. Most family members were present this morning, along with police, judges and lawyers.
International School of Geneva, Switzerland, Nations campus (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International School of Geneva has been given a green light by the canton to proceed with construction of a new sports hall and a five-storey building that will provide 14 additional classrooms and an administrative centre at the Nations campus in Grand-Saconnex.
Langendorf (SO), Switzerland (TSR, Fre)- A 15-year-old student attacked a classmate with a knife in a Langendorf school around 11:00 Wednesday 24 March. The victim suffered serious injuries to the neck and was transported by helicopter to a specialized hospital where he is listed in stable condition.
