We offer a wide range of inspiring extra-curricular clubs and societies to spark and develop our students’ interests beyond the curriculum. Our passionate team of teachers run clubs at lunchtime and after school.

Some of the clubs and societies are:

The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award is also known as DofE International Award.  The Award is available to all 14-24 year olds and is the world’s leading youth achievement award. It equips young people for life regardless of their background, culture, physical ability, skills and interests. Doing the Award is a personal challenge and not a competition against others; it pushes young people to their personal limits and recognises their achievements.

Since its launch over 60 years ago, the Award has inspired millions of young people to transform their lives. Through non-formal education, the Award can play a critical role in a young person’s personal development.

At GES, the award is available for students in years 9 to 13, and some of its components can contribute towards our A Level programme.

There are three attainment levels:

• Bronze for pupils in year 9 and older.
• Silver for pupils in year 10 and older.
• Gold for pupils in year 12 and 13.

The International Award comprises four sections, all of which must be completed to gain the Award:

• Service to encourage a sense of responsibility to the community
• Skills to encourage the development of cultural, vocational or practical skills
• Physical recreation to encourage improved performance and physical fitness
• Adventurous journey to encourage a spirit of adventure and discovery
• And for the Gold Award only, a Residential project to broaden experience through involvement with others in a residential setting

Residential trips

Residential trips offer pupils a great opportunity to strengthen their friendships and to develop both personally and socially outside of the classroom. During these trips, we focus on team-building activities and also enhancing the curriculum in exciting, real-life contexts. These learning opportunities really enable the pupils to develop confidence and independence.

We offer ski camps in the fantastic resort of Verbier. The pupils take ski lessons designed to suit their level. In the evenings, pupils enjoy team-building activities, sport, games and competitions. It is also a wonderful opportunity for the pupils to use their French in this beautiful Swiss resort.

We also offer outdoor-activity trip in the first week of the summer holidays, giving pupils the opportunity to enjoy outdoor sports such as climbing, mountain biking and white-water rafting.

And there are of course multiple opportunities to go on expeditions for the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award.

Educational Visits

We offer a range of educational visits which give the pupils the opportunity to experience a real-life context to their learning and inspire them. We organise a variety of trips which exploit our fantastic situation, may that be for our Sports leaders to international sports events and organisations or whole classes visiting CERN, corporate visits or anything from theatre productions to classical music concerts.

We host a great range of guest speakers in order to ensure that our pupils are inspired by the different paths that people can take and the range of professions out there. There are such a wealth of experts and interesting people in Geneva alone, never mind beyond, and we really want them to share their story with our pupils.

Our TED-style talks may cover topics ranging from big data, matter and engineering at CERN, the world’s most extreme experiments, climate change, planning an Antarctic expedition, Yehudi Menuhin, healthy eating to sustainably-sourced food and plastic-free living!

We also build into our curriculum a range of workshops, cross-curricular projects and drop-down days led by experts that allow our pupils to really explore a topic in depth. We have tackled topics such as sustainable development, innovative design and Antarctic exploration.