Message from Ms Matillon, Director General
Dear Parents,
On my way in to our Primary school this morning, I came across Eva in Year 2 showing Mrs Grant a magic trick; I arrived just in time to watch. Now, I do not know whether the black hat she was wearing gave her exceptional powers of prestidigitation or if Eva simply IS magical, but I am still trying to figure out how she made a red ball disappear!
What a wonderful way to round out the half-term as we celebrate Mother Language Day in Primary, featuring a French Carnaval and parade in our playground! Children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 are in fancy dress, as are most of our teachers, and their beautiful and clever costumes, the music and dancing have made today so much fun. Earlier, we all gathered in the gym for an assembly in which our Language Ambassadors played important roles, reminding us that every language is important, every culture is special and, together, we make our school richer.
In Secondary this week, we held our annual House Chess Competition. Thirty-two students pitched up at the start of this contest and fought one hard battle after another for the glory of their Houses. It was great to see so many students participating, and so many more cheering them on. Even our latest visiting colleagues from Inspired got in on the action, commenting on students’ impressive strategic skills. Congratulations to champion Teddy in Year 11 for taking the crown.
This week, we had a visit from Camilla Tregonning representing The Good Schools Guide, as she is updating their review of GES. While we await her final write-up, I am pleased to pass on Camilla’s thanks – which I echo – to the children, parents and members of staff who took the time to share their views and anecdotes with her. Her follow-up email said, “I got such a great in-depth look at the school; I loved seeing behind the scenes and finding out so much about how (the) school ticks.”
Of course, we all know that one of the strongest elements of what we offer at GES is the way in which we know and nurture every child and young person in our care as an individual, proactively addressing any wellbeing or safeguarding issues as soon as they arise or, better still, preempting them altogether. For the past year, our Head of Pastoral Care, Mariann Csoma, has played an integral part in ensuring the happiness, focus and resilience of our students, as well as social harmony to the benefit of all. As previously announced, today is Ms Csoma’s last day with us. She will be missed, and she leaves with our gratitude as she explores her next steps.
A heartfelt thank you, too, to Ann-Marie Mendes who replaced Cath Peart, Teacher of English in Secondary, as she also leaves us today. Ms Peart will return at the beginning of March from her extended maternity leave. A pillar and founding leader of GES Secondary, having been with the senior school from its very beginning, we will be delighted to have Ms Peart back with us!
I wish everyone a fabulous winter break and I look forward to seeing everyone back in school when term resumes on Monday 2 March.
Before signing off, I encourage you to watch the video montage (see below) compiled by Madame Durey, with help from Learning Assistants, in which children share their favourite words in English and other languages spoken at home – “vacanza”, “voetbal”, “jugar”, “cacahuette”, “sleep”, “kutya”, “shalom” and “maman”. That sounds like the recipe for a perfect holiday to me!
All the best,
Christina Matillon
Celebrating Languages
Our Primary School celebrated International Mother Language Day today!
The day’s events started with special classroom visits from many parents who shared words in their home languages, including in Spanish, Greek, Italian, French, Turkish, Urdu, Malay, Bulgarian and Dutch!
Gathering for their Friday assembly, our Language Ambassadors presented the results of their survey across the Primary classes, which showed that around 20 different home languages are spoken in our Primary School. Well done to our Ambassadors for explaining why it is so important to value and celebrate every language.
Mme Durey then showed a video featuring some of our students sharing their favourite words in their home languages. Watch it here!
Thank you again to all the parents who took the time to celebrate the wonderful wealth of languages we have in our school, bravo to our Language Ambassadors for spearheading the movement, and well done to all our students for demonstrating such curiosity and willingness to learn!
This week in class
Over the last two weeks, our Reception students have been celebrating the Lunar New Year festival.
On Monday, the class was ever so excited to receive a very special delivery – a magic paintbrush! After reading the story The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson, Mrs Mackenzie used the magic paintbrush to create a magnificent dragon – it had fabulous horns, incredible wings and blew bubbles. After talking about what kind of dragons they would all create, students used their very own “magic” paintbrushes to paint their creations. They had some amazing ideas!
Students also found out that red is a lucky colour and that people often prepare for the Lunar New Year celebrations by cleaning their houses, hanging up decorations and putting out tangerines and flowers for good luck. All their learning prompted them to carry out their own dragon dance, enjoying a celebratory prawn cracker treat at the end of the dance. Our young learners also discovered that each year is named after 1 of 12 animals – this year is the year of the horse!
Celebrations continued later in the week with a very special visit from Mannie’s Mum, who told the class all about how Hong Kong celebrates the Lunar New Year. They learned about the different Chinese characters and used special calligraphy tools to attempt to write the characters on the red new year banners. Student were delighted to receive the little red envelopes for good luck, and Mannie even taught them some words in Cantonese. Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!
One of Year 1‘s favourite Maths lessons this year has definitely been Counting Chaos! Students discovered that counting large numbers one by one can get very confusing. So they learned a clever new strategy — making groups of ten to help them count more easily. By counting in tens first and then adding the extra ones, they were able to find the total much more quickly. What a time-saver!
Working in pairs, our mathematicians took on the challenge of moving around different counting stations, carefully organising objects into tens and ones before recording their totals. It was fantastic to see how quickly and confidently students could count with this method. They are now experts at counting really big numbers in no time at all!
Year 3 have been exploring magnet strength as part of their “Forces” unit in Science. Students tested from how far different magnets could attract a magnetic ball, measuring the distances carefully in centimetres and millimetres. This hands-on Science activity linked perfectly to their Maths work on measurement, allowing them to apply their knowledge in a real-world context while spotting patterns and trends in the data they collected.
Inspired by the work of textile artists Alice Kettle and Hannah Rae, our Year 3 and 4 students designed and created their own multimedia artworks. They painted directly onto fabric before adding stitched details to enhance texture and depth. To develop their ideas further, our artists explored the rich colours and expressive illustration style of the Year 3 class text, Cinderella of the Nile. This work by Iranian illustrator Marjan Vafaeian encouraged them to use bold patterns and colour palettes to influence their own creative choices.
Our Year 4 historians explored how Ancient Greek medicine remains the foundation of modern healthcare. Working in groups, they compared ancient tools with their modern equivalents, analysed the Hippocratic Oath’s focus on kindness and privacy, and imagined the chaos of a world without these ethical rules to show why Hippocrates’ guidelines are still essential today.
To share their findings, students could use whatever media they wanted, and their ideas were brilliant: bar charts, posters, drama skits and original songs! One group worked with language: they pretended to have a French student visiting the hospital who didn’t understand English, so everything had to be translated for them into their mother tongue, French!
During their French lessons, the Year 5 and 6 Advanced group has been studying animals from the Arctic and Antarctic regions, linking their learning to the Year 5 curriculum. Tasked with preparing a presentation about an animal of their choice, they then had to present it to their classmates in French.
This project helped develop their oracy skills, build their confidence to express themselves in French in front of others, and organise their ideas clearly. Students also practised forming simple, understandable sentences that they could explain independently, rather than copying and pasting information from the Internet.
We had some excellent presentations and learned a great deal about Arctic and Antarctic animals!
Year 7 had a bonus lesson this week during P.E., taking advantage of the infrastructure available at the local gym to try their hand at volleyball. They had great fun learning the basics and applying this to adapted games at the end!
Our Year 8 students have been delving deeper into their research on penguin shelters. As part of their project to build shelters for the critically endangered Boulders Beach African penguins, our scientists have been working in groups to look into what design and materials can best protect penguins and their eggs from predators, rain and heat.
Each group design was reviewed by our Science Department teachers, with teams scoring as follows:
· Third place: Tie between team “The Incubators” (Sebastian G and James) and “The Penguinocorns” (Eva and Lottie)
· Second: Team “The Mirarrrs” (Lara and Miri)
· First place: Team “Penguin Eggs” (Yves and Kyle)
Elated about his team’s victory, Kyle commented: “You all did a good job ! I want to thank my mum and my dad and my teammate”.
Beyond the Classroom
Carnival Comes to GES
It was carnival time today at GES for our Early Years and Key Stage 1 students!
Joining in the festivities currently taking place in France and in many cities across Switzerland, our youngest learners (and teachers!) donned some spectacular costumes today for their parade in the school playground. Ahead of today’s celebrations, students have been taking part in a variety of activities to learn about this tradition, including the creation of their own masks, musical workshops to learn carnival songs and storytime on the theme of carnival.
A Colourful Trip to Wales
The second edition of our Language Storytime was another great success for our Language Ambassadors. A big thank you to Elenna and Mrs Vavrecka, who introduced listeners to colours and numbers in Welsh!
Secondary House Chess Competition
No fewer than 32 Secondary students took part in the much-awaited House Chess Competition this week!
Taking part in games lasting a nail-biting 5 minutes, our chess masters were able to earn points for their Houses: from 2 points awards to those reaching the quarter-finals to a whopping 10 points for the competition winner.
Congratulations go to Year 11 student Teddy for carrying the day in the final against Finn (Year 12) and bringing House Léman to the top of the podium!
Extra-curricular Activities
A Dense Science Club Session
Does it float ? Does it sink ?
This week’s Science Club students had a hands-on taster session to explore density and how it affects everyday happenings.
Using different liquids and solids, our scientists predicted which are more or less dense than the others and made their own density columns. They observed how liquids reorganise their positions in a measuring cylinder based on their density and how far down the different solids sank through the column.
Community News
Film Night Fun
Cinephiles in Reception to Year 6 came together yesterday afternoon for the February Film Night organised by their peers to raise funds for their end-of-year celebration.
With tasty popcorn and a nice cold drink served by the Year 6 organisers, our students settled in on the comfy gym mats to enjoy a moment of cinema together.
Reminder | Inspired Global Exchange Programme
The Inspired Global Exchange Programme is open exclusively to Inspired students and enables learners to take their learning across borders by spending half a term, a term or a school year in another Inspired school.
There are currently still places available in exciting destinations such as Vietnam, Portugal or the Bahamas.
We will be holding a webinar presentation about the exchange programme on Wednesday 4 March at 18:00. More details coming soon.
If you would like to register your interest ahead of the presentation, please contact Sabine Hutcheson at [email protected].
Click here to learn more or browse the brochure.
