Issue: 19 | Friday 25th February 2022

Message from the Head

Dear Parents,

I hope that you and your families had a wonderful half term, be that skiing in the mountains, sheltering from the rain by the lake or traveling somewhere lovely. It has been great to have everyone back at school, the onset of spring and the current glorious sunshine has meant that the children have been able to get outside and have a wonderful first week back.

Thank you for being so prompt to pick the children up on Monday. All the staff undertook a very intense, but informative, safeguarding training session led by Andrew Hall from Safeguarding in Schools. In this three-hour session, Andrew made sure that staff were clear on the best safeguarding practices and also learnt more about the new dangers from social media and how to keep our students safe. The safeguarding leads and myself spent all of Tuesday undertaking a full day of training and went into case studies and case reviews and had time to reflect on best safeguarding practices at GES. We are a safe and happy school but the senior team and I always want to make sure that we are prepared and knowledgeable about safeguarding and child protection.

On Thursday and Friday we had the pleasure to host Diana Huntingford who is an experienced educational consultant, previous school leader, Ofsted inspector and Director of Education. Diana is an external expert that we are using to continue to enhance our teaching and learning across the school. Diana met with a number of students across the school as well as popping into lessons, looking at books and speaking to staff. Diana will be reporting back to the leadership team and governors so we can incorporate her observations into our five year plan and year by year development plan.

On Monday next week we have a question and answer session with the Board of Governors about the proposed legal changes to the governance structure of the school. We need two third of families to vote in favor of the change and so please attend the meeting on Monday evening if you have any questions. Kate Bontekoe, our Chair, will do a quick overview presentation and then the rest of the meeting will be an opportunity for the Board to listen. If parents do have any proposed changes to propose, this will be the time to listen to these. For your convenience, the meeting will be held via Zoom and you should have received an email to this effect this week.

I am very excited to announce that our Holiday Camp section has gone live on our website today. The camps are going to be run by our wonderful and dedicated teachers in their fields of expertise and particular areas of interest. There is a wide range, from sport camps or Art Portfolio boosters to Mandarin studies or FlightLab technology and you will find options for the Spring or Summer holiday. Please check out the offer and share it with your friends and connections. While some camps are exclusively for GES students, others are open to external participants as well. Booking for camps will open on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend and I hope to see you on Monday on the Zoom call at 18:00.

Best wishes,

Matt Williams
Head

Pupil successes

Raiffeisen Erika Hess Ski Competition

Congratulations to Alice Caulton (Key Stage 1) who came 1st in her category (5-7 years, blue course) at ski competition Raiffeisen Erika Hess Open in Les Diablerets.

Big brother Thomas (Year 4) did also really well with a very respectable 12th out of 30+ kids (8-11 years, main course).

Well done you two!

We’re hoping to announce similar great results from our upcoming SGIS ski competition in Morgins.

Head's Distinction - Primary French

Over the holidays, Mme Bongioanni’s Year 5 French class have produced some wonderful video projects. They had to show the daily life of an object and use sentences with pronominal verbs to narrate the story.

A huge congratulations to all for their hard work, and especially Noah Sheikh who received a Headmaster’s Distinction for his video:

Secondary Languages Ambassadors

This week for International Mother Language Day, Mr Wootton launched a Languages Ambassador scheme at Secondary, aiming to help and enrich the Modern Foreign Languages lessons and experiences.

Well done to the 7 students from Y7 and Y8 who willingly accepted the mission. These are the languages they have or are learning:

  • Helena de Souza Y7 – Portuguese (Brazil), English, French, German
  • Sam Koechlin Y7 – English, French, Spanish, Finnish, Korean
  • Raphael Collas Y8 – French, English, Arabic, Spanish
  • Stella Hein Y8 – French, English, Creole (Mauritius)
  • Chloe Kouppari Y8 – English, French, Spanish, Greek
  • Alfie Murphy Y8 – English, French, German, Gallic
  • Kitan Oshin Y8 – English, French, Spanish, Yoruba

Registration for Nursery and Reception

If there are any Parents with younger siblings looking to start Nursery or Reception in September 2022, please do get in touch with Alice at Admissions and register your interest.

Places are filling quickly.

GES Little Ducklings Playgroup

We are delighted to be able to resume our Little Ducklings Playgroup on site!

They will happen every second Friday from 9:00 to 10:00, starting on Friday 11 March.

Feel free to share with friends who have children between 0-4 years.

It is a wonderful opportunity to meet others and to take part in a wide range of activities (music-making, story telling, arts and crafts) in a stimulating French-English speaking environment.

Link to register here.

GES Holiday Camps

We are very excited to launch our first season of holiday camps this Spring and Summer at GES.

Camps will be run by our teachers and staff and you can find all details on the new Holiday Camps section of our website. Scroll down to discover details of camps available, click on the find out more button for extra information, including dates, suitable ages as well as booking details. Booking for camps will open on Monday.

We very much look forward to seeing your children or teenagers at one of our camps.

Upcoming enrichment days

World Book Day next week

A reminder that we will be celebrating World Book Day’s 25th anniversary next week.

Children at Primary are invited to dress up as their favourite book character on Tuesday 1 March.

At Secondary, students and staff will work together to create a digital archive of book recommendations and participate in various competitions throughout the week.

Journée de la Francophonie - Lundi 14 Mars

Pour le lancement de la semaine de la Francophonie (du 12 au 20 mars), nous invitons les élèves et membres du personnel à se déguiser le lundi 14 mars, en monument ou personnage francophone, ou à porter les couleurs de drapeaux de pays francophones.

Les étudiants des deux campus participeront à diverses activités et compétitions durant leurs leçons tout au long de la semaine.


To launch Francophonie Week (12 – 20 March), our pupils and staff are invited to dress up on Monday 14 March as a French monument/Francophone character, and/or wear colours of Francophone countries’ flags.

All children across both campuses will participate in various enrichment activities in their lessons throughout the week.

"ON:Running" small feet new testing quest

Our friends from ON:Running, the innovative Swiss shoe brand are looking again for “small feet” testers in the following shoe sizes:

  • Children that wear kids size EU 31 (UK12.5K/ US13)
  • Children/ Teens that wear adult size EU36 1/2 (UK4/ US4.5)

If your child loves sneakers and wears one of the above sizes, please contact Amra from their testing department directly by 20 March via [email protected].

Amra will happily tell you more about their small feet testing project. The fittings will conveniently take part at GES.

What's happening next week?

1 Mar
World Book Day celebration at GES Primary
2 Mar
Virtual Open events 11:00 - 20:00
3 Mar
World Book Day celebration at GES Secondary
4 Mar
Y5 & 6 Ski and Snow Day