We felt that École Bilingue Suisse Romande was the only one suited where our son would practice and learn both french and english.
After a year experiencing the school program and global life, we realize our son has been improving in both languages, and his curiosity and love for learning and understanding have been very much satisfied.
We love the fact that it's a small school , small groups, with high level teachers for every subjects.The kids get a lot of attention.
We would recommend that school to parents looking for a bilingual environment, in a very human non pretentious atmosphere.
No school is perfect , and it is impossible to please everyone...we recommend paying attention to the levels of critics, what they are based one, objective matters, or personal...
Hello, first of all welcome to Switzerland! I enrolled my 2 children at The International Cottage in Vevey. I had the opportunity to speak with parents who told me how quick their kids have been learning both languages.
You should definitly tour all schools. I know it takes a bit of time but very worthy....
Hello! We read your post about EBSR and found it very helpful. Could you please check-in and let us know if you continue to be as happy there now as you were when you wrote it? We are moving to Switz with our 4 boys (ages 7-10), and we would love for them to be in a truly bilingual school. But they're starting with pretty much zero French. Thanks for your thoughts!
We kept our daughter in state school this year, but she will join the EBSR next September.
So we have not experienced yet, but 2 friends of mine have their kids (3 in total) enrolled there and they are really happy.
One of them is a gifted child, and she was so bored in state school. Now her mum says that this is a new life, she is so happy to go to school every day :-) and learns so may things (ENG and Fr but also sciences, latin, and matters that are usually taught latter).
The second one choose the school for the daily schedule + price, since it appears to be one of the cheapest private school, in the area. Almost everything is comprised in the price, including camps. And she is happy.
I happened to meet 2 other parents with kids enrolled, and so far only good comments (except that kids are afraid of headmistress, which can also be a good point in my opinion !).
For these reasons we decided to join. I recommend that you pay a visit !
PS: should you like to get a direct feedback from one of my friends whose kids are enrolled, please send me a pm with your email address, I am sure she will be happy to share her thoughts !
After my family moved to Lausanne in 2009, two of my children attended École Bilingue Suisse Romande/Bilingual School of Suisse Romande for three years.
We toured six different schools in Lausanne and Vaud before settling on EBSR. The location of the school was very convenient for us and the fact that it was a true bilingual school really appealed to us. The tuition was reasonable - my two younger children's combined tuitions and lunches were less than my third child's tuition at Brillantmont. (BTW - Brillantmont is an excellent choice for older children or for children who plan to attend university in the U.K. or U.S.)
My children were ages 9 and 5 when they started at EBSR and in three years they both became quite fluent in French. We are now living in the U.S. and with twice a week tutoring sessions they are managing to hold on to most of their French language acquisition. My children loved EBSR - they liked their teachers, they enjoyed being allotted two very generous play periods (recesses) during the day, and having a nice hot meal for lunch. The core subject instruction was decent - it was a bit harder the first year for my children as they spoke no French at all when they started at the school. There were also interesting subjects such as Latin and Philosophy and my older child said that he enjoyed not having everything "dumbed down" for kids. There were many outings during the year and for the older children a week-long ski camp in winter and a sailing camp in summer. Although we were living in Switzerland as ex-pats, there was a good mix of local families attending the school as well. Most of my children's closest school friends were not native English speakers.
EBSR is a great school, but I would have to say that it is not for everyone. If you have children with serious learning disabilities or behavior issues - this is not the school for you. If you are expecting overbearing pastoral care (seen in many school systems in the U.K. And U.S.), you need to remember that this is a Swiss school and that is not the way things are done. After returning to the U.S. seven months ago, I can see that my children are more mature, independent, and responsible than most of their American peers at school. (And even better - they are bilingual!)