Message from Ms Matillon, Director General
Dear Parents,
The atmosphere at our Secondary campus this week, particularly on Corridor C, has been calm and focused as our Year 12 students have been writing their mock exams. Next week, the hard work will continue with Year 11 and Year 13 mock exams, as well as Year 10 in-class assessments starting on Monday. This is the time of year when our students’ (and their teachers’) dedication bears fruit, and I am absolutely confident that they will leave their exam rooms tired, but proud of their effort and achievement.
A much lighter mood has been apparent in Primary where we enjoyed “La Semaine de la Francophonie”, a week dedicated to celebrating all things francophone. I have been enchanted today by the costumes worn by the many children and staff members who dressed up for the occasion, wearing Bleu Blanc Rouge, berets, magnificent Marie Antoinette gowns – but with a better outcome! – or carrying a basket of baguettes! As is so often the case, I am inspired by the sense of joy and community across the school, and this makes me look forward to the many events planned for the remainder of the academic year all the more.
This week we held Open Days, on Wednesday at Primary and on Thursday at Secondary, for prospective families to visit our sites. Whilst we regularly run such events virtually, this is the first time in a while that we did so in person. Both days were well attended by families already living in and around Geneva, and others coming from abroad. I would like to thank those amongst you who have recommended GES to friends and colleagues, as referrals remain the most effective way to spread the word about what a special place this is. I also send a very special word of appreciation to four utterly charming students from our Year 5 and Year 6 classes – William, Hanna, Lea and Romain – who spoke eloquently and enthusiastically to visiting parents about their experiences at GES and described all that they love about their school. It absolutely made my day when, in answer to a mum who asked what they would change about their school if they could, they said “NOTHING”!
On Sunday, a team of seven Key Stage 3 students will represent GES at the 2025 History Bee and Bowl of Switzerland. This annual event is run by International Academic Competitions, the world’s largest organiser of quiz tournaments and academic competitions for Primary and Secondary school students. Founded in 2010, IAC oversees events for students in over 50 countries and this year’s History competition will feature twelve teams in Switzerland. We wish our young historians the best of luck. To quote Sir Francis Bacon, knowledge is power, and we know you will be strong!
All the best,
Christina Matillon
Semaine de la Francophonie
Parents and visitors coming to Primary will have noticed this week how the campus was bedecked in the colours of France, Switzerland and French-speaking countries! Throughout the week, our students have been celebrating the Semaine de la Francophonie through French-themed activities in their lessons and beyond.
In our Pre-school classes, discussions were all about snails as students read the story Hector l’escargot qui voulait changer de coquille by Jean-Baptiste Beaudelle. Inspired by this, they then made their own snails with dough!
Our youngest learners and their peers in Key Stage 1 welcomed the Primary House Captains to their classrooms for storytime in French, while students in Years 1 and 2 took part in workshops involving the reading of stories from francophone countries and the creation of flags.
For Year 3 and 4 detectives, the weekly challenge involved seeking (“chercher“) and finding (“trouver“) all the French-themed flags in their classrooms and school halls.
Year 5 and 6 students stepped into the shoes of reporters as they toured the school to interview staff about their favourite word in French and to research information on Francophone countries in preparation for a whole-school quiz.
The week’s celebrations culminated today as students and staff donned some fantastic costumes representing Francophone characters and monuments. In their weekly assembly, they celebrated all that had been accomplished during the week with a video made specially for the occasion and paraded in their costumes for students to vote for their favourite attire!
Special thanks go to our wonderful parents who organised a delicious bake sale of croissants and pains au chocolat to mark the Semaine de la Francophonie and to our French department, whose indefatigable energy made for lasting memories and superb learning opportunities for everyone at school.
Les parents et les visiteurs de l’école primaire auront remarqué cette semaine que le campus s’était paré des couleurs de la France, de la Suisse et des pays francophones ! Tout au long de la semaine, nos élèves ont célébré la Semaine de la Francophonie par des activités sur le thème du français dans leurs cours et au-delà.
Dans nos classes maternelles, les discussions ont porté sur les escargots après la lecture de l’histoire Hector l’escargot qui voulait changer de coquille de Jean-Baptiste Beaudelle. Inspirés par cette histoire, ils ont ensuite fabriqué leurs propres escargots avec de la pâte à sel !
Nos plus jeunes élèves et leurs camarades du Key Stage 1 ont accueilli les House Captains pour un conte en français, tandis que les élèves des années 1 et 2 ont participé à des ateliers impliquant la lecture d’histoires de pays francophones et la création de drapeaux.
Pour les détectives des classes 3 et 4, le défi de la semaine consistait à chercher et à trouver tous les drapeaux liés à la Francophonie dans leurs classes et dans les couloirs de l’école.
Les élèves des classes 5 et 6 se sont mis dans la peau de reporters en parcourant l’école pour interviewer les enseignants sur leur mot préféré en français et pour chercher des informations sur les pays francophones en vue de préparer un quiz pour l’assemblée de vendredi.
Les célébrations de la semaine ont culminé aujourd’hui. Les élèves et les enseignants ont revêtu leurs plus beaux costumes représentant des personnages et des monuments francophones. Lors de l’assemblée, ils ont célébré tout ce qui avait été accompli au cours de la semaine à travers une vidéo réalisée spécialement produite pour l’occasion.
Nous remercions tout particulièrement nos merveilleux parents qui ont organisé une délicieuse vente de viennoiseries à l’occasion de la Semaine de la Francophonie, ainsi que notre département de français, dont l’énergie infatigable a permis à tous les élèves de l’école de garder un créer se beaux souvenirs et de profiter de superbes opportunités d’apprentissage.
This week in class
Year 2 conducted some great fieldwork this week as part of their Geography trip to Genthod. Reading a map to follow the route, they used roads and other features to help orient themselves. Our super geographers used directional language to help each other navigate and used geographical symbols to annotate their maps with the featured landmarks they found across Genthod.
Coming to a paper recycling bin near you!
As part of their topic on Rainforests, Year 3 have been debating about the actions we can initiate here at school to help stop deforestation taking place thousands of miles away. Our students’ solution is to encourage more people at GES to recycle paper, which will help reduce our school’s own consumption. Taking to their pens and pencils, they have designed posters to help educate the community about the negative impact of deforestation in order to encourage active recycling across the Primary campus.
As a hook to their new Science unit on “Living Things and their Habitats”, Year 6 has been learning about branching databases by classifying their shoes by colour, type, heel, fastener, and more. Ms Marceau threw in a few heels and sparkles to liven up the discussion! A fun exercise to illustrate theory through practice!
Over the past two weeks in Geography, two Geography Challenges have been running simultaneously! In Year 7 students have been studying the Geography of Africa, with their challenge for this term being to identify all of the countries in Africa in the shortest time possible! Congratulations to Jaylen for managing to identify all 55 countries (the 54 recognised by the UN, plus Western Sahara) in less than 1 minute! The times for the top 5 are below:
Year 7 Geography challenge – Africa
- Jaylen – 59:149 seconds
- Isabella – 1:00:046
- Vivan – 1:02:954
- Lara – 1:09.559
- Sebastian – 1:13.409
In Year 8 Geography, students have been looking at the challenges faced by coastlines around the world. Their Geography Challenge was themed around ‘World Islands’, and they had 39 of which they needed to memorise the location. These included the islands of Sulawesi and Bali in Indonesia, Baffin and Victoria Islands in Canada, and the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Congratulations to Guillermo for his excellent time of 41.255 seconds. The top 5 times are below:
Year 8 Geography challenge – World Islands
- Guillermo – 41:255 seconds
- Miatta – 43:489 seconds
- Adam – 43:973 seconds
- Olly – 44:924 seconds
- Joey – 47:710 seconds
Click on the links above to try the challenges for yourself and see how you compare with our Key Stage 3 students!
This week was one full of exciting experiments in Science for our Year 8 students as they took to the various apparatus in their school laboratories to carry out their own experiments, which they had researched and designed themselves.
Experiments included :
- Making a lemon battery
- Flame testing
- Reacting catalase enyzme (in potatoes) with hydrogen peroxide
- Making invisible ink
- Making bath bombs
- Investigating the reaction between bicarbonate of soda and vinegar
- Making “hot ice”
- Making an ice pack
- Demonstrating displacement reactions using copper sulfate and various metals
Year 10 and 11 P.E. students enjoyed learning and teaching netball on the Secondary court with their brand new Secondary netball posts! The more experienced team players helped teach those who have never played the sport before in a great demonstration of leadership, initiative and collaboration.
Well done, everybody!
Beyond the Classroom
A Tour of Switzerland's Native Fauna
Year 1 had a fantastic day out at La Garenne Animal Park this week. Students enjoyed observing local animals from Switzerland and were able to retrieve so many facts about them from their previous learning in Science lessons. They were able to recall what diets each animal has and what types of teeth they have to suit their eating habits. They also named which animal group each creature belonged to. The day ended with a well deserved hot chocolate!
Well done, Year 1!
A Mathematical Extravaganza at Secondary
After a riveting Maths House Quiz last week on the occasion of Pi Day, mathematicians in Years 7-13 competed once again in their favourite subject, this time for the Swiss Maths Kangaroo and the UK Maths Trust Olympiads.
We look forward to sharing the results with our school community!
Exploring Identity with Artist Matt Lowden
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, our Year 5 and 6 Art lessons were enhanced by an exclusive exhibition and workshop led by artist and GES parent, Matt Lowden. It was a perfect complement to the students’ unit on “Exploring Identity” as they were encouraged to consider how an artist conveys the complex layers of an individual’s identity through composition, colour and line.
Our artists enjoyed sharing their own draft self-portraits and tapping into Matt’s expertise on how to develop their artwork. It was great to hear the students’ feedback after the visit and see how inspired they were by the workshop and the opportunity to be in such close proximity to the paintings.
GES Skiers Climb the Podium
The GES ski team had another very successful SGIS race last Friday in Les Crosets in the last ski event of this season.
Despite foggy conditions, our skiers battled courageously to overcome the elements and produce some fantastic individual and team results:
- Category F Boys: 1st place
- Category F Girls: 2nd place
- Category E Boys: 1st place
- Category D Boys: 2nd place
Individual medals went to:
- Alice – Gold
- Valentina – Bronze
- Danny – Gold
- Bryan – Silver
- Kai – Gold
- Arthur – Silver
Community News
News from the Parents' Association
Further to the last update from the Parents’ Association, we now have our own bank account which holds all funds previously raised and allows us to take Twint payments at our events.
The Primary portion of the funds is 10’502chf, which, with support from School, puts us within reach of being able to purchase an additional climbing frame for the Primary campus.
Just as the Multi-use Games Area (MUGA) was built with the proceeds of a fundraising effort by the parent community in 2019, we believe this new climbing frame will be of great use and benefit to the children. It has been an aspiration of the class reps to purchase this, will the proceeds of all of our events and your support over the last few years, so we are keen to be able to secure delivery and installation this summer, so it is ready for the children to enjoy in September 2025.
But we still need one more push to raise the cost of the installation.
Please see here a photo of the structure we hope to be able to deliver; this will be in addition to the existing frame and slide in front of the EYFS outdoor space. As it allows 30+ users at a time, it will give the children another area to play and enjoy at break times, so your class reps have been coming up with fun ways to help make this possible.
To that end, Primary proceeds from this year’s GES International Carnival on Friday 16 May (save the date!) will go towards this effort, and very excitingly we will have a Key Stage 1 and 2 Disco on Friday 25 April from 15:45 – 17:45, with a bar offering refreshments for all little disco-goers and their parents. Please save the date, and come along to enjoy and support this initiative and a new event in the Primary school calendar.
GES on the Airwaves
Our very own Daniel Crabtree, Head of Senior School, was on the WRS airwaves this morning for an exchange with Katt Cullen on the Breakfast Show!
In the interview, Mr Crabtree explains why A Levels are considered the gold standard for university entrance around the world, how GES makes sure that every student receives personalised advice to choose the subject package that will enable them to gain entry to the university course best suited to them, and why the A Level focus on a small number of subjects enables students both to realise their full potential and maintain a passion for learning.
Farewell to Mr Sayeed and Ms Youngs-Lachmund
Today marks the last teaching days at GES of Wali Sayeed, Maths teacher, and Theresa Youngs-Lachmund, Sociology and Geography teacher, who both joined our school in September as cover teachers during Ms Brewin and Ms Kelleher’s maternity leaves.
We thank them both for the positive impact they have made on our school community and their many contributions to creating wonderful learning opportunities for our students both within and outside the classroom, including as part of our Outdoor Education clubs and residential trips.
We wish them both a very fond farewell and the very best for their future endeavours, and look forward to receiving news from them in the coming months and years.
Click here to view the very special send-off Ms Youngs-Lachmund received from some of her students today!
Faces of GES
Our Faces of GES series flips over to Primary today as we shine a spotlight on Learning Assistant, Alexander Rademaker, who started working with GES in 2021 as a cover teacher and exams invigilator.
With a keen interest in all things scientific, Alex holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from University College London as well as a Secondary PGCE teaching qualification in Biology from the University of Cambridge. His passion, however, is most definitely education as he finds the endless creativity and innovative spirit of children absolutely amazing. For Alex, few things are as fulfilling as seeing students become increasingly independent as they learn new skills and eventually achieve tasks completely unaided, though ensuring that teachers are supported so that they can work with greater ease and peace of mind is also among the things he finds most rewarding in his work. For Alex, GES is a fantastic place of learning for students, both because of the wonderful teaching that is delivered and because the school grounds are so conducive to learning through play and through contact with the natural world. His greatest wish for his students? To remain kind and use what they learn to create something new and good!
Beyond the classroom, Alex is an avid skateboarder and has been practising this sport for 17 years, including with GES students for whom he has led an extra-curricular skateboard club! An alumnus of our Primary School, Alex fondly remembers his time with us as a student under the headship of the late Mr Denis Unsworth. In working to keep GES the very special place that it is, Alex truly has come full circle.
