International School Parent Magazine - Summer 2021

Pre-IB Advice 

From The Experts 

Insider tips on IAs, 

Extended Essays and TOK 

Exploring 

Switzerland 

This Summer 

Unforgettable summer 

break ideas in Switzerland 

Sleep 

A Sleep well, live 

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Welcome to the summer 2021 

edition of International School 

Parent magazine. 

Isn’t it a wonderful feeling now that everything is opening up nicely? I visited my family in Oberäageri 

recently. During a tour around the local mountain passes, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing people sitting out on 

the terraces and meeting with their friends in the sun. With our newfound freedom, my family and I have 

enjoyed planning our summer holidays and looking at activity camp options for our eldest daughter. 

We are well aware that foreign travel is still relatively limited (yawn), so we have prepared an absolute 

treasure trove of Swiss summer and family-friendly activities to enjoy: hiking, scenic train rides, cycling in 

the mountains, Italian-influenced adventures in Ticino and much more. There is also a range of unbelievable 

prizes to be won in our online competitions over the next few months. Keep an eye out on our Facebook 

page, newsletter, and website for more information on entering. 

We have also had the fortune to meet some very interesting headteachers for this edition. We met with 

Andy Puttock, who has taken the helm at La Côte International School in Aubonne. Andy highlighted the 

need for a focus on student wellbeing and gave us his insights into the impressive journey that has framed 

his outlook on education. 

Brett Gray, from The Ostrava International School, is another of our interviewees. A fascinating personal 

journey starting in Prague in the 1980s, Brett and his team created and shaped The Ostrava International 

School and have built it into a world-class IB International School. 

As usual, we have some excellent articles from authors around the world, and we remain committed to the 

task of helping parents and children make the most of the opportunities an education at an international 

school in Switzerland provides. 

Enjoy the summer break, see you in the Autumn! 

Work hard and be the best. 

Nick 

Nick Gilbert 

Editor & Publishing Director 

International School Parent Magazine 

Mobile + 41 787 10 80 91 | Email nick@internationalschoolparent.com 

Website www.internationalschoolparent.com | Facebook facebook.com/internationalschoolparent 

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT SUMMER 2021 | 3

06 

Contents 

42 

51 

06 Meet the Headteachers - Andy Puttock - La Côte 

International School 

12 Meet the Headteachers - Brett Gray - The Ostrava 


17 Treasured Alps, Threatened Alps - Colouring 

Competition Results 

20 Positivity In a Pandemic 

23 Pre-IB Advice From The Experts 

26 - 40 Staycation in Switzerland 

Liechtenstein - Princely Family Experiences 

Ticino - The Sunny Side Of Switzerland 

Zermatt - The Matterhorn Family Destination 

Gstaad - An Adventure For All The Family 

Exploring Switzerland This Summer 

Hohsaas Bergbahn - Saas Grund 

Appenzell - Discover The Hoher Kasten 

Interlaken - Family Breaks in a Holiday Region 

Engelberg-Titlis - This Is It! 

Dents du Midi - Endless Possibilities 

Canton Vaud - A Night Under The Stars 

Schilthorn - Explore The Secret World 

42 How Do Teachers Get To Know Your Child? 

44 Sleep - The Bedrock Of Good Health 

48 Stop And Smell The Roses! 

51 Culture And Conversations 

54 Dealing With Bullying As An Expat 

58 Widening Gaps 

61 The Learner Passport: Reinventing High School 

Transcripts 

64 When Should I Worry About My Child’s Stress Levels? 


7 

reasons to visit the 

Principality of Liechtenstein 

→ tourismus.li/en 

4 

Hike with an eagle 

1 

Visit Vaduz Castle 

5 

Take the kids llama 

and alpaca trekking 

2 

Hike the 

Liechtenstein Trail 

6 

Stroll through the 

old town of Vaduz 

3 

Explore the mountain 

village of Malbun 

7 

Taste Liechtensteiner 

Käsknöpfle

© Ian Charles Stewart 

MEET THE 

HEADTEACHER 

La Côte International School – Andy Puttock 

Andy Puttock, Principal at La Côte International School (LCIS) Aubonne, recently sat down with Nick 

Gilbert, Editor and Publishing Director of International School Parent Magazine. 

Andy, like all school leaders, has 

been coping with the impact of 

the pandemic over the past year. 

During this, he has not shied away from 

a new challenge: he moved from being 

Director of Education at Nord Anglia 

Education to the role of Principal at LCIS. 

“Young people’s wellbeing will either be 

the biggest crisis or the biggest opportunity 

of the second quarter of this century.” says 

Andy, sharing his vision for successfully 

leading international schools into their next 

chapter. 

What initially inspired you to pursue a 

career in education? 

I always wanted to be a teacher - My first 

job was in teaching, and it is my privilege 

to say that I will also finish my career in 

teaching. As a teenager I was active in 

youth clubs, volunteered in various settings 

with children and found that I really loved 

working with young people. I have always 

had a passion for languages and chose 

French, Maths and Latin as my A-level 

subjects. I then did a degree in modern and 

medieval languages and went on to become 

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT SUMMER 2021 | 6 

a French teacher. 

Following that, I worked as a languages 

teacher for a few years, went on to be 

Head of Modern Languages, became a 

deputy head, then head of a comprehensive 

school in Essex. I then moved to an even 

bigger comprehensive school in Dorset as 

headteacher, where I stayed for 12 years, 

successfully carrying out a complete rebuild 

of the school as part of its growth. 

Although I loved my time in the UK 

public school sector, at a certain point 

I began to crave a new challenge, and

exploring international education offered an 

incredible opportunity to immerse myself in 

something completely new. 

The challenge for me was to adapt my 

experience as a school leader in the UK 

public sector to leadership in the private 

international sector. I went to Beijing and 

spent four very happy years at the British 

School of Beijing, which is part of Nord 

Anglia Education. Nord Anglia was smaller 

then, we only had about 13 schools when 

I joined. At the time, I joined because I 

loved the school and later learned about 

the benefits that being part of the group 

brought to the school, teachers and 

students. LCIS is now part of a group 

of 73 premium international schools, 

which are attracting both staff and families 

because they are part of Nord Anglia 

Education. It has been a big change in the 

last eight years. 

What did you learn from the Beijing 

experience? 

Honestly, I learned everything. From a 

professional point of view, I think I was the 

classic principal coming out of a public 

sector environment, thinking that the 

skills were all just eminently transferable 

when moving to the private sector. And 

of course, many of them are transferable. 

I had managed very large budgets; I had 

led schools. But of course, the private 

sector is very different. The for-profit 

aspect was new to me, and it was of utmost 

importance to me to learn how to respond 

even more closely to the needs and wishes 

of parents whilst at all times maintaining 

my educational integrity. 

Beijing has an incredibly competitive 

international school market: there are 

huge numbers of international schools 

there, and a growing Chinese middle-class 

is seeking international education. They 

value the truly personalised, nurturing, 

and supportive nature of education that 

international schools offer, and of course, 

they understand that internationally 

recognised diplomas such as the 

International Baccalaureate Diploma 

Programme open doors to top universities 

around the world. Navigating those 

professional and commercial challenges, 

and of course living in Beijing, I learnt so 

much about life. It is a brilliant city and my 

family, and I spent a wonderful four years 

there. 

What have you learnt from your time as a 

headteacher of an international school? 

I have always passionately believed in the 

concept of personalised education. When 

you step into an international context, you 

realise exactly what that means. All the 

individual cultures, values and aspirations 

require a very personalised approach to 

learning. Not only do we have to ensure 

that learning really meets the individual 

needs of students and provide them 

with a broad range of opportunities to 

discover new talents and passions, but it 

is also essential that we establish a strong 

school family and welcoming culture that 

celebrates real openness and true diversity. 

This is crucial: when you are living in a 

country where most of your students are 

expats, the school is so important to them, it 


is the centre of the community, it is family. 

Even when I was head of a school in the 

UK, we talked about the school being 

a family, and especially in international 

schools such as La Côte, this is now true 

more than ever. 

What characterises the students 

graduating from La Côte? 

The school has always, I think, been clear 

about its purpose. It has established itself 

well as a highly inclusive family school, 

where children feel nurtured and well 

looked after. I think that is one of the 

advantages of being a school of our size. 

But we have also really focused on our 

academic record of excellence in the last 

three or four years, which of course is the 

key factor for our parents and students who

“We offer just the most phenomenal 

opportunities to allow our students to discover 

things that they never knew they would love.” 

aspire to joining great universities. 

And so, when I look at our graduating 

class this year, they are ready to make a 

difference in the world, they are eager to go 

out and become leaders in their respective 

fields. We already know some our students 

will receive outstanding IB diploma results 

and fantastic university offers. We have 

students with offers at the Ivy League, MIT 

has made early offers, and we have students 

gaining places at top UK universities. 

How has the recent shift to online 

learning affected how you teach your 

students? 

We were actually very lucky in Switzerland 

- we only had one closure in the spring. And 

although we are ready to switch to virtual 

learning if needed, it looks like we will 

remain open - fingers crossed. Of course, 

virtual learning will never be the same as 

being in school. However, we established 

a high-quality virtual school experience, 

which was very much appreciated by 

parents. 

For our graduating classes, preparing 

them for the future has also been critical. 

Our recent LCIS graduates already tell me 

that much of their university learning is 

now online, even pre-pandemic, for lectures 

and even some tutorials. At university, 

learning is still a social activity, but it does 

not necessarily mean being in the same 

room as your peers. And I think the way 

we can prepare our students for that is 

so important. So, our virtual learning 

provision is not just a reaction to the 

pandemic, but a deliberate preparation for 

their future at university and beyond. 

What would you say makes the learning 

environment at La Côte extra special? 

We are quite a compact school, which 

allows us to follow each of our students 

closely as they grow, from the youngest 

children right the way through to the 

senior students, and we make sure that 

every single student benefits from this close 

relationship. The other facet that that we 

have always focused on and that we are 

passionate about is true personalisation in 

all its different aspects. 

One of these is well established in many 

schools. Most schools today make sure that 

they know each individual student well and 

tailor learning to their needs. But the thing 

I see is crucial to an education that really 

supports students to thrive, and again Nord 

Anglia is at the heart of this, is making sure 

that we offer just the most phenomenal 

opportunities to allow our students to 

discover things that they never knew they 

would love. 

One of the dangers a school, especially 


an international school, can fall into, 

is trying to be all things to all people. 

International should not just mean ‘British 

international’ or ‘IB international’ school 

or ‘the international school of somewhere’. 

A school like ours, whose raison d’être is 

to be international – and not just in the 

sense of curriculum – is all about offering 

global perspectives, global opportunities, 

and an international mindset. Our location 

in Switzerland, set in beautiful countryside 

but close to truly great global cities, gives us 

a unique opportunity to do this. It is crucial 

that we support our children to flourish 

within their own culture and language, and 

we must nurture in them the active values, 

attributes and skills needed to facilitate 

positive change in the future. 

Which features of the school do parents 

value the most? 

Even though I have not yet met many

of our parents in person because of the 

pandemic - and I cannot wait to do so - I 

am in regular contact and have had many 

great conversations with them, which 

I value very much. This dialogue, this 

working in partnership with our parents, 

gives us invaluable insights into what we 

do best and where we still need to develop. 

Openness and transparency are something 

I have always made one of my benchmarks 

for success and failure in my career as a 

headteacher. When we have a decision to 

make, we involve the parents. When we 

have something going on, we inform them 

about it. 

Take for example the COVID situation 

in the school. If we have a student who 

has tested positive or is affected, we inform 

our parents. Of course, we maintain 

confidentiality and privacy of the students, 

but we make sure that we handle such 

situations with as much transparency as 

possible. Some of our parents have children 

in other schools where this is not the case 

and they have clearly expressed their 

appreciation for our approach. 

Which other areas of education and 

extracurricular activities are you 

developing? 

Well, during the pandemic our students 

became very good at skiing and badminton. 

And we will hold a lot of badminton 

matches in the future because it is the only 

non-contact sport you can have in school 

at the moment! Joking aside, skiing is an 

integral part of our academic calendar 

and we provide several opportunities for 

our students to get involved with the sport 

during the school year. But our competitive 

links with other schools in team sports 

are also important, both in Switzerland 

and through the Nord Anglia Education 

European schools’ network, where we have 


had great successes. 

Also important are our links with MIT, 

Juilliard, and UNICEF, thanks to Nord 

Anglia. Now globally, those have really 

taken off the last two or three years. So, as 

we develop the mission and vision of the 

school, there are two things which we want 

to take even further. 

One is the concept of - I am trying to 

find a word other than “21st century skills” 

because that is a phrase I really do not 

like. I think it is much more about values 

and attributes and not just the functional 

sense that the word “skills” conveys. It is 

about the sense of being exploratory and 

preparing for a future that does not exist 

yet. How do we prepare our students for a 

world in which they may have 20 different 

jobs? 

And then there is the clue in the name: 

We are La Côte International School 

Aubonne, based in Switzerland, the

heart of so much that is international. To 

prepare our students to lead in the world 

of tomorrow, we really want to build on 

our connection with UNICEF, really work 

with the Sustainable Development Goals, 

leverage the opportunities the Model 

United Nations conferences offer, really 

harness those leadership opportunities. We 

want every student to leave school not just 

with the right mindset to change the world, 

but with the skills to change the world. 

What is the best thing about leading an 

international school in Switzerland? 

I think the biggest shock to me - and it 

is a wonderful shock - is just how close 

everything is. I have lived in Hong Kong, 

London and Beijing, places where it took 

us a very long time to get anywhere. I love 

the fact that we could be in Lausanne, in 

Geneva, by Lac Léman, in the mountains, 

all within about 25 minutes of where we 

live. Switzerland is a great country to live 

in. 

And it is remarkable how at home we 

feel here, considering that we arrived in the 

middle of COVID and could not do any of 

the things you normally do to feel at home. 

And that is a great credit to our colleagues 

and our community, who all do their utmost 

to continue contributing to that sense of 

community that is so important to us at 

LCIS. 

What are the main trends in education 

that you are seeing now? 

I think one must be careful to take the 

pandemic out of the equation, but equally, 

we must recognise that the pandemic has 

highlighted trends that already existed. 

Young people’s wellbeing will either be 

the biggest crisis or the biggest opportunity 

of the second quarter of this century. The 

influences that our young people, our 

teenagers are exposed to, the uncertainty 

of the world, the uncertainty of future 

careers, the immediacy of social media, the 

fake news, the need for instant validation 

through social media ‘likes’ etc., family 

disruption, social disruption, you name 

it - all of that has been magnified a 

hundredfold by the pandemic. But these 

things were there before, and even if the 

pandemic had not happened, I would say 

exactly the same thing. 

Of course, the pandemic has given us 

opportunities to explore different ways of 

working, remotely and at distance. But what 

I think the pandemic has really reinforced is 

the value of togetherness, be it in our own 

families or in schools. But, if we take that 

for granted as schools, we are in big trouble. 

If we trust that parents will send their 

children to our schools just because there is 

no alternative and because they do not like 

their children being at home, then there is 

a real danger that the world of technology 

will take over. We need to look deeply at 

what value we bring to our families, to our 

students. There is a real opportunity for 

schools to reinvent themselves as places 

which inspire a love of learning in every 

child and young person. 

About La Côte International School (LCIS) 

LCIS is a multi-cultural and supportive 

IB school located in Aubonne, welcoming 

students aged 2-18. It is a part of the 

international education group Nord 

Anglia Education. 

We personalise learning 

so that your child will leave 

our school with everything 

they need for success 

– whatever they choose 

to be or do in life. 

Find out how! 

La Côte International School Aubonne is a private 

international school conveniently located between 

Lausanne and Geneva. LCIS offers its students 

unmatched international learning opportunities, 

combined with truly personalised academic 

support and the highest standards in education, 

ensuring that your child not only succeeds in life, 

but truly flourishes. 

www.international-school.org

Success Begins with a Choice 

JUAN FRANCISCO CASTRILLON 

Selected Webster University Geneva for both 

bachelor and master degree studies. 

I chose the American system as I could double 

major in finance and management. Webster’s 

Career Services helped me find the internship that 

led to my current position as a financial analyst.” 

Choose Wisely. Choose Webster. 

webster.ch/success 

Geneva

Meet Brett Gray 

Founder and Director, 

The Ostrava International School (TOIS) 

In the Moravian-Silesian Region of the 

Czech Republic, a visionary Canadian 

leads a multi-cultural community of 

learners in the country’s first authorised 

International Baccalaureate Continuum 

School. The Ostrava International School 

(TOIS), founded by Director Brett Gray 

in 2008, is the culmination of over 30 

years of dedication and love for a place 

at the coalface of sweeping late-20th 

century cultural and political changes. The 

school offers an internationally recognised 

programme for learners, emphasising 

academic challenge, open-mindedness and 

respect. ISPM talks to Brett Gray about his 

journey to creating an educational beacon 

in post-communist Czech Republic and his 

vision for a school that encourages students 

to discover, connect and achieve. 

Tell us a bit about your background and 

what inspired you to become a teacher. 

The truth is that I never thought in a 

million years that I would ever become a 

teacher. 

My educational background is in 

Broadcast Journalism and French from 

the University of Southern California in 

Los Angeles. As a teenager, I was deeply 

interested in human rights. I wrote my 

university admissions essay on how I would 

like to be part of helping to free Nelson 

Mandela and bring down apartheid in 

South Africa through reporting and honest 

journalism. That was in case Plan A – 

become a professional baseball player – fell 

through. 

In my junior year of university, I joined a 

study-abroad programme at the Sorbonne 

and Sciences Po in Paris. This was in 1987, 

and I spent that Christmas break going 

through Czechoslovakia and Hungary 

by train to have a peek behind the Iron 

Curtain. Perestroika was rumbling, but 

the people I met were still very closed – 

cautiously curious, but not in a position to 

communicate openly. It was a considerable 

risk for them. The impending collapse of 

communism across Central and Eastern 

Europe was certainly not on anyone’s radar 

at that moment. 

Fast forward to the fall of 1989: 

communism was crumbling, and I was 

fascinated. Back in Los Angeles to complete 

my university degrees, I had become 

inspired by Czech writers, especially 

Václav Havel – playwright, philosopher, 

and general thorn in the side of the Czech 


Communist Party. With books like Letters 

to Olga, Open Letters, and the Power 

of the Powerless, written from prison 

and addressed to his wife, the country’s 

leadership, and ostensibly the whole world, 

Havel led me to a greater understanding of 

the importance of Civil Society, and how, 

without firm democratic principles and 

mechanisms in place, none of us can be 

free. 

By December 1990, I was the proud 

owner of two freshly-minted university 

degrees and hungry to be a part of a 

democratisation process that seemed to be 

happening all over the globe. In January 

1991, I decided to spend some time in the 

country that had just re-cast its playwrightphilosopher 

into the role of President of 

Czechoslovakia. I wanted to write firsthand 

accounts of the social, economic, 

philosophical, and ecological impact of the 

country’s transition to democracy. Maybe to 

teach a little English on the side to help pay 

the bills, for a year or maybe two. 

Well, it is thirty years later, and I am 

not writing news articles, but leading 

The Ostrava International School, an 

organisation that promotes academic 

excellence, with a mission and core values 

that are tightly aligned with the principles 

of the United Nations Declaration of 

Human Rights and the International 

Baccalaureate Learner Profile. 

I would like The Ostrava International 

School to be a place where students develop 

an interest in making the world a better 

place. 

What were your experiences of teaching 

when you first arrived? 

When I arrived a little more than a year 

after the fall of communism, there were 

many mixed feelings about the West. There 

was fascination and a strong desire to see 

what was out there. But there was also some 

trepidation about what the West would 

bring. For whatever reason, as a Canadian, 

I was warmly welcomed in the small 

town where I began to teach at a Czech 

gymnasium, which is a secondary school 

that prepares students for university. 

I found an education system that relied 

almost entirely on rote memorisation. 

In this pre-internet age, knowledge was 

quantified, approved by the authorities, and 

delivered from the teacher to the student. 

The kids (and their parents) were afraid of 

openly expressing their thoughts for fear of 

getting into trouble. 

This was about as far away as you could 

get from the teachings of the country’s 

famed native son and internationally 

recognised “Teacher of Nations,” Jan 

Amos Comenius. He had laid out 500 years 

earlier an approach to teaching that heavily 

emphasised learning through play. Statues 

of the famed pedagogue dot the Moravian- 

Silesian Region, but you would never 

know why judging by the school system’s 

organisation in the 1990s. 

The school had almost no English 

language resources to speak of, except for 

the ever-present “Angličtina pro-Jazykové 

skoly”, a series of textbooks that local 

schools had used for years. They were 

tightly edited by the state authorities to 

ensure adherence to the political ideology 

that had recently come crashing down. 

Each chapter consisted of a text revolving 

around the semi-moronic-but-happy-tolive-under-socialism 

Prokop family; Mr 

Prokop was a satisfied factory worker. 

Mrs Prokop was a housewife. Their son 

was clever. Their daughter was pretty. Mr 

Prokop expresses his gratitude for living in a 

socialist country where people do not have 

to live homeless under bridges, like in the 

UK. 

In terms of anglo culture, the books 

also contained hundreds of pages of 

debatably informative facts, everything 

from the colours of mailboxes in the UK 

and the US, to the names of a few British 

composers, or a strangely select group 

of English and American authors, from 

Shakespeare up to the 1950s, and lots 

of other government-approved bits of 

knowledge that were deemed appropriate 

for English learners to memorise. 

It occurred to me fairly early on that 

many adults communicated with each 

other in a similar way. Rather than 

engaging in a discussion or exchanging 

ideas, conversations are more of a process 

of exchanging and counter-facts past one 

another. 

But the kids generally pined for 

something else. In the first couple of years, 

two brilliant students were excellent at 

Maths and Physics and dared to dream of 

studying in the United States. We spent 

a lot of time working on essay writing 

and practising SAT and ACTs. When the 

results came in, one student was offered a 

full scholarship to Princeton for Physics, 

the other a full scholarship to study 

Mathematics at the University of Chicago. 

At that moment, I felt like I had found my 

purpose in life. 

And yet, I would also see some of 

my best students fail to pass entrance 

examinations at Czech universities because 

they had neglected to memorise the names 

of four specific British composers listed on 

some page buried within the hundreds of 

pages of the Happy Prokop Socialist Bible. 

Over the years, I began to struggle 

more and more with the Czech education 

system’s resistance to modernisation, its 

continued reliance on facts, and its lack of 

emphasis on developing skills. 

So, in the late 1990’s I began to look for 


other things to do. I felt I had to move on 

from teaching for a while. 

So how did you come to start The 

Ostrava International School (TOIS)? 

As my frustration with teaching in the 

Czech education system grew, the City 

of Ostrava and the Moravian-Silesian 

Regional Authority reached out for help 

with re-working some of their promotional 

materials. They were trying to attract 

foreign direct investment into the area and 

wanted to polish their presentations. 

At the time, their promotional materials 

were an obvious by-product of the 

education system. Long lists of undigested 

facts, most of which were either unuseful 

to potential investors or even downright 

off-putting. 

I was eventually asked to make actual 

presentations to visiting companies, 

investment funds, banks, and other potential 

investors to speak as a Canadian living in 

the region for the last decade. After several 

close-but-no-cigar negotiations, we were 

told by CzechInvest, the State authority 

helping to guide foreign direct investment 

into the country, that Ostrava had lost out 

for one main reason: No international 

school. 

It was a classic chicken-and-egg situation. 

There were no international companies 

because there was no international school. 

And there was no international school 

because there were no global companies. 

So, how to break the cycle? 

Naively, I jumped in, thinking it would 

be an exciting project - for a year or maybe 

two. 

After several false starts, I finally teamed 

up with two partners, Iva Konevalová and 

Jan Petrus. We finally managed to launch 

the project: an international school that 

would support both ex-pats and Czechs 

in the Moravian-Silesian Region. Our 

first-class of 16 Czech 15-year-olds began 

in 2005. After several years of operation, 

we concluded that our clientele, which was 

starting to include non-Czechs, would be 

best served by establishing two separate 

schools working together. 

The Czech gymnasium we started would 

continue to serve Czech students, with 

many subjects in English mainly, but using 

the Czech state curriculum. Graduates 

would receive the Czech Maturita, and 

the braver ones could also sit for IB DP 

certificates or the IB Diploma. It would 

be a symbol of what a progressive Czech 

school could accomplish. But, because of 

limitations imposed by the Czech system, 

it would not primarily serve the foreign 

community. 

The other school would focus on 

meeting the needs of the city’s growing 

international community. As readers of 

International School Parent know, there 

are many issues specific to the international 

community that need to be addressed, 

including adaptation, student well-being, 

the curriculum, mother tongue support, 

and on and on. The purely international 

school would be fully accredited by the 

most recognised international accreditation 

agencies and deliver the entire International 

Baccalaureate Continuum. 

Tragically, both Iva and Jan died within 

a few years of the creation of the second 

school. From April 2012 until last year, I 

did my best to lead both of these schools 

as Executive Director and firmly establish 

their identities. In February 2020, I left the 

Czech gymnasium to entirely focus on the 

continued development of The Ostrava 

International School. 

What is your vision for The Ostrava 

International School? 

For me, an international school is a place 

where everybody feels safe being who they 

are – however different that might be. As 

someone who came here 30 years ago with 

little knowledge of the language or culture, 

I can empathise with the children coming 

through our doors. We all need a safe place 


to encounter others. That is the first step to 

breaking down barriers, gaining respect for 

yourself and the people in your community, 

opening up to the wondrous possibilities out 

there, and developing resistance to a world 

where differences are increasingly used 

to spread fear and hatred and, ultimately, 

ignorance. 

The school celebrates the simple and 

fundamental idea that each of us has rights 

and responsibilities to enjoy freedom and 

equality. We can interpret things differently 

and follow different paths and belief 

systems. I would like our students to have 

the tools to move beyond pointing fingers 

and accusing “the other,” which seems to 

take up so much space in our public forums 

these days. 

As our Guiding Statement declares, we 

strive to create a caring community of 

lifelong learners, each equipped with the 

knowledge and skills to succeed in an everevolving 

world. 

How are these founding principles 

reflected in the curriculum? What does 

the school offer academically? 

As an International Baccalaureate (IB) 

World School, we are part of an academic 

community that emphasises the balanced, 

holistic growth of the child. We strongly 

believe that when learners are in safe, 

respectful and supportive environments, 

they feel free to engage in a more 

meaningful way. 

I am a firm believer in learning 

through meaningful play and discovery

– essentially empowering a young person 

to be motivated in their learning, as an 

individual or as part of a group. One of 

the things that I love about the IB Diploma 

Programme for older students is the 

mandatory core subject called Theory of 

Knowledge. Students analyse how we know 

what we think we know and consider truth 

and fallacy. DP students also write a 4 000 

word essay on a topic of their interest that 

must be meticulously researched, using 

internationally recognised MLA citation 

guidelines. 

We’re very proud of the fact that 

TOIS is the only school in the Czech 

Republic authorised as an International 

Baccalaureate Continuum School, offering 

the Primary Years Programme (ages 3-10), 

the Middle Years Programme (ages 11-16) 

and the Diploma Programme (ages 17-19). 

Academically, the results of our IB 

Diploma Programme graduates are 

consistently above the world average. 

What makes TOIS so unique? What do 

your students and parents value most 

about the school? 

We asked the TOIS community of students, 

parents, staff and supporters to reflect on 

our Mission: Discover. Connect. Achieve. 

Across the board, our students, parents 

and staff said they feel the school provides a 

welcome and safe environment. Regardless 

of their English level, students reported that 

they feel little or no barriers to Discovery 

and are learning even to enjoy making 

mistakes, try new directions, re-build, and 

see what is out there. 

The idea of Connection resonates 

strongly with everyone; connecting 

discoveries with previous knowledge; 

connecting socially with people who 

are different from me; feeling a sense of 

belonging to the group or the wider world. 

We constantly hear from parents how 

impressed they are with their children’s 

progress in developing their ideas and 

opinions. Parents also appreciate the 

school’s honest effort to keep the doors of 

communication open and bridge potential 

cultural and linguistic barriers. 

In terms of Achievement, students 

consistently bring up how refreshing it is 

not to be taught to the test and to have 

the opportunity to show what they know. 

We strive to empower students to make 

meaningful progress from whatever points 

they started from. Students and parents 

have told us that this is highly motivating 

and almost always leads to deeper 

understanding and more meaningful 

achievement than simply studying to get 


the highest possible number of points. The 

proudest moments for us are when we are 

told variations of “I see my child growing 

and learning and doing things in ways that 

I couldn’t do when I was my child’s age” 

and “I see a level of critical thinking and 

self-reflection that I didn’t grow up with.” 

It’s lovely to see our students’ 

development and achievements, and our 

philosophy of learning within a safe, 

respectful and supportive environment 

brings about positive outcomes and strong 

academic results. 

How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected 

your teaching methods? 

We have been impressed by the power 

and variety of online tools available to 

enhance learning, and I am sure that we 

will still be using many of them in the postpandemic 

teaching environment. We’re 

exploring how we might use the flexibility 

of concurrent teaching (simultaneously 

teaching to students in the classroom and 

online) as a permanent fixture of the TOIS 

Curriculum. This could be of great use 

to students at home ill for more extended 

periods or for our high-performing studentathletes 

who may be training or playing in 

tournaments outside of the Czech Republic 

regularly. It has been interesting to observe

the overall buy-in from the staff, as every 

one of us has had to improve our online 

skills quickly. 

That said, I think there has been a 

considerable increase in the awareness of 

how we as humans are social beings and the 

damage that isolation under the COVID 

restrictions has caused. We’re excited about 

integrating technology further as a school, 

but there is no comparison to face-to-face 

learning and connection. 

And in regular times, what sort of 

extracurricular activities do you offer? 

We think it’s essential to keep our students 

active and engaged in activities that are 

not directly linked to the curriculum 

but complement their learning and help 

develop new skills. 

We actively survey our students 

during regular times about the kind of 

extracurricular activities they would like 

to participate in. So the choice of clubs 

can differ from term to term and year to 

year. We regularly provide team sports like 

basketball and football, but there are all 

kinds of Clubs for Visual Arts, Performing 

Arts, Crafts, Chess, Lego, Robotics, 

Languages, etc.… 

During COVID, students from across 

the school established and published the 

bi-monthly student magazine, Crispy – 

and I think it’s actually better for having 

been established during COVID because 

everyone’s computer and graphics skills 

have improved dramatically. 

What are your hopes for students 

graduating from TOIS? 

They will say that TOIS gave them the 

tools, motivation, and conviction to 

follow their dreams and turn their goals 

into reality. I also want our students to 

find common ground with, and mutual 

respect for, the “others” of the world, see 

opportunities for greater collaboration, and 

stand up to those that would threaten it. 

What do you think the challenge is for 

education going into the future? 

To not allow the entire system to collapse 

from information overload. Schools must 

be wise in choosing what can be thrown out 

of their curriculum to make way for what is 

needed. To allow children some quiet time 

for reflection and finding themselves. To 

continue to empower kids to be skilful and 

capable of dealing with the technological 

challenges coming up and still have a 

meaningful moral foundation or belief 

system about the kind of world they want 

to live in. 

Having lived in the Czech Republic for 30 

years now, what’s your take-away about 

the opportunities it has to offer? 

I am grateful for having been given a 

chance to give something of myself that has 

been meaningful to others. In some small 

way, I have been allowed to change some 

lives for the better and make a small corner 

of the Czech Republic a better place than 

when I first came here. Living here has 

given me the chance to be a better person, 

fight for what I believe is right, reflect on 

my mistakes, and move on. 

Most importantly, it has given me three 

beautiful boys and an extended family of 

beautiful people who love me and support 

the adventure of creating an inspirational 

international school in Ostrava. 

Find out more about the school on the 

internationalschoolparent.com website or 

here: tois.world

Barbara - SIS Mannedorf 

Colouring Competition Results! 

Treasured Alps, Threatened Alps 

Anwita - St. George’s 


The results are out! Thank you so much to everyone who entered our Bergli Books 

colouring competition. Running a competition like this for the first time, we had 

no idea what to expect. We were completely blown away after receiving so many 

entries from all over Switzerland! We have spent the last few months going through 

each and every one, and we’ve found it incredibly difficult to pick only 8 winners. 

Each piece is so special, and we can see that a lot of time and passion has gone 

into them, so it was a very tough job for us to judge them! 

I would like to say a big thank you to Richard Harvell and his team from Bergli 

Books, who donated the beautiful colouring books for the competition. The quality 

of the book is wonderful and we are huge fans. Another thank you is to the great 

schools that we work with who have generously helped us promote this competition. 

Overall, this has been a great learning experience for us. We had so much fun 

that we would love to do another at some point in the future. Congratulations to the 

eight winners, whose artwork is displayed in the next 3 pages. 

Further entries can be seen online at www.internationalschoolparent.com 

Visit www.bergli.ch for bestselling and award-winning books about Switzerland 


Amelia - 

St. George’s 

International 

School 

Ioana Vlagea - SIS Basel 

Freya - International 

School of Schaffhausen 


Eunse Ko - Grade 2 - Inter- 

Community School Zurich 

Giovanni Schuster 

- Grade 4 - Inter- 

Community 

School Zurich 

Baptiste T - Geneva 

English School 


Parents & Students exploring 

strengths & coaching 

POSITIVITY IN 

A PANDEMIC 

How to Buffer, Bolster and Build Family 

Well-being in These Challenging Times 

WRITTEN BY CLIVE LEACH 

Over the last year we’ve heard all about ‘what the 

science says’ with regards to how to treat, minimise the 

spread of, and vaccinate against the physical impact of 

the Covid-19 virus as it has rampaged across the world. Alongside 

this we have seen the corresponding calls to address the ever 

increasing levels of anxiety, stress, depression, psychological distress 

and post-traumatic stress that many adults, young people and 

children are experiencing. 

What we’ve heard much less about is ‘what the science says’ 

about how some of us might have been able to protect and even 

enhance our own and our family’s mental health and well-being 

during the pandemic. This is despite facing the inevitable and 

understandable distress associated with the common adversity we’ve 

all faced, and resulting challenges, pressures and stresses brought 


about by sickness, bereavement, social distancing, isolation, home 

schooling, job loss and financial insecurity. 

Positive psychology – the ‘Science of Well-being’ suggests 

ways to both protect against the negative mental health impacts of 

Covid-19, and also to embrace the future and build our capacity 

to flourish in our school, work and personal lives as we slowly 

transition and adjust into the ‘new normal’. 

So I’d like to share with you a summary of very recent research 

(van Nieuwerburgh et al, 2021; Waters et al, 2021) and provide 

some practical action points to try for yourself and your family. 

The research, much of which was carried out during the pandemic 

itself, highlights 6 interventions that have been shown to: 

• Buffer against mental illness in adults and young people 

• Bolster capacity to navigate through and sustain our resilience in 

the face of adversity created by the pandemic. 

• Build our mental toughness and potential to learn, achieve, 

embrace opportunity and indeed strengthen and grow through 

their experience. 

1 Self-compassion 

I often ask my coaching clients ‘Who is the most important 

person for you to have a positive relationship with?’ Invariably the 

answer is either their partner or kids. I then say ‘Wrong! It’s you!’ 

The reality is that we are often our own worst critic and say 

things to ourselves that we just wouldn’t say to others. If parents 

can learn to be more self-compassionate to themselves they can 

then show greater compassion to their children (and partners) 

and that has positive well-being outcomes for the family. People 

who practice self-compassion are less likely to experience self-pity, 

anxiety and depression. 

Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness 

and care you would show to a good friend when they are struggling 

in some way. It also involves perspective taking and recognising 

everyone is suffering in one way or another and we are not alone. 

It also requires the ability to be mindful and accepting of difficult 

feelings and emotions, to acknowledge them as opposed to fighting 

or suppressing them. 

Action Points: 

• Check out a fantastic talk by leading researcher Kristin Neff about 

‘Self-compassion in Difficult Times’ on YouTube https://www. 

youtube.com/watch?v=HoqSvlakeSQ&t=2484s 

• Practice saying words of comfort to yourself when you notice the 

inner critic taking over. 

2Positive Emotions 

It’s only to be expected that a pandemic and all it entails would 

create worry, anxiety, anger, sadness, stress and fear for people. 

These arguably negative emotions have a place and act as warnings 

that we need to take care and take action to protect ourselves. But 

it’s important to know that mental health and positive emotions can 

co-exist with mental distress. 

The pandemic might be a scary and overwhelming time but it 

doesn’t mean we are unable to experience positivity. For example 

engaging in strategies to boost amusement doesn’t seek to ignore 

or minimise grief, but it does help to better manage and navigate 

through it. 

It is therefore vital to keep a balance of emotions and to try 

and avoid the trap of the negativity bias and the risk of mental 

illness. This requires making a concerted effort to invest in positive 

emotions such as joy, serenity, gratitude, pride, curiosity, 

hope, amusement, inspiration, awe, & love. 

The shared experience of these particular emotions has been 

shown to aid human survival because they broaden our capacity to 

think, see the bigger picture, retain perspective and allow for more 

information intake. This in turn builds our ability to find solutions, 

be creative, build social connections and builds the resulting 

resilience and resources to cope with adversity and life’s challenges 

and embrace the future. Positive emotions aren’t just the outcome 

of the good times, they help to create future good times too. 


• Discuss with the family how you can generate more of the key 

positive emotions highlighted above? 

• Prioritise positivity each day ensuring it’s the top of your to do list, 

not left to last! 

3 Gratitude 

A great example of positivity is the emotion, practice and 

attitude of gratitude – to be able to recognise and affirm when 

good things happen or good things are received. Over 20 years of 

research has shown gratitude reduces stress and impacts on our 

physical and mental wellbeing, life satisfaction and resilience. It 

helps develop and sustain positive relationships and aids recovery 

from loss and trauma. It helps focus on the positive aspects of life, 

creates a better sense of what is really important and aids personal 

growth during a time of crisis and beyond. 


• Keep a gratitude Journal and share 3 good things each day 

between family members, 

• Make a gratitude visit (or Zoom call) to someone you have never 

really thanked properly and read out a letter of thanks which you 

can pass on after. 

4 

Character Strengths 

Drawing upon our character strengths, has been shown 

through hundreds of studies to increase capacity to cope in hard 

times, enhance wellbeing and support performance, achievement 

and growth in school, work and life contexts. 

Our ‘Signature Strengths’ are those top character qualities that 

are core to who we are. Sadly we often only hear about or share 

them in eulogies when it’s a bit late! They contribute to positive 

outcomes for ourselves and others, and help us to add value to 

the world. Their use can help buffer against anxiety, depressive 

symptoms, work stress, and hopelessness. They have also been 

shown to build resilience in adults and young people and support 

post-traumatic growth by highlighting resources that are often 

unrecognised or taken for granted. 

Discovering your own and your family’s top character strengths, 

reflecting on how they show up already and finding new ways to 

use them, boosts energy, wellbeing and connectedness. It’s a fun 

and meaningful way to learn about each other and to help each 

other to maximise the resources we have available individually and 

collectively as a family. 


a ‘positive psychology coaching conversations’ approach for staff, 

students and parents as part of their well-being and positive 

education strategies. 


• Check out the FREE Values in Action Character Strengths Survey 

at www.viacharacter.org It is available in over 40 languages and 

there are both adult and youth versions. It will rank the 24 character 

strengths and identify your top 5 ‘Signature Strengths’. 

• Do a family ‘Strengths Spot’ and guess each others’ signature 

strengths before you share the results! 

Note: Many schools use this survey as part of their wellbeing and 

positive education programs so ask your kids as they may know their 

top strengths already! (See photos: Parents and Students exploring 

strengths and coaching) 

5Positive Interpersonal Processes 

One of the most challenging impacts of the pandemic has been 

on relationships. On the one hand many of us have been physically 

distanced from much loved family and friends, whilst on the other 

hand adjusting to life in very close quarters with our ‘immediate’ 

family which for some has brought great joy and others significant 

distress. 

Understanding positive interpersonal processes can be helpful 

whether we are trying to stay positively connected to people we can’t 

actually meet or making the best of the time we have with those we 

are with. Everyday experiences like sharing laughter, being kind, 

feeling admired and being loved are all good examples. 


• Positive Interpersonal Processes emanate from the action points 

covered previously – being kind to yourself so you are better able 

to be kind to others, shared experiences of positive emotion, being 

grateful, sharing and using our strengths. 

• These actions can take just a few minutes and be carried out face 

to face or virtually but the moments created with other people build 

our resilience and help us to embrace the future with hope. 

6Coaching 

As a coach who draws heavily on positive psychology and wellbeing 

science I know how powerful coaching conversations can be 

to provide people with a safe space for reflection on the relationship 

between their well-being, engagement and performance in work, 

school and life domains. Coaching allows people to set goals, 

consider options, take action, evaluate progress, be accountable and 

ultimately make positive and sustained change for themselves and 

those around them. 

This is why in my own coaching and consulting practice 

supporting organisations and schools I encourage them to adopt 

Coaching for parents working from home 

Finally there is further indication of the potential for positive 

psychology coaching for parents working from home, which is 

likely to remain an ongoing challenge and opportunity for many 

people. A recent study (van Nieuwerburgh et al, 2021) provides an 

insight into how positive psychology coaching can lead to 5 key 

positive outcomes for home-based employees which will inevitably 

impact on both their personal and family wellbeing alongside their 

professional productivity and performance: 

1. Valuing opportunity for safe reflection 

2. Increasing self-awareness 

3. Alleviation of negative emotions 

4. Re-energised by identifying a way forward 

5. Renewed confidence 


• Check out your school’s well-being strategy and how coaching 

conversations might be playing a part, or add value to it’s objectives. 

• Consider investing in positive psychology coaching for yourself to 

ensure you look after your own well-being so you can support your 

family. 

Conclusion 

Regardless of Covid-19 the world is going to continue to present 

challenge, uncertainty and adversity. That’s life, and the associated 

distress that comes with it is normal, healthy and part of our 

common humanity. The science of positive psychology provides 

clues as to how we can recognise and avoid the negativity bias and 

the risks of spiralling into mental illness. It buffers, bolsters and 

builds by helping us to proactively focus on what is working even 

in dark times, to prioritise taking care of our own well-being so we 

can help others, and be bold enough to embrace opportunities for 

growth and positive change. 

References: 

Lea Waters, Sara B. Algoe, Jane Dutton, Robert Emmons, Barbara L. Fredrickson, 

Emily Heaphy, Judith T. Moskowitz, Kristin Neff, Ryan Niemiec, Cynthia Pury 

& Michael Steger (2021) Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, 

bolstering, and building mental health,.The Journal of Positive Psychology. 

DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2021.1871945 

Christian van Nieuwerburgh, Margaret Barr, Alexandra J. S. Fouracres, Tia Moin, 

Charlotte Brown, Corinne Holden, Cornelia Lucey & Philippa Thomas (2021) 

Experience of positive psychology coaching while working from home 

during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coaching: An International Journal of 

Theory, Research and Practice, DOI: 10.1080/17521882.2021.1897637 

Clive Leach is a positive psychology coach and 

workshop/webinar facilitator working widely across 

the corporate, education, public and NfP sectors. 

He provides executive, career & life coaching with a 

focus on well-being, and strengths assessment leading 

to positive outcomes for personal and professional development. 

For further information email: coach@cliveleach.com or visit: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliveleachconsultancy/ 


Pre-IB advice 

from the experts 

What you need to know about Internal Assessments, Extended Essays and Theory of Knowledge. 

WRITTEN BY LOUISE VALENTIN 

Working in an international 

school I help many students 

through their IB and they 

often get caught out on the big written 

assignments. 

So, in this article I want to break down 

these three elements of the IB core and 

help explain them for anyone new to the IB 

or to students about to start the programme 

next year. 

Before heading into acronym diversity 

(EE, IA, ToK), it’s important for future 

International Baccalaureate students to 

understand what these mean and what they 

entail in terms of written assignments. 

When students follow the International 

Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (or 

IBDP), they need to complete various 

important pieces of written work. It can 

sometimes be confusing for pre-IB students 

to grasp the distinction between each 

assignment, their characteristics and what is 

required for each. 

Internal vs External Assessment 

It is important to note that there are two 

types of assessment: internal and external. 

Both the Extended Essay and the Theory 

of Knowledge essay (also known as ToK) 

are external, since, just like final exams, they 

are sent directly to official IB examiners. 

Internal Assessments are on the other hand 

marked by the class teacher. 

The Extended Essay (or EE) – What is it? 

The Extended Essay is mandatory for all 

diploma students and is seen as the main 

written assessment, since it has deadlines 

throughout both 12th and 13th grades. 

In fact, 12th graders will already have 

developed their research question (i.e., the 

first step of the research process) in the IB1 

year. 

This 4’000-word independent piece of 

research is presented as a formal piece of 

academic writing. It demonstrates that the 

student has fully grasped the topic and helps 


prepare them for writing at a university 

level. Just like the other written assignments, 

it encourages students to use and develop 

their own critical thinking. 

Students must choose to their topic from 

one of the 6 following DP subjects, ideally 

one that is of interest to them personally: 

• Studies in language and literature 

• Language acquisition 

• Individuals and societies 

• Sciences 

• Mathematics 

• The arts 

Or students can also take an 

interdisciplinary approach and write 

a World Studies Extended Essay. This 

particular type of essay “must focus 

on a topic of global significance”. This 

encourages the student to reflect on the 

world today in relation to issues such as the 

global food crisis, climate change, terrorism,

energy security, migration, global health, 

technology, and cultural exchange. 

As the official Extended Essay Guide 

explains, a World Studies essay “gives 

students an opportunity to undertake an 

in-depth and independent investigation into 

a topic of their choice that considers the 

relationship between subjects and allows 

for meaningful connections to be made in 

relation to their chosen area of research.” 

The assessment process of the Extended 

Essay is based on 5 criteria: 

• Focus and method. 

• Knowledge and understanding 

• Critical thinking 

• Presentation 

• Engagement 

More and more IB students choose to 

write a World Studies essay, because links 

are created between the various IB courses 

and because these subjects tend to address 

current events that affect the 21st-century 

student. 

Internal Assessments (or IA) 

Throughout the IB Diploma, students 

are also asked to complete internal 

assessments for most courses. Common 

to both Standard Level and Higher-Level 

courses, the goal of this type of paper is 

to determine if students are capable of 

demonstrating the internal assessment 

criteria in relation to the research question. 

In parallel to the Extended Essay, teacher 

assessments are also used for most courses, 

which include: 

• Oral work in languages 

• Fieldwork in geography 

• Laboratory work in the sciences 

(chemistry, biology, physics) 

• Investigations in mathematics 

• Artistic performances 

Internal Assessments are marked by the 

subject teacher and externally moderated 

by the IB at the end of the course and 

count toward the student’s final IB score for 

the diploma. The criteria for evaluating this 

type of assignment are as follows: 

• Knowledge and understanding 

• Application and analysis 

• Synthesis and evaluation 

• Select, use and apply a variety of 

appropriate skills and techniques. 

The Theory of Knowledge essay (or ToK) 

The ToK essay plays an integral part of 

the IBDP and is mandatory for all Diploma 

students. It asks students to reflect on the 

general nature of knowledge, and on how 

we know what we claim to know. The 

evaluation of the ToK essay is completed 

through a 1,600 word essay and an oral 

presentation. While the essay requires the 

student to focus on the concept itself, the 

aim of the presentation is to evaluate how 

students apply the thinking of the Theory 

of Knowledge to real-life situations. This 

essay also aims to go beyond and link the 

subject areas taught in school. 

Both the ToK essay and the related 

presentation will draw on what the 

students have gained throughout their ToK 

classes. It encourages them to use their 

critical thinking skills. Both the essay and 

the presentation need to reflect who the 

student is as a knower, by putting forward 

and defending their own thoughts and 

views. Students will ultimately learn about 

dialogue and critical discussion, as well 

as analytical writing skills. Each of these 

will become increasingly important when 

having to understand knowledge-type of 

questions and create the student’s own 

accountability. 

So, what is critical thinking? 

Critical thinking contributes to the integrity 

of the student’s paper. It will give them a 

more disciplined approach, showing that 

they have understood the topic at hand. 

People who think critically will constantly 

improve the quality of their thinking, 

which shows that they can form judgement. 

Ultimately, the aim is that throughout the 

development of each academic piece of 

writing, students gain these skills which will 

become essential in their later studies. 

Why is academic honesty important? 

Academic honesty is an essential aspect 

of teaching and learning, where action is 

based on inquiry and reflection (“Academic 

honesty in the IB educational context”, 

International Baccalaureate Organization, 

2014) It plays a crucial role in all written 

examinations of the IBDP. Students should 

visit the school library when they have 

specific questions (for example about what 

makes a good research question), or more 

particular requests about referencing their 

sources. The most used bibliographic 


formats for all IB papers are MLA, 

Chicago, and ISO 690. The latter is used 

for students who choose to write their essay 

in French. 

Keep all deadlines to avoid last 

minute panic and stress. 

• At TutorsPlus we often get calls from 

desperate students who have left their work 

until the last minute and are suffering the 

strain of having many different deadlines 

arriving all at once. Listen to the advice 

from the IB Co-ordinator and follow the 

timings they have given you. They have 

planned the deadlines to make it easier for 

students to balance the heavy workload. 

It goes without saying that students need 

to adhere to all assignment deadlines set 

in advance by the IB organization, since 

these are there to help them with the 

various chronological phases related to each 

assignment. 

• It is crucial for all IB students to take 

all written examinations seriously, and 

therefore organization is key when taking 

on any scholarly piece of writing. As a 

secondary school librarian, I often see IB 

students in a stressful last-minute rush to 

finalize their written assignments. This can 

be avoided by being better prepared and 

organized. Plan your work and give yourself 

plenty of time to meet every deadline. 

• It can also be easy to fall behind, especially 

with the other classes and assignments 

taking place during the two IB years. To 

avoid this from happening, students should 

set themselves personal goals and deadlines 

to stick to, as best as possible. Not only does 

this help them in regard to planning their 

work, but also shows responsibility and 

commitment to their assignment. 

• Most importantly if you are stuck ask 

for help. Do not put it off. Your teacher, 

mentor and IB Co-ordinator are there to 

help, not to mention your librarian or the 

TutorsPlus tutoring team too! 

What is the role of Mentors? 

• All IB students are assigned a Mentor 

during their Extended Essay, and it is 

crucial that students should maintain 

regular contact with their own Mentor 

throughout the whole research and writing 

process and until the assignment is officially 

handed in. 

• Mentors are there to help students with 

any type of feedback and it is important 

“The ToK essay asks students to reflect on 

the general nature of knowledge, and on 

how we know what we claim to know.” 

that students take advantage of this 

opportunity. 

How should students record their 

sources? 

• Students should note down each source 

of information as they go, whether it is 

online or on paper. This is because the 

bibliography will need to cover all sources 

referenced throughout their assignment, the 

purpose being to avoid plagiarism. 

• This organizational aspect will become 

especially useful when it comes to online 

sources, so as not to forget where the 

information originally came from and when 

it was consulted. 

• If students forget to go this it can be a 

huge time drain to have to go back and try 

to locate all the sources later. 

Use the school library to help with 

research. 

• Students often rely on Google when 

researching online information for their 

assignments. It is highly recommended that 

students also use other evaluation criteria 

tools when doing so, such as the CRAP test 

(currency, reliability, authority, and purpose) 

that determines whether a website is 

credible or not. This tool will save students 

a lot of time and is sure to help them find 

great quality online resources. 

• IB students should remember to visit their 

school library to receive extra help and 

feedback. This can be about the general 

structure and writing style of their essay or 

about finding relevant online sources. In 

this respect, librarians are there to teach 

students how to differentiate between good 

and poor-quality web sources. 

• The role of librarians is essential. The 

purpose of their work, as well as that of 

the teachers, is to attain a common goal 

of helping the student achieve academic 

success. 

If English is not your mother tongue 

these are our top tips to help 

• For students whose mother tongue is not 

English but chose to write their assignments 

in this language, it can sometimes be 

difficult to find the right sentence structure 

and be understood throughout the entirety 

of their paper. For the non-English 

student to hand in the best possible written 

assignment, there are various points to be 

considered, such as: 

• Using online dictionaries and 

encyclopaedias (e.g. Britannica, or 

Universalis when writing in French) to 

check the meaning and spelling of specific 

words and terminology used within one’s 

assignment. 

• Depending on their availability, asking 

for help from at least one of the student’s 

language teachers, when revising the piece 

of writing and before handing it in. 

• Getting an appointment with the learning 

support department within the school, 

where professional staff can help the student 

with any difficulties, they may face related 

to language barriers. 

• Using the library resources to find any 

useful information that will guide the 

student towards success in academic 

writing (most likely all school libraries 

should have a section with this type of 

resources), as well as asking librarians for 

additional help. 

TutorsPlus offer pre-IB tuition in all 

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examiners and tutor students in their 

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ADVERTORIAL 

Princely Family 

Experiences 

The Principality of Liechtenstein 

nestles against Switzerland for 

27 kilometres and, thanks to 

the almost 100 year old customs treaty, 

has open borders with Switzerland. 

The Principality of Liechtenstein is a 

constitutional hereditary monarchy on 

a democratic-parliamentary basis. This 

means that the prince and the people share 

state authority. The head of state, Prince 

Hans-Adam II and his family live at Vaduz 

Castle, which towers 120 meters above the 

Liechtenstein capital, Vaduz. The small 

Alpine monarchy in the heart of Europe is 

the fourth smallest state in Europe with 160 

square kilometers. The principality unites 

everything your heart desires: an impressive 

mountain world, lively culture, charming 

villages and excellent gastronomy. 

Happy children, Relaxed Parents 

The idyllic mountain village of Malbun is 

1,600 metres above sea level, and with its 

wonderful alpine landscape is the perfect 

family destination. The resort, which has 

been awarded the “Family Destination” seal 

of approval, is geared towards the needs 

of children, parents and grandparents. 

Animal experiences such as a hike with 

llamas and alpacas or a golden eagle make 

children’s hearts beat faster. An excursion 

on the research trail in Malbun ensures 

action. Equipped with a backpack and 

magnifying glass, the little ones can master 

search games and stone table memory, for 

example. But also the WalserSagenWeg in 

Triesenberg, the detective trails in Malbun 

and Vaduz, the Gänglesee in Steg or the 

rope park in Triesen offer everything for 


a perfect family day in nature. The small 

Malbun ski area is between 1,600 and 2,000 

metres above sea level, in a romantic valley 

basin and awaits you with 23 kilometers of 

ski slopes for every level. The small size of 

the Malbun ski area in Liechtenstein has 

many advantages, especially for families 

with children: the hotels are perfectly 

tailored to the needs of families, are located 

directly on the slopes and thus enable 

perfect skiing fun. 

Unique in the world - The 

Liechtenstein Trail 

The best way to get to know the Principality 

is on the Liechtenstein Trail. 75 kilometres 

full of exciting stories, sights, wonderful 

views, idyllic resting places and much more 

await the explorer. The Liechtenstein Trail

ADVERTORIAL 

leads through all eleven municipalities in 

the country. The path not only connects 

the most beautiful and exciting places in 

the country, but also tells the story of the 

principality with the help of the LIstory 

app. It leads the user from one adventure 

station to the next and thus indicates the 

course of the hike. But even without the 

app, the sights and natural beauties along 

the way can be enjoyed thanks to good, 

conventional signage. Depending on the 

level of sport, the Liechtenstein Trail can 

be explored in two, three or more days. 

Luggage transport provides the extra 

amount of relaxation you need. 

Lively main town 

Liechtenstein is not only worth a visit 

for its natural beauty. In addition to 

excellent gastronomy, there are numerous 

museums and sights to explore in Vaduz. 

A detour to the new Fürstenkino, The 

Treasure Chamber of the Principality 

of Liechtenstein, the Kunstmuseum 


Liechtenstein with Hilti Art Foundation,The 

Prince of Liechtenstein Winery or a 

tour with the Citytrain are particularly 

worthwhile. 

www.tourismus.li/en

ADVERTORIAL 

Swinging 

in nature, 

Blenio Valley 

Sunset with a view, 

Monte Generoso 

© Swingtheworld - Fabio Balassi 

© Ticino Turismo - Foto Loreta Daulte 

Discover 

the 

Discover 

Magic 

the 

sunny side of 

Ticino 

Switzerland 

Discover the magic, 

Brissago Islands 

© Ticino Turismo - Foto Alessio Pizzicannella 

Ticino is a very special Swiss canton: it is the only one 

located entirely in the southern side of the Alps, benefiting 

from a Mediterranean climate. This favourable condition 

greatly enhances the pleasure of visiting the territory in every 

season. Ticino is known as a sunny and welcoming canton that 

offers various activities in all its regions. Starting from Lugano, the 

largest city in the canton, cycling along the lakeshore and mountain 

biking are certainly among the favourite activities. Along Lake 

Maggiore or in the valleys near Ascona and Locarno you will find 

wonderful places to relax, hike or have a delicious meal in one of 

ours typical grotto. Eventually, in the regions of Bellinzonese and 

Mendrisiotto, UNESCO World Heritage Sites await to be visited, 

such as the castles of Bellinzona and the Monte San Giorgio. 

Sustainable mobility 

The territory is quite vast but it is possible to get around efficiently 

and sustainably. The construction of the New Railway Link 

through the Alps has created a fast and efficient rail connection 

between Ticino and the rest of Switzerland. A milestone was 

the opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in 2016, the longest 

railway tunnel in the world (57 kilometres). The Alpine Transversal 

was completed with the opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel in 

December 2020. Since then, a train journey from Zurich to Lugano 

takes less than two hours, bringing Italian-speaking Switzerland 

closer to the north. 

Well-deserved relaxation 

The Ceneri Base Tunnel even shortens the distances in the regional 

transport system and brings the different areas of Ticino closer. 

Rewarded by effort, 

Monte Bar 

For instance, you can sleep in a hotel in Lugano and freely move 

around the entire canton. Speaking of hotels in Lugano, take a 

look at Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola and Resort Collina d’Oro. 

On one hand, Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola, set on the shores of 

Lake Lugano, is a magnificent 5-star resort of immense charm, 

nestled within a private, subtropical park. On the other, Resort 

Collina d’Oro is an elegant location, only a few minutes away from 

Lugano city centre, that offers privacy and quality, surrounded by 

an enchanting landscape with panoramic views over the Alps and 

the lake. 

Ticino Ticket 

Furthermore, in Ticino you can travel for free! With the “Ticino 

Ticket”, tourists can use public transport freely throughout Ticino 

during their stay. Find out more at ticino.ch/getaway. 

© Switzerland Tourism 


07.05 a.m 

Commute on Lake Zurich 

08.58 a.m 

Cruise on Lake Lugano 

You can now travel to Ticino faster thanks to the Ceneri tunnel. For example, Zurich to the Lugano takes 

just 113 minutes. And Lugano to Locarno takes less than 30 minutes. You can even travel for free 

with the Ticino Ticket, which you receive when staying at a hotel, youth hostel or campsite. 

Book now and experience more #ticinomoments: ticino.ch/ceneri 


ADVERTORIAL 

action, deep insights and a fantastic view. It 

is marked off into three areas of increasing 

difficulty. The fixed rope route is ideal for 

families with children up from the age 10. 

The route can be climbed with or without 

a guide. 

Gorner Gorge 

The wooden walkways leading between 

the towering cliffs provide a dramatic 

insight into the power of nature. It is in the 

immediate vicinity of the Blatten hamlet 

and was first opened in 1886/87. There are 

two ways of crossing the gorge: the upper 

part of the Gornerschlucht can be crossed 

in 3 - 4 hours with a mountain guide, as a 

breath-taking adventure, or the lower part 

of the gorge can be crossed without special 

equipment using the wooden installation. 

– Matterhorn family 

destination” – This Seal of 

“Zermatt 

Quality promises delights for 

mascot Wolli, young guests and families 

alike, promising a whole variety of fun, 

entertainment and outdoor activities in the 

fresh Alpine air. 

Children Are Our Vips 

Thanks to the Wolli Card children up to the 

age of 9 years enjoy free holidays all year 

round. 

Funventure 

A choice of Funventure outdoor activities: 

Wolli’s adventure park at Sunnegga 

At Leisee lake, families can enjoy an 

adventure and fun playground with 

attractive barbecue areas and a water 

feature. All with amazing views of the 

Matterhorn! 

ZERMATT 

The Matterhorn 

Family Destination 

Have you never seen the Matterhorn? Not seen it in ages? 

Now is the time. Nature holidays in the Alps at the foot of 

Switzerland’s iconic landmark. 

Forest Fun Park 

The Forest Fun Park promises fun and 

adventure for the whole family, for all age 

groups. Secured by safety lines, you can 

step, swing and climb from tree to tree. In 

this way, you can get a feel for the sport of 

climbing from the Tyrolean traverses and 

suspended bridges with different levels of 

difficulty and at different heights. 

Mountain Biking 

Whether you’re looking for flow or steep 

and technically demanding, the mountains 

surrounding Zermatt offer a wide range 

of the trail. When combined with the 

unique mountain vistas, these guarantee an 

unforgettable mountain bike experience for 

families as well. 

Via Ferrata 

The “Schweifinen” fixed rope route high 

above the roofs of Zermatt guarantees 

Peaks 

Zermatt’s mountain world makes travelling 

to the top of a mountain a fascinating 

experience. The viewing points do not just 

give one a view of the Matterhorn and 37 

four-thousanders. 

Matterhorn glacier paradise 

Touch the snow, all year round on 

Matterhorn glacier paradise. The 

Matterhorn glacier ride will carry 

you to Matterhorn glacier paradise at 

3883m/12,739 ft. A world of snow and ice 

awaits you. 

Gornergrat 

With its sunny viewing platform that 

can be reached throughout the year, the 

Gornergrat (3,089 m) has been the top 

tourist destination in Switzerland. The 

Monte Rosa Massif with the highest Swiss 

mountain and a view over the secondlargest 

glacier in the Alps. 

Rothorn 

From the Rothorn, you can see the 

Matterhorn from its most beautiful side. 

There’s plenty to see here: the mountains 

stretch before you, from the Dufourspitze to 

the Weisshorn, and, right in the middle, the 

Matterhorn. 

Culinary Experiences 

It is not a secret that guests in Zermatt are 

spoiled around the clock. Zermatt has the 

greatest density of gourmet and mountain 

restaurants as confirmed by international 

restaurant guides each year. 


ADVERTORIAL 

Destination Gstaad: 

An Adventure for all the family 

Destination Gstaad offers various activities for families 

with small children to youths. After the opening of two 

adventure playgrounds in 2019 and the STATION in 

2020, the whole family experience “Saaniland” will be officially 

launched in summer 2021 with two new themed trails. 

Adventure playground Wispile (Gstaad): Kids have the 

opportunity to romp around and climb as much as they want. 

Slides, climbing elements, water games and even a petting zoo with 

goats are integrated into this special playground. For some extra 

fun we recommend a descent by scooter (from 12 years) 

Adventure playground Rinderberg (Zweisimmen): There 

is a great playground on the Rinderberg. A nice end after the 

panoramic hike from Horneggli to Rinderberg. Along the hiking 

path you will discover surprises and highlights such as a wakeboard 

lift, mountain restaurants and BBQ areas. 

STATION: Are you up for a really special adventure? 

The STATION is a world for working and 

trying things out. Here you will find an 

exciting engine room with a fascinating 

mix of ropes, gears, cranks and marble 

runs. At the different work stations, 

kids can let their imaginations run 

wild while working and making 

handicrafts. Outside they can climb 

around in the rope garden and play 

in the playground. The best part of 

all is that even if it rains, you won’t 

be bored. STATION is perfect for 

families with kids between 6 and 14 

years. 

A lot of kids don’t like hiking. If this 

is the case with your family, you should try 

the new adventure trails in Destination Gstaad! 


On “Sanni’s Klangerlebnisse“ trail you will hear different sounds 

and noises. Listen closely, maybe you will hear animal voices or 

music coming from tree trunks. On the “Saani’s Bergerlebnis“ trail 

you work on your mountain climbing skills and coordination at 

17 stations. You practice balancing and climbing. At the different 

stations you will also learn interesting things about plants, animals 

or the moor. 

Sports Centre and outdoor swimming pools: Do you 

love water? Then, the outdoor swimming pools in Saanen and 

Zweisimmen are the place for you. The Sportzentrum Gstaad has 

an outdoor pool as well as an indoor pool, plus a mini-golf course, 

a playground and you can even play tennis here. 

Beside cows, the white Saanen-goats are another trademark 

within the region. That’s why “Saani” the mascot from “Saaniland” 

is a small, sassy goat. In spite of its wealth of tourist facilities, the 

Destination Gstaad has retained its Alpine authenticity. There 

are 200 farms, 80 working Alpine pastures and around 7,000 

cows! Alpine traditions are lived and breathed and 

local produce as well as craftsmanship are very 

popular. Local farmers appreciate people 

taking an interest in their work, which 

is essential in ensuring that nature 

remains intact. 

Our tip: rent a fondue backpack and 

enjoy a delicious cheese fondue at 

your favourite place. 

Rope park Zweisimmen: 

extremely fun for older kids! 

Five courses, which include funny 

rope ladders, crazy zip-wires (up 

to 150 m long) and daring jumps up 

to 20 metres off the ground. But even 

the smallest children can have a special 

climbing adventure, thanks to a children’s 

course and a children’s playground.

ADVERTORIAL 

Exploring 

Switzerland 

this Summer 

Switzerland is blessed with beauty, 

history and spectacular landscapes for 

all the family to enjoy, and summer 

is the perfect season to step outside and 

explore. There’s nothing quite like a sunny 

summer’s day In Switzerland, when the sky 

is deep blue, the lakes are shimmering and 

you feel the cool breeze blow past as you 

and your family immerse in laughter and 

fun whilst uncovering new adventures. 

After the year we have had, now is the 

time for an unforgettable summer holiday 

in Switzerland and we have the ultimate 

guide to help plan your trip. 

Aletsch-Arena: Guided glacier tours 

When you look out onto the Great Aletsch 

Glacier for the first time we guarantee the 

view will take your breathe away. Through a 

guided family tour you will learn fascinating 

facts about the Swiss UNESCO World 

Heritage site and experience the longest 

stream of ice in the Swiss Alps. A number 

of one- and two-day glacier tours take place 

every day from June to October. 

UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch / 

Sörenberg 

Located in the foot of the Alps is Entlebuch, 

the first UNESCO biosphere reserve 

in Switzerland. Adorned with unspoilt 

moorlands, a relaxing atmosphere and 

multiple offerings for all the family. 

Including energy and fairytale trails, mud 

baths, satellite-guided hiking and field trips. 

The focus is on the mystical moor 

landscapes. Visitors of all ages will learn 

how a moor is formed, get to know 

the moorland inhabitants and will be 

encouraged to experience the moor with all 

of their senses. 

Climbing with the family in Pontresina 

Pontresina is a romantic alpine village 

renowned for it’s various sports activities 

which include climbing gardens, high 

alpine tours and adventure parks. The 


ADVERTORIAL 

mountaineering school is a popular 

attraction which aims to teach children 

aged 8 - 14 to experience the rock as a 

challenge that they can meet and tackle. All 

safety equipment is provided. 

Hasliberg: Step into a fairytale 

The adventure of Hasliberg begins on the 

journey there by cable car, and once you 

reach the Mägisalp upper station the dwarf 

trail begins. This charming trail has play 

stations that align with the Muggestutz 

storybook, which tells about the fairytale 

dwarfs that live in the Hasliberg area. 

We recommend reading the Muggestutz 

storybook before you arrive to really bring 

this magical adventure to life. 

In addition to the dwarf trail and a 

butterfly path, the surrounding areas of 

Hasliberg offer modern bike parks and 

several adventurous mountain bike trails 

where paraglider’s can be spotted soaring 

through the skies. Your family can also 

rent scooters to explore the mountainous 

landscapes and lakeside views. 

Braunwald 

Bartli the dwarf with his long beard, red 

trousers and green jumper emerges from his 

hut from mid-June to October to welcome 

families and show them around his magical 

forest at Braunwald. Follow along his 4km 

path and discover some wonderful places 

such as the dwarf ’s castle, the dwarf ’s tower 

and the dwarf ’s bathing spot. 

Grächen 

The Ravensburger Games Trail boasts 

a fun alternative to hiking, with exciting 

challenges for the whole family. There is 

something for everyone in the six games 

cabins and seven activity stations including 

a tricky escape puzzle for you to crack. 

As well as enjoying the games trail, this 

is a great opportunity to expand your own 

knowledge of local plants and animals with 

everything you need provided in a pack at 

the local tourist office. 

Nendaz 

Raclette cheese is a Swiss staple that was 

invented as a way to warm up after a long 

day on the slopes, with a rich history that 

begins in the heart of the Alps. Guests of 

Nendaz can learn how to make this famous 

cheese with a cheesemaker at the Balavaux 

alpine pastures and find out their culinary 

secrets! 

Toggenburg 

With codes to crack and clues to uncover, 

the Foxtrail creative team and the 

Toggenburg holiday region have created a 

scavenger hunt for families to discover. Can 

you solve the riddles? It all comes down to 

sharp ears and team work. 

Ascona-Locarno 

Children that love an adventure will be 

thrilled with the treasure hunts offered 

by Ascona-Locarno Tourism. The four 

hidden treasures are a fun and stimulating 

way to discover the area as well as expand 

map reading skills and use tactical quick 

thinking. Top explorers can expect prizes 

for their courage. 

Savognin (Autumn) 

Join spectators at Savognin who every 

year wait for the Cotti family to take a 

4 hour ride down into the village with 

their livestock. 300 sheep are shorn each 

Saturday in October and local market 

stalls offer a range of regional products, 

including a variety of treasures made 

from soft sheep’s wool. This is a unique 

experience that immerses you in a Swiss 

tradition. 


ADVERTORIAL 

Saas Valley, put your skills to the test and 

reveal the secret code. After a fine meal in a 

mountain restaurant, you will receive your 

reward at the valley station. The family 

day can be planned individually and lasts 

around 2 to 4 hours. 

Enjoy the 

summer in 

the cool 

mountain air 

The family paradise of Kreuzboden / Hohsaas introduces itself 

Whether hiking, climbing, biking or 

relaxing on the panoramic terrace of the 

mountain restaurants: become part of an 

unforgettable nature experience! 

Monster scooter 

Our monster scooters are just the thing for 

the adventurous. After a short introduction, 

the wild ride begins with small jumps and 

a great driving experience and extends into 

an 11km descent into the valley. 

Bike trails Hohsaas 

The Valais is an absolute treasure of the 

mountain bike scene. The Kreuzboden- 

Hohsaas area is perfect for scenic and 

varied tours thanks to its high-alpine 

topography. The view of the towering 

peaks and the 1700 metres of altitude 

that have to be overcome between 

Hohsaas and Saas-Grund are unique. 

on the Kreuzboden. The 3 routes are 

each around 380m long and the children 

can easily get to the start of these routes 

using the conveyor belt. But don’t go 

thinking these routes can’t be challenging! 

Guaranteed fun for the whole family! 

Family day 

Experience an exciting day with 

us in the Kreuzboden - Hohsaas 

area. Together with your family, 

you will decipher puzzles about the 

Culinary delight 

There is nothing more romantic than a 

candlelight dinner under the full moon, 

2,400 metres above sea level. After an 

aperitif in the sunset, we will entice your 

senses with a 4-course meal by candlelight. 

Afterwards you can enjoy a magical view 

in the moonlight with a fine digestive and a 

cozy blanket on the terrace. 

Or treat yourself to something very 

special with our exclusive Wine & Dine 

experience. A 5-course menu in the middle 

of a breathtaking mountain panorama 

and the best wines from an exquisite Valais 

winery. Let us pamper you with culinary 

delights. 

5% discount on all mountain experiences 

with the promo code “SunnySide” until 

the end of June 2021: https://shop.eguma.ch/bergbahnen-hohsaas/en/ 

gift-vouchers?promocode=SunnySide. By 

using the promo code, you agree to receive 

the Berbahnen Hohsaas newsletter. This 

informs you about great promotions and 

excursion opportunities. 

Contact and further information: 

Bergbahnen Hohsaas AG, 

3910 Saas-Grund, +41 (0) 27 958 15 80, 

www.hohsaas.ch 

Bike Park Kreuzboden 

Kreuzboden is for the whole family, not 

just experienced bikers. This summer from 

July 2021, 3 new trails will be expanded 


ADVERTORIAL 

Discover the Hoher 

Kasten in Appenzell 

The Hoher Kasten is a mountain located in the Appenzell Alps 

with a 360 degree unlimited panoramic view over six countries. 

It offers an incredibly diverse selection of hiking opportunities. 

Is there a better way to start a journey of discovery than with 

an adventure in itself ? The Hoher Kasten cable car rides up 

to the summit within eight minutes. The journey takes you 

across green meadows from 900 to almost 1800 metres above sea 

level. Once arrived you will want to discover the surroundings 

immediately. On the summit there are resting benches, free 

telescopes and various panoramic platforms, where you can admire 

the view to the fullest. 

Unlimited panoramic views on the Europa-Rundweg 

circular trail 

The Europa Rundweg Circular Trail circles the striking silhouette 

of Hoher Kasten and offers exceptional views in all directions. It is 

wheelchair-accessible and therefore also accessible for families with 

prams and people with mobility issues. With good visibility, you will 

have the opportunity to view six neighboring countries: Germany, 

France, Liechtenstein, Austria as well as the summit of the Monte 

di Zocca in Italy. Switzerland counts too, obviously. 

Along this summit trail, a unique alpine garden features up to 

300 alpine plants for you to see. With 15 information boards, adults 

and children can learn a lot about native plants and animals. The 

Hoher Kasten alpine garden association breeds seeds with care, 

resettling endangered alpine plants. Every spring when the snow 

has melted, the plants awake from their hibernation. 

The only Revolving Restaurant in Eastern Switzerland 

The only revolving restaurant near and far is located on top of 

Hoher Kasten. The restaurant revolves around its own axis within 

an hour, allowing for stunning panoramic views. Whether you are 

deciding to have lunch at the restaurant or simply a cup of coffee, 

try to spend some time inside the restaurant to feel the rotating 

effect! Needless to say, local Appenzell delicacies, friendly hosts and 

just all-around a great atmosphere complete this experience. 

Hiking Opportunities 

for everyone 

The Hoher Kasten is the perfect 

starting point for a variety of hikes 

Top tip 

for families 

Exploring the Appenzell Alps has 

never been easier or more affordable. 

Children up to 15 years of age can 

travel free of charge on the Hoher 

Kasten cable car throughout 2021 as 

long as they are accompanied by 

at least one adult. And the 

offer is open to school 

groups too! 

across the entire Alpstein region - for all levels. From families 

with children to experienced hikers – there is a suitable hike for 

everyone. 

The best walking option for families is the family trail Hoher 

Kasten – Kamor – Forstseeli - Brülisau, which begins at the cable 

car and takes hikers along the mountain ridge Kamor before 

descending through a peaceful pine forest, where you can either 

continue to the idyllic Forstseeli Lake for a waterside picnic or to 

the mountain inn Ruhesitz where it’s possible to rent scooters to 

ride back into Brülisau for a slightly more energetic end to the trail. 

Another option is to hike to the dreamy Sämtisersee lake. Either 

you hike from Brülisau up to the lake or you start your hiking 

journey from Hoher Kasten. This one is a little trickier but it’s still 

accessible for families. 

If you want a bit of a challenge you can try the Geological 

Trail from Hoher Kasten – Staubern – Saxerlücke – Bollenwees 

(Fählensee lake) – Plattenbögeli (Sämtisersee lake) – Brülisau. It 

takes around four to five hours. With panoramic views over the 

Rhine Valley and the rolling Appenzell hills, as well as over the 

surrounding mountains, this trail is a must for everyone who wants 

to go beyond his limits. 

Season starts in May 2021 

Due to construction work, the cable car and the revolving 

restaurant will be open from may 2021. Since November 2020, 

the connecting tunnel of the top station and the catering area has 

been renewed. A comfortable inclined lift was realized and new 

animation in the tunnel will make the trip even more of a unique 

experience. Please refer to our website for the exact opening date. 


ADVERTORIAL 

Immerse yourself 

in a world of 

experience on a 

family break in the 

Holiday Region 

Interlaken 

@ Interlaken Tourism 

With its dazzling array of 

activities, an unforgettable 

family holiday is guaranteed, 

whatever the season in the Holiday Region 

Interlaken. Tear down the mountain on 

a scooter with your loved ones or take a 

kayak out onto Lake Brienz. Climb high 

up into the treetops at the rope park, go 

on a treasure hunt or explore the Alpine 

landscape on family hikes and themed 

paths. 

Biking fun and views of the Bernese 

Oberland mountain peaks 

During the summer season you can hire 

scooter bikes at the Niederhornbahn’s 

middle station in Vorsass. The staff will 

equip you with the necessary equipment 

and helmet before you set off. The cable 

car takes you straight to Vorsass. Two 

@ Interlaken Tourism 

different routes take you along unsurfaced 

and asphalt roads to the railway station in 

Beatenberg. It’s an unforgettable experience 

offering plenty of fun and action. Choose 

your own pace – leisurely or fast. The 

routes wind their way through verdant 

forests, passing lush meadows and gushing 

mountain streams on the way. If you feel 

like taking a break, you can stop at one 

of the well laid out barbecue areas, so it’s 

worth bringing a nice picnic with you. 

Kayak across Lake Brienz 

Learn the basics while you enjoy a fun-filled 

day with the whole family on Lake Brienz. 

Be the captain of your own ship and spend 

two action-packed hours on the water whilst 

you tackle various sporting challenges. 

If you love swimming and water-based 

activities this experience 

guarantees fun and a challenge 

to test your sea legs! 

River rafting in Interlaken – 

feel the power of water 

An easily accessible launching 

area on the lower reaches of 

the Lütschine river means 

that families can also book 

an adventurous river rafting 

trip on the famous whitewater 

river with our expert 

guides. The smaller waves 

and splashes ensure fun for 

all ages whilst a plunge into 

Lake Brienz at the end 

of the tour is the perfect 

way to round off this fun 

family experience. 

Freshen up in the cooling waters of 

open-air pools by Lakes Thun and Brienz 

Around lakes Thun and Brienz you will find 

tranquil bathing spots and open-air pools 

whilst a spacious lawn awaits visitors to the 

Brienz Lido. At the lido on Lake Thun, 

you can swim lengths of several pools, race 

down the wide wavy slide or simply drink 

in breathtaking views of the Eiger, Mönch 

and Jungfrau from your lakeside vantage 

point. Alternatively, rent a canoe or standup 

paddle at various points on the southern 

bank of Lake Thun and ride the sparkling 

waters. 

Nature and tradition at Ballenberg: 

An adventure for the whole family 

Immerse yourself in the past and enjoy 

a stunning natural idyll at the Ballenberg 

Open-Air Museum. Experience the culture 

and customs of Switzerland at close hand 

and visit all of Switzerland in just one day. 

Unpaved roads and stone paths lead from 

the entrance of the Ballenberg Open-Air 

Museum to various centuries-old buildings 

representing every part of Switzerland. 

The St. Beatus caves: A natural wonder 

by Lake Thun 

Take a tour of discovery in the magical 

world of St. Beatus caves. Prepare to 

be fascinated by the incredible shapes 

and colours of impressive stalactite and 

stalagmite formations, and hear the rush 

and drip of the bubbling waters. The St. 

Beatus caves are one of the most popular 

day-trip destinations around Lake Thun, 

and it is possible to explore a kilometre of 

this on your own when you visit. 


ADVERTORIAL 

THIS IS IT 

This is Engelberg-Titlis 

@ Engelberg-Titlis Tourismus 

Crisp, clean mountain air fills your lungs, your gaze sweeps 

across majestic mountain peaks, your nose takes in the 

delicate scent of soil and Alpine flowers, and the silence 

is broken only by the harmonious ringing of cowbells. This is 

precisely what you have been seeking. You give a whoop of joy: 

This is it! 

Rustic character and culture since 1120 

Engelberg is located 25 km south of Lake Lucerne in a wide 

mountain valley at an altitude of around 1000 metres. At 3,239 

metres, Titlis mountain with its glacier, and Hahnen mountain 

at 2,600 metres, are towering over the surrounding peaks. The 

Benedictine monastery was founded in 1120 and has a big impact 

on the life of the village, even today. Monks still live, work and 

teach there. In combination with the pleasant Swiss flair, the special 

architecture lends the village its very own charm. 

5 reasons for spending family holidays in Engelberg? 

During the holidays, the whole family hopes to have a great time 

and return home with wonderful memories. In Engelberg, that’s 

easy. As one of the sportiest family destinations in Switzerland, we 

offer a whole range of activities and experiences that add up to an 

unforgettable family holiday. 

1Easy accessibility 

In one hour’s drive from Zurich to Engelberg and only 30 

minutes later you are on Mount Titlis. 

2 

Family destination label since 1998 

The “Family Destination” label is only awarded to holiday 

destinations that streamline their offers to the needs and 

wishes of children. With family-friendly facilities and loads of 

enjoyable activities, these destinations (such as Engelberg) offer 

children and their parents plenty of fun, action, variety and 

relaxation. 

3 

Family programme 

Every day there’s a new adventure awaiting you in 

Engelberg. There’s an attractive family programme of 

activities being offered once again. 

4 

Playgrounds and picnic areas 

Engelberg has a range of adventure playgrounds that ensure 

excitement for the little ones. Also, Engelberg has numerous 

picnic spots, many alongside these playgrounds. 

5 

Hiking adventures for small and big alpinists 

For your family you will find plenty of themed hiking trails 

in Engelberg. There are a total of 11 varied walking and 

hiking trails that are designed to be suitable for pushchairs. 

Are you convinced? Or do you need more inspiration? Discover 

more: www.engelberg.ch/en/summer. See you soon in Engelberg! 

@ Engelberg-Titlis Tourismus 


ADVERTORIAL 

Région Dents 

du Midi: 

The possibilities are endless 

Région Dents du Midi 

The Région Dents du Midi encompasses 

6 charming villages perched high in the 

Swiss Alps near the south eastern end of 

Lake Geneva. Nestled in the spectacular Val 

d’Illiez, these villages are part of Les Portes 

du Soleil, the world’s largest international 

ski & bike area and one of the most 

beautiful places in the world. 

In the summer, some 800 km of hiking 

trails and 600 km of mountain bike trails 

await outside your front door, with quaint 

alpine restaurants and sunny terraces at 

strategic intervals along the way. In the 

winter, the snowy landscape is a study in 

stark contrasts, from the hushed mystery of 

the frozen back country to the invigorating 

hustle and bustle of the state-of-the-art 

groomed ski slopes. 

No matter the season, this is a place of 

exhilarating peaks and inspiring views, 

where the border between France and 

Switzerland has all but disappeared and 

your garden stretches as far as the eye can 

see. 

In a land with no boundaries the 

possibilities are endless. At the risk of 

sounding cliché, there really IS something 

for everyone in the Région Dents du Midi! 

Multi Pass 

Rediscover the Alps this summer with the 

Portes du Soleil Multi Pass, your golden 

ticket to over 100 free and discounted 

activities! Staying overnight in the Région 

Dents du Midi? The Multi Pass is free of 

charge. Alternatively, you can purchase a 

one-day Multi Pass for CHF 11 at the ski lift 

ticket window in Champéry and Morgins. 

Free activities : Portes du Soleil Multi 

Pass: The all inclusive concept! 

Chair lift: With 22 mountain lifts 

throughout the Swiss and France resort, you 

can explore the peaks and jump from one 

country to another! 

Swimming pool: Swimming in the Région 

Dents du Midi! Whether you want to relax, 

play or do a bit more sport, entrance is free 

with your Multi Pass at swimming pools in 

Champéry and Morgins. 

Tourist train: Want to just enjoy 

wonderful mountain views? Simply use the 

inter-resort shuttles that will take you on a 

panoramic journey across the heart of our 

valley. 

Discounted activities 

Trott’in Herbe: Trott en Stock’s fleet of 

24 adult scooters and 8 junior scooters are 

an easy way to experience thrills in the 

mountains, with fat tyres and suspension 

to absorb the shocks of the rugged terrain 

and brake discs to stop on a dime. 10 km of 

trails with a 1000 m descent wind through 

alpine pastures and forests, making the Alps 

your personal playground. 

Déval’Kart: Hurtle down the ski slopes 

in summertime on a 4x4 go-cart rigged 

especially for the rugged mountain terrain. 

At the bottom, just hook your cart onto the 

ski lift and head back up for endless hours 

of fun. 

Via Ferrata: Part hiking, part 

mountaineering, a Via Ferrata allows hikers 

to safely navigate treacherous alpine terrain. 

With the proper equipment, adults and 

children alike can clip safely to a series of 

cables and iron rungs fixed to the valley’s 

rock walls. The Tière Via Ferrata is 460 

m long and has an altitude gain of 125 m, 

skimming up sheer rock walls. The route 

crosses over the River Tière in three places, 

offering spectacular views of the rushing 

cascades below. 

For more information visit www.rddm.ch 


ADVERTORIAL 

A night under the stars 

@Fabiano Mancesti –fabxplore 

Who hasn’t dreamt of spending 

a night out in the open 

air under the stars? It’s an 

experience that’s now available with family 

or friends in the Vaud Alps, the Jura, and 

the Vaud Plateau. Organised with the 

environment and the current regulations in 

mind, these bivouacs are supervised by an 

accompanying guide with a wealth of local 

knowledge to share with the participants. 

There are six experiences on offer in 

total, each one addressing a different theme: 

from spotting wildlife to forest 

legends and marvelling 

at the splendour of the 

night sky. This product is 

in response to the current 

demand for outdoor 

activities and a desire on 

the part of many visitors to 

reconnect with nature. Each 

night is a genuine microadventure 

beneath the starry 

skies and an invitation to 

enjoy an experience that’s as 

exceptional as it is out of the 

ordinary. 

@PackedAgain 

the time to discover some other summer 

activities in the canton of Vaud. 

• A hike around the pristine waters of Lake 

Lioson, followed by relaxing sunbathing on 

the lakeshores 

• A family hike to the Ramaclé waterfall 

combined with the discovery of the famous 

Turrian Bridge 

• A walk in the terraced 

vineyards of Lavaux offering 

an outstanding view of 

Lake Geneva 

• Excursion up the mountains to Rochersde-Naye 

aboard a cogwheel train 

• Easy mountain bike route that is ideal for 

the family around the beautiful village of 

Les Diablerets 

• A day out on the picturesque shores of 

Lake Joux, combined with a dip in Lake 

Brenet for those who love cold water! 

@Fabiano Mancesti –fabxplore 

If you come to enjoy a “Night 

under the stars”, why not take 


ADVERTORIAL 

Explore the 

Secrets of 

Schilthorn 

It only takes 30 minutes by cable car to the summit 

of the 2970 m high Schilthorn. In front of 

the impressive panorama atop the 3km high 

Schilthorn, with Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, where the 

secret agent James Bond chased the bad guys there’s 

plenty to discover. The jewel in the crowd is the Bond 

World exhibit, which takes you into a world of its own 

and provides exciting details about “On Her Majesty’s 

Secret Service” starring 007 actor George Lazenby. On the 

world’s first 007 Walk of Fame, stars from in front and behind the 

camera leave their mark on the legendary Bond filming location. 

After these exciting espionage experiences, the James Bond 

Brunch in the 360° restaurant Piz Gloria will taste even better. The 

restaurant rotates around its own axis during the meal, passing 

more than 200 mountain peaks. Afterwards, the cable car takes 

you down to Birg. Once there, you have the opportunity for two 

more amazing walks. First, the Skyline Walk platform leads you 

over the vertical abyss and provides a beautiful panoramic view 

across the whole mountain range. Secondly, for those who have 

not experienced enough thrills can dare to venture onto the Thrill 

Walk. Featuring crawl spaces, glass bottom floors, cattle-grids and 

more, this 200m walk is sure to get the spine tingling as you travel 

along the imposing rock massif and get an unrestricted view into 

the bottomless pit. 

GOOD 

TO KNOW 

● The cows are in Gimmelwald until about 

mid-June and then live on the alp for the summer 

before returning in September. The young animals 

spend the whole year around the barn. 

● Thomas Rubin is personally on site whenever he 

has time. 

● The altitude and the visit to the stables require 

suitable clothing and good shoes. Don’t forget 

sunglasses, sunscreen, etc. 

● Offer, resp. price is also available 

without brunch in the 360°- 

Restaurant Piz Gloria 

The Schilthorn 

Cableway Ltd also 

offers a guided visit to 

a farm in Gimmelwald 

afterwards. Gimmelwald 

is a traditional mountain 

farming village with just 

under 100 inhabitants, 

situated at 1367m above sea 

level between Stechelberg and 

Mürren. Immerse yourself in the 

everyday life of a Gimmelwald farmer and 

gain an authentic impression of traditional alpine farming. 

Thomas Rubin, a farmer from Gimmelwald, opens his byre doors 

personally whenever possible and gives an insight into his varied 

everyday working life. He provides exciting details about his own 

milk, cheese and sausage production, his animal husbandry and 

a lot of interesting facts about the cultivation of the surrounding 

mountain meadows. 

Make sure to take advantage of the 30 percent discount on the 

Stechelberg - Schilthorn return, valid until 14th November 2021 

and includes the exclusive James Bond Brunch. Children under 6 

eat and travel for free, making this a trip for all the family. 

Book online at schilthorn.ch/reservation. 


C 

LE RELAIS 

M 

Y 

CM 

MY 

CY 

MY 

K

ADVERTORIAL 

HOW DO 

TEACHERS GET 

TO KNOW YOUR 

CHILD? 


ADVERTORIAL 

“Greeting every child, allowing them 

to share their ideas, facilitating a group 

activity, and providing a thoughtful 

morning message, shows our students 

that they are heard and known.” 

If the pandemic has shown educators 

anything, it is that our most 

fundamental responsibility is to care 

for those in our school community. If 

students do not feel genuinely safe, no 

achievement – academic or otherwise – is 

realistically possible. That some teachers 

and schools have been able to maintain 

achievement in the face of such disruption 

is testament to an unshakable truth; 

everything they have been doing has been 

based on care. 

Such a principle, however, cannot only 

be seen in moments of crisis – it must be 

ever-present and ever-evolving to meet 

the needs of a school community. We 

must always evaluate the meaning of 

‘pastoral care’ and look to build learning 

environments that are supportive, 

productive, and positive. This does not 

mean being ‘permissive’ or unrealistic; it 

means having the systems, strategies, and 

communication in place to forge strong 

relationships on which outstanding learning 

can be based. 

Knowing Every Child 

Embedded in our school’s philosophy is 

the idea that, “…students learn effectively, 

feel safe, welcome and respected within 

the community…”, but we are always 

looking to improve. To do this, it’s often 

best to start at the simplest point - asking 

young people what they need from us. The 

answer, invariably, is simple. To be able to 

help them organise their learning – which 

is important, but ‘functional’ - and to know 

who they are, which is fundamental. 

Truly knowing our students is not 

achieved simply by wanting to, it is done 

through deliberate processes. One such 

example is the ‘Morning Meeting’ in 

Primary School. Greeting every child, 

allowing them to share their ideas, 

facilitating a group activity, and providing 

a thoughtful morning message, shows our 

students that they are heard and known. 

This may seem simplistic, but such 

research-driven ideas give direction to 

knowing our students better. 

Managing Difficult Situations 

It holds that if we better know our 

students, we are better placed to build 

resilience within them. Resilience – the 

ability to ‘manage’ difficult situations – is 

highly individual but can be ‘worked on’. 

The more positive the environment, the 

more the scales ‘tip’ in favour of positive 

experiences in the mindset of the child, 

meaning they are better equipped to 

handle difficult times that might threaten 

to ‘unbalance’ them. We have seen our 

resilience pushed in recent months, but we 

have also seen it shine. 

Respecting Digital Spaces 

We are all ‘digital citizens’ in the modern 

world. Our children – their parents or 

teachers – are ‘digital natives’, and may 

take features of the digital world for 

granted. It is our responsibility to extend 

the idea of ‘pastoral care’ to this space. 

Our core messaging to students is based on 

‘respect’ – respect for others, for oneself, 

for data, and for intellectual property. 

Anything that impacts our students’ welfare 

is important to us. 

Seeing the Invisible 

Schools must empower their teachers to be 

entirely committed to ‘see every child’. To 

further improve this commitment, however, 

staff must go beyond the superficial and 

attempt to see the invisible. With the 

right support system in place teachers can 

develop their expertise to better identify 

the features of every child’s background, 

interests, and character. With better 

knowledge, we can offer better care. 

At the Inter-Community School Zurich 

(ICS), we ask about your child(ren) before 

we tell you how we can serve their specific 

needs. Contact us at contact@icsz.ch to 

find out more about the international 

school of first choice in Zurich and we will 

arrange an appointment for you with our 

Admissions team. www.icsz.ch 


sleep 

THE 

BEDROCK 

OF GOOD 

HEALTH 

Sleep is the one single (in)action that 

we can take to reset our physical 

and mental health every day: a 

nightly rinse and repair of our brain and 

body. Humans are the only species that 

deliberately deprive themselves of sleep. 

Most of us need 7-9 hours every night, 

and sleep cannot be banked. Losing just 

one hour a night impacts our memory, our 

ability to learn and our overall health and 

has been associated with heart disease, 

stroke, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. 

Since the onset of the COVID-19 

pandemic, many of us are finding it 

difficult to sleep, with anxiety and stress 

being the main causes of insomnia. The 

problem is that poor sleep worsens the 

symptoms of mental distress, so we find 

ourselves in a spiralling cycle of deficient 

sleep and increasing stress. 

The resulting tiredness leads many 

of us to turn to caffeine to help us focus 

and alcohol to help us get to sleep. 

Unfortunately, both have a disastrous 

impact on our sleep. Caffeine, which 

blocks our natural sleep-onset hormone, 

hangs around in our body for up to 12 

hours, meaning that the coffee we had 

at lunchtime can prevent us from falling 

asleep at bedtime. Alcohol induces 

anaesthesia, not sleep, and both liquid 

stressors impact sleep quality, so we awake 

unrefreshed the next day. 

Blue light from screens at night-time 

blocks our natural sleep cycle by turning off 

the important sleep hormone melatonin, 



vital for communicating the message to our 

brain that sleep should start. 

A good night’s sleep starts in the morning 

by getting good light: just 20 minutes of 

daylight sends a strong message to the 

brain to wake up and sets up our 24-hour 

clock for the day ahead. To keep this clock 

well calibrated, we should ensure a regular 

bedtime routine 7 days a week. Setting 

an alarm in the evening to begin the 

night-time wind down can help fine-tune 

the accuracy of our internal clocks. Dim 

the lights an hour before bed, lower the 

temperature in your room to 18 degrees 

and take a nice hot bath, both to relax and 

to cool your core temperature down. Our 

body temperature naturally falls as we go to 

sleep, along with our heart rate and blood 

pressure, so anything that drives these up, 

hampers our sleep. 

And if you wake up in the night and 

cannot get back to sleep, the best thing to 

do is to get up: retrain your brain that your 

bed is for sleeping in. 

How about you? How is your sleep right 

now? Are you awaking refreshed in the 

morning or do you need a coffee to get 

started? What do you do to help get to 

sleep each night? 

Our HealthFirst Sleep Well, Live Well 

Checklist provides tips to improve your 

sleep - mother nature’s built-in repair and 

replenish system. 

Dr Mecky McNeil and Dr Michelle Wright 

from HealthFirst (www.healthfirst.ch) 

offer physical and mental well-being 

services and First Aid training online 

and face-to-face to individuals and 

organisations throughout Switzerland 

and globally. 

Start the day with a dose of bright daylight: go 

1 outside for 20-30 minutes in the morning, ideally 

before beginning your working day, to stimulate your 24- 

hour clock. 

Set your evening sleep routine alarm clock to start 

2 your evening wind down to get ready for sleep. Aim 

for the same 7-days a week bedtime and wake-up time to 

help stabilise your 24-hour clock. 

Avoid bright light in the evening: tone down your evening lighting 

3 to softer yellow shades to help stimulate the night-time release of 

melatonin. Gradually toning this down will mimic the setting sun and send a 

message to your brain to start preparing for sleep. 

Avoid eating your evening meal too late so your body can have a chance 

4 to digest before sleep. 

5 

Avoid exercise in the 3 hours before sleep to help calm your heart rate 

and body before bed. 

Avoid afternoon naps post 3pm. They can interfere with your night-time 

6 sleep pattern. 

7 

8 

9 

Take a hot bath before bed, not only to relax but also to help lower your 

body temperature before sleep. 

Lower the temperature of your bedroom to 18 degrees; a cooler room 

helps the onset of sleep. 

Avoid screens and devices before going to sleep, not only to reduce the 

blue LED light stimulation that impairs melatonin release, but also to 

help calm the mind before sleep. Those last-minute emails may also lead to 

a spike in stress that can counteract the onset of sleep. 

10 

11 

12 

Keep your bedroom dark when you are asleep. 

Avoid clock faces in your room. If you do wake up in the night, do not 

look at the clock. 

Bedrooms are for sleeping in: if you wake up in the night, get up. 

Move to another room and sit quietly in a darkened place, listen to 

music, or read a book until you feel tired and ready for sleep. Prevent your 

brain from associating bed with being awake. 

13 

Avoid liquid stressors: no caffeine after lunchtime and beware of the 

alcoholic nightcap. 

Keep a journal and a pen beside your bed and write down your 

14 worries if they wake you at night. Putting your ‘to do’ list, worrying 

thoughts, or even 3 things you are grateful for on paper can really help to 

quiet your mind. 

15 

HEALTHFIRST 

SLEEP WELL, LIVE 

WELL CHECKLIST 

Switch off your snooze button. If you must set an alarm to wake you 

in the morning, you do not need to relive the stress impact more 

than once! 


Enjoy a full or half 

day of invigorating 

sports and activities 

A Maximum Ratio of 

4 or 6 campers to 

each camp leader 

AWESOME 

SUMMER CAMP 

ZERMATT 

Web: www.awesomesummercampzermatt.com 

Phone: +41 79 709 00 06 

Summer Day Camps 

We offer campers an exciting range of invigorating 

activities whilst developing key skills required to safely 

enjoy the outdoors. Each day we try to ensure that the 

children are making the most of the environment 

surrounding us and having fun, but also learning a bit 

about the outdoors! 

Age specific groups 

helping the children 

to make new friends. 

From 3-17 years. 

Email: info@awesomesummercampzermatt.com 

Phone: +41 79 709 00 06

Stop and smell 

the roses! 

WRITTEN BY HESTER MACDONALD 

Roses are some of the oldest flowering plants, appearing in 

the fossil record around 70 million years ago. The original 

wild roses were not so different to some of our wild roses 

today, with 5 petals, and some fragrance, and can be found in most 

regions of the world. The beauty of the flower and the perfume 

made the rose a very popular plant. The Romans used it as confetti 

for celebrations, as well as for medicinal purposes and perfume. 

The Greeks believed that the rose was created by Aphrodite, 

the Goddess of love, when running to save her lover Adonis, her 

tears fell on his blood, and thereby created a fragrant red rose. 

The Ancient Egyptians, too, used roses as a cosmetic ingredient, 

and they also appear in tombs as funerary wreaths. The cultural 

and social meaning of roses is very broad, from the red roses that 

represent love in many cultures, to the white rose representing the 

Virgin Mary in Christian imagery. Did you know that a bouquet of 

roses has different meanings depending on the colour of the roses 

in it? Blue is for mystery, yellow is for friendship and orange is for 

passion. 

Rose flowers 

Roses can be found in almost any colour, from the darkest purples, 

to the purest white. The two colours that are hardest to produce 

in roses are blue and black. Black flowers, of any type, are quite 

unusual, and black roses are no exception. You will see roses 

with the word “black” in their names, like “Black Baccara”, for 

example, but they are actually very dark red. Blue roses are even 

harder to find. The Japanese company, Suntory , bred pansy genes 

into a red rose, and used an enzyme to “switch off” the red colour. 

The resulting rose is more a purple colour than blue, as the red 

colour could not be entirely subdued. It’s called “Applause” and 

you can read about this lengthy project on Suntory’s website www. 

suntory.com 

The earliest breeding of roses has been documented in the 

Han Dynasty (141-87 BC) in China, where gardeners started to 

experiment with improving on the wild rose forms, that has just 5 

petals. Later, the China rose, or Rosa chinensis appeared in Europe 

in the middle of the 18th century, and is the parent for many 

modern garden roses. It is multi-petalled and flowers more than 

once in the season, a feature known as “repeat flowering.” Rose 

breeding is a big business today, with hundreds of new cultivars 

appearing on the market every year. 

Rose breeders are looking for plants that have a long flowering 

period, are fragrant, disease-resistant, with lots of healthy, glossy 

foliage. The International Rose Trial in Nyon, in the Canton of 


Vaud in Switzerland, is the first trial worldwide to assess all these 

things, without spraying or treating the roses in any way. You 

can see the results so far on the website of the Rose Trial www. 

rosenouvelledenyon.ch and if the COVID restrictions permit, visit 

them during the open days in summer. 

Rose fragrance 

Roses are described as the “cornerstone of perfumery” and are 

said to feature in 80% of womens’ perfumes. The roses most 

used in perfumery are Damascene roses, Turkish roses and Rosa 

centifolia that is principally grown around the French perfumemaking 

town, Grasse. Roses didn’t evolve their fragrance to make 

perfume, however, they evolved it to attract pollinators like bees. 

Human rose breeders later on refined and developed those fragrant 

roses so that today we can smell dozens of different elements in one 

rose – vanilla, citrus, nasturtium, apples and cloves, for example. 

You may also smell more unusual fragrances when you take a good 

sniff – honeysuckle, hyacinths, moss, peppers and even raspberry! 

Over 300 compounds are known to produce fragrance in roses, 

and these can vary by time of day, and where the flower is in the 

development cycle. The compounds are produced by hundreds 

of volatile molecules, including some called monoterpenes. Rose 

oxide is a monoterpene, and you find it in in Damask roses, as well 

as in lychees, and some wines, like Gewurtztraminer. 

Fragrance perception is a tricky thing in humans, as it depends 

on what you’ve been eating and drinking recently, as well as 

whether you are able to recognise the smell, so it’s no surprise that 

“noses”, professional people who smell things for a living, are in 

such high demand for many industries, including rose breeding. 

One of the most common complaints about some modern roses 

is that they don’t smell, and the reason for this was only recently 

discovered. The analysis of the decoding of the genes for the 

China Rose “Old Blush” revealed that when some of the genes 

for flower colour were switched “on”, they switched off the gene 

for fragrance. This would explain why some roses, with very pretty 

flower colours, have no smell. 

“Roses are described as the 

“cornerstone of perfumery” 

and are said to feature in 80% of 

womens’ perfumes.” 

Rose “fruit” 

Roses are related to several popular fruit, including apples and 

pears, and produce fruit in a similar way, developing after the 

fertilisation of the flower. They are called “hips”, “heps” or “haws” 

and come in a wide variety of colours and shapes, adding to the 

attractiveness of the plant, long after the flowers have finished, 

Inside the fruit, a large number of hairy seeds , called “achenes” 

develop, and on the outside, a fleshy fruit, called the “pericarp” 

is produced. The pericarp is the part that is used to make jams 

or tea, and is very high in Vitamin C, containing 50% more than 

is found in oranges. The hips are attractive to wildlife, as well as 

people, and you will see thrushes and blackbirds nibbling the hips 

in the depths of winter, and finches enjoying the seeds. 

Why are roses prickly? 

Rose stems have “prickles”, which are outgrowths of the 

epidermis, mostly as sickle-shaped barbs, that help them to climb. 

This way the rose can get more sunshine, and is more likely to 

survive. The prickles also help to deter browsing animals like deer, 

and are used an adaptation in sandy areas to trap sand at the base 

of the plant, helping to anchor it. 


“Roses are immensely adaptable plants, managing to survive 

in deserts as well as the far north, and as a result, are very useful 

garden plants.” 

Cooking with roses 

Roses have been used as an ingredient in cookery for millennia, 

and you can easily learn to make your own rose mixes for sweet 

and savoury dishes. First of all, find a rose that you like the smell 

of. It’s important that it has been grown with a no-spray regime, as 

you are going to eat it. Most pink and yellow roses smell and taste 

nice, and some white varieties will work too. The best time to pick 

them is early in the morning, before 10:00, when the dew is still 

on them. Take the petals off the rose and snip off the white part at 

the base of each petal. This tastes bitter and needs to be removed. 

Wash the petals in clean water and lay them out on a tea towel or 

kitchen paper to dry. If you want fresh petals, you will need to use 

them that day, but you can keep them for other recipes for up to a 

week in the fridge, or dry them for use later on. 

Easy recipes 

Rose tea – put a handful of petals in hot water, let them brew for 

a few minutes and enjoy 

Rose sugar – put a handful of clean dry petals in a jar of sugar 

in a dark place for a week then sieve out the petals. You can use the 

sugar in cakes, as decoration or to flavour other desserts 

Rose syrup – mix equal volumes of water and sugar in a 

saucepan, bring to the boil. Take off the heat and drop in a handful 

of petals and leave to soak for half an hour. Sieve out the petals 

and decant into a clean jar or bottle. This is delicious in desserts as 

well as soft and alcoholic drinks. 

A rose for every situation 

Roses are immensely adaptable plants, managing to survive in 

deserts as well as the far north, and as a result, are very useful 

garden plants. There are roses for ground cover, for walls, for pots 

and tiny miniatures for when you’ve run out of space for any more 

roses! And if you don’t have any space at home, you can enjoy 

them in rose gardens and botanical gardens across Switzerland. 

My book, “Gardens Switzerland” published by Bergli Books, 

available in all good bookshops, has lots of suggestions. 

Hester Macdonald is a garden designer, writer, journalist and 

consultant. Her book “Gardens Switzerland” is printed by Bergli 

Books and is available in all good bookshops. 


CULTURE & 

CONVERSATIONS 

WRITTEN BY CHRISTOPHER CLYDE GREEN 

A 

few years ago, I was asked by 

some students if I wanted to help 

them with a club called “fight 

for rights”. It was initially made to address 

what they felt were inequalities within our 

school community and culture. At first, I 

was reluctant. I didn’t want to be tagged 

or labelled as an “activist”. After reflection 

I saw that this was a naïve move, as I had 

written about these ideas for years and 

as a teacher, I feel it is my duty to help to 

empower others. This group of students felt 

they were being left out of conversations 

due, what should be, unfathomable factors 

such as their sexual organs, their skin tone, 

how they walked, how they studied, or how 

much cash was in their pocket. It wasn’t 

right. Furthermore, teachers, students and 

staff in all the schools I have worked in have 

discussed the idea of culture and inequality. 

We have all experienced what it is like 

having baseless judgments against us, but 

some have had to deal with it more than 

others. We all judge each other, but the 

judgments regarding the aforementioned 

list are the tip of the iceberg when it comes 

to what makes us, us. They undermine 

what is really important: our physical & 

mental wellbeing with cultural appreciation 

at the centre. The main reservation that I 

had was: how could we address this theme 

in such a polarised world, which seems to 

favour the loudest in the room during the 

Internet Age? 

I recommended that they should realise 

that “fighting” isn’t the only answer, 

nor is it apparently, the most suitable 

way to get their point across in a centre 

of learning. Theoretically, my “teacher 

response” seemed to make sense, but 

what happens when stakeholders do not 

feel comfortable or safe to state their 

opinion or ideas in open dialogue? In all 

the schools I have worked in verbal abuse 

seems to be commonplace, from the casual 

homophobic or racial slur masked as banter 

or locker room talk. In a way this subtle 

and sometimes not so subtle discourse 

managed to subdue those deemed to be 

the subaltern . In my experience when 

this issue has been raised teachers throw 

up a number of things to blame from the 

media to parents. The real issue is a lack 

of awareness of oneself and those around 

us. Breakdowns in healthy conversations 

usually stem from ignorance. How can we 

create spaces where people feel that they 

can express themselves freely, but at the 

same time respect the people around them 

and have culture awareness regarding what 


and exposing injustices , but more often 

than not social media companies thrive 

from content that promotes outrage, 

deception and conspiracy. The more 

polarised we are, the better it is for them. 

These extreme attitudes can bleed into 

classrooms, beyond virtual life and beyond 

veils of computer screens. There have 

been incidences of teachers controlling 

political views , students verbally attacking 

those that oppose them and teachers 

being physically attacked for questioning 

cultural practices; even killed. Has there 

been an increase in this kind of behaviour, 

or are we just seeing it more in the news? 

Nevertheless, clearly what needs to 

happen is a development of spaces where 

conversations in schools allow freedom 

of expression (or the closest we can get 

to it). School classrooms should not be 

battlegrounds for culture wars, rather 

there should be a space where there is a 

search for identity rather than a “double 

down mentality” of one’s own identity or 

perspective. When I first introduced the 

idea of being prepared to be offended 

during debates in my class, I asked the 

following questions: 

● Have you ever felt degraded or 

disrespected by someone? Why? What did 

you learn from that moment? 

● Where is the line of what you can say and 

what you can’t say? Should there be a limit 

in class? 

● Should it be a crime to hurt someone’s 

feelings? What if that person isn’t around 

to be hurt? 

they say? 

It seems natural that cultures and 

communities have tensions built within 

them. How we manage our diversity and 

learn from our differences is the key. Open 

debate should be viewed as healthy as it 

creates innovation and understanding. 

Debates are some of our oldest practices. 

That should be an international school’s 

focus: to embrace the variety in front of us 

and within ourselves, to promote positive 

change and also to be proud of what we 

have currently. There is, however, a battle 

between real-life and online experiences. 

According to Cinelli, social media has 

closed our open-mindedness, creating 

homophily and echo-chambers. The 

monetary-minded coders at numerous 

internet companies have composed 

algorithms that champion monothought, 

not heteroglossia. The world of social 

media is a behemoth for educators to battle 

against and we need to expose it for what 

it is. In some lessons we have educated 

students on the pros and cons of social 

media and looked at how it can affect 

our mindset when it comes to freedom 

of thought and freedom of expression . 

Of course, there are positives to online 

engagement, such as encouraging activism 


These three questions seem to open up 

a huge amount of critical thinking and 

debate in themselves before we even began 

discussions regarding identity, politics and 

culture or otherwise. Prior to debate, we 

must think about what we say and how we 

say it. This is different from censorship, 

this is developing our interpersonal skills 

and learning how to manage different 

situations. Some may see this as shrewd 

or political correctness, but I see it as 

surviving in a chaotic environment. The 

term political correctness has had its own 

evolution both on the right and left of 

the political spectrum. Initially seen as a 

satirical term but left it was used in the 

1980s by the right as a weapon against 

inclusive language. Now perhaps it has 

an amalgamation of both stances. If

“There is a battle between real-life and online experiences. According to 

Cinelli, social media has closed our open-mindedness, creating homophily 

and echo-chambers.” 

people want to say what they want to 

say in any manner they see fit in spite 

of the situation, they must be prepared 

for the consequences: good or bad. This 

preparation and handling of situations and 

being prepared to speak our mind takes 

considerable emotional intelligence (skills 

that need to be taught more in school). 

Students should also be open to hearing 

other opinions different to their own and 

reconsider their points of view in a sensitive 

and thoughtful manner. This will avoid 

“cancelling” people unnecessarily and an 

abuse of “woke culture”. 

As educators we can facilitate discussion 

by possibly incorporating roleplay, or 

using other methods such as De Bono’s 

thinking hats. In Theory of Knowledge, 

IB students are sometimes restricted to 

certain Ways of Knowing in debates. From 

a teacher’s perspective we need to raise 

awareness prior to discussions about the 

stages for those who have been historically 

marginalised and the process it took for 

them to even have a ‘seat at the table’. 

The three stages could be observed as so: 

RECOGNITION 

– realising that 

we all have 

implicit bias. 

LEGITIMISATION 

– the dominant power may 

perhaps recognise the rights 

of these marginalised people and 

may allow concessions. 

TOLERATION 

– the dominant power recognises those 

marginalised as humans but doesn’t necessarily 

recognise their views. 

In unmoderated debates on social media 

young people are interacting with users at 

various stages of the pyramid. The last step 

of recognition will be the hardest, for those 

who feel they are marginalised and also for 

those who feel they are in power, as we have 

varying backgrounds and experiences in the 

classroom. The classroom should be a level 

playing field and this can only happen with 

equity rather than equality. To navigate 

these “risky” cultural conversations 

successfully it will take empathy, humility, 

guidance and accountability. These aspects 

need to be modelled by the teacher and 


other members of the school community. 

I have been passionate about the meeting 

of cultures for most of my life. It’s one 

of the reasons I am an international 

teacher. We should be glad more people 

are becoming more aware of themselves 

and others and I know a lot of colleagues 

and students are hopeful that these 

conversations become something that 

comes naturally, enhancing an appreciation 

of each other and a willingness to accept 

our differences. 

Schools have spoken a lot about 

diversity recently and we do need to 

have conversations about culture at the 

various points where they meet. Some 

stakeholders, including staff and teachers 

can be defensive when they hear that 

word. If that’s you: try not to be triggered; 

be hopeful. Diversity is nothing new. If 

you don’t like the way the word is being 

interpreted or used, take ownership of it. 

Celebrate culture in the way that it reflects 

you, but doesn’t harm others. Diversity is 

part of you, it’s part of all of us. It’s what 

makes us who we are and it’s good to talk.

Dealing with 

bullying as an Expat 

WRITTEN BY LIZ MCEWAN 

“It started with pulling out my hairbands, then 

progressed to name-calling. The incidents became 

more and more frequent. I found excuses to spend 

recreation inside, but this just gave them fuel to call 

me a geek and a swot. One day, a group of them 

pushed me to the ground and threw grass and mud 

on me. One slapped my face. My friends were too 

scared to help as they didn’t want the bullies to start 

on them.” 

The above situation resulted in months 

of fear and anxiety. A feeling of dread in 

the pit of the stomach at the thought of 

going to school, lousy sleep, nightmares and 

withdrawal from social activities. 

How do I know how bad this feels? 

This person was me. 

Thirty years have since gone by, I 

am now a mother myself and work in 

education. When a friend approached me 

about a bullying situation it got me thinking 

about how I should advise her. More 

specifically, how it can be extra challenging 

for expats who may feel isolated, and who 

lack the support or language skills necessary 

to deal with the situation. 

My friend confided that she didn’t know 

how to help, that she didn’t understand 

her school’s approach to bullying, and she 

didn’t feel comfortable approaching her 

child’s teacher as her French isn’t good 

enough. 

This article offers advice on recognising 


ullying, practical tips, and even a template 

letter you can use to approach your child’s 

teacher. 

I hope it helps you feel more empowered 

and confident in approaching this topic 

after reading it. 

Bullying or teasing? 

Bullying exists on a ‘spectrum’ from ‘light 

teasing’ (not to be belittled) right through 

to verbal and sometimes physical abuse. 

Before taking action, it pays to get the facts 

straight about what exactly is going on. 

It’s essential to keep the lines of 

communication open and make sure 

your child knows that you are there for 

them. Children often choose bedtime to 

offload their worries – a time when us 

parents are tired and looking forward to 

an evening of Netflix! Remind yourself 

how important this is and try your best 

to offer a sympathetic ear whenever your 

child chooses to talk – even if it’s not a 

convenient time for you. 

Rather than jumping in and trying to 

solve the issue, your child can be more 

helpful to have their feelings validated. Try 

these responses: 

“That sounds tough” “I totally understand why 

that makes you feel sad.” 

“I would feel the same in this situation.” 

The STOP acronym can also be helpful to 

identify bullying. 

S - Several 

T – Times 

O - On 

P - Purpose 

It sounds like teasing. 

Teasing isn’t fun for anyone. However, it 

is something that is usually best resolved 

by giving your child the necessary tools 

rather than intervening directly. Plus, by 

doing this, you will be helping them build 

assertiveness and social skills, which will 

help them through adolescence and adult 

life. 

TEASING TOOLKIT 

Visualisation. 

Children respond well to visualising words 

“bouncing off” of them. It can help them 

to realise that they don’t have to accept 

or believe what is said. This image can be 

demonstrated by showing how balloons 

bounce off a person. 

“My daughter and I had a giggle practising this. I 

bounced a balloon at her whilst calling her ‘tragic’ 

(this seems to be the current teasing word of choice). 

As the balloon bounced off her, I could see the effect 

of the word diminishing.” 

Practise your confident voice. 

Why not rehearse some quick and effective 

responses with your child? It’s very 

empowering for them, and responses like 

these can disarm the ‘teaser’. 

“That makes me feel really uncomfortable.” 

“Sorry you feel you have to make comments like 

that.” 

Or perhaps a disinterested voice: 

“If you say so.” 


It sounds like bullying. 

Reassure your child that you support them, 

that this will stop and that they have the 

right to feel safe and protected at school, 

and no one has the right to bully them. 

Find out as many facts as you can. 

Anything involving physical abuse, racial, 

sexist or discriminatory slurs needs 

reporting to the teacher immediately. An 

email followed by a follow-up face to face 

or phone conversation is usually best. 

Often children don’t want their parents 

to get involved for fear it will make things 

worse. There are some situations where 

immediate intervention may not be the 

correct approach, but in more severe cases, 

informing someone at the school is essential 

even if that means going against your 

child’s wishes. 

If you usually communicate with your 

child’s teacher in another language, it’s 

best to write the email and prepare for the 

meeting in this language. Our TutorsPlus 

language experts have prepared some 

useful phrases for those based in French 

and German speaking countries. 

Here is an example of how you might 

communicate about a bullying situation in 

French: 

Je me permets de vous écrire concernant une 

situation à l’école qui touche beaucoup à Sarah en 

ce moment. Il s’agit d’un cas d’harcèlement…… 

Many schools have an anti-bullying 

programme in place. KIVA, an anti 

bullying campaign launched in 2009 

in Finland, is used in over 19 countries 

worldwide, including many schools 

in Switzerland. Some schools have a 

playground buddy system or offer regular 

workshops for students. 

“My daughter’s school has a ‘worry box. Children 

can write down an issue that is affecting them 

(anonymously if they wish) and post it to the school 

counsellor.” 

Schools with a structure in place will 

usually set the wheels in motion straight 

away. However in other schools, you may 

have to work a little harder to get your 

voice heard. Don’t be put off – you have a 

right to seek support and advice when your 

child is being bullied. 

Ask for a meeting with school staff. 

Rather than heading straight to the top,

“With the hashtag #bekind trending at the 

moment, there has never been a better time for 

your child to learn that the cool kids are the kind 

ones, not the bullies.” 

approach your child’s classroom teacher 

first and ask for a meeting to discuss the 

issue. 

Jot down in advance the points you want 

to make. Perhaps have a list of the bullying 

incidents to refer to, also include the steps 

you have already taken with your child to 

overcome this, and then the action you 

would like to see taken. 

It’s seldom a good idea to approach the 

perpetrator or his / her parents unless you 

know them personally (and even then, it’s 

not usually a good idea). Parents tend to 

jump to the defence of their child, so you 

risk creating a conflict that won’t help the 

situation. Moreover, unless you are 100% 

sure what’s going on at school (and let’s 

face it, most of us aren’t), then you risk 

falsely accusing someone which will lead 

to, you guessed it, more conflict. Bullying 

is an emotional topic, and the thought of 

a child experiencing it can make parents, 

understandably, very upset. It’s essential 

to keep your cool so that you can have 

constructive conversations with everyone 

involved. 

Finally, remind your child and yourself 

that ‘this too shall pass.’ Thirty years on 

from my own experience of bullying, I can 

see that the situation, horrible as it was at 

the time, has ultimately enabled me to grow 

emotionally and helped me decide that I 

want to be a caring person. 

With the hashtag #bekind trending at the 

moment, there has never been a better time 

for your child to learn that the cool kids are 

the kind ones, not the bullies. 

The TutorsPlus Team support parents 

and children with a range of education 

issues. Our team are here should you need 

advice on a bullying issue. Don’t hesitate to 

reach out to us on 022 731 81 48, email us 

at info@tutorsplus.com or visit our website 

www.tutorsplus.com. 

Helpful phrases 

She is clearly being bullied….. 

C’est évident qu’elle est harcelée 

Es ist offensichtlich, dass sie belästigt / 

gemobbt wird… 

I believe the perpetrators to be….. 

Il me semble que les personnes 

responsables seraient…. 

Es scheint mir, dass die verantwortlichen 

Personen………………sind 

We have tried to resolve this together 

but I feel it’s now time to ask for your 

support. 

Nous avons essayé de gérer cette 

situation en famille mais il me semble 

que votre intervention est désormais 

nécessaire … 

Wir haben versucht, mit dieser Situation 

in der Familie klarzukommen, aber 

nun habe das Gefühl, dass wir Ihre 

Unterstützung brauchen… 

Based in Geneva, Liz is a student advisor, 

ex-teacher and Client Manager for 

TutorsPlus, she is also a mum of 2 and 

writes about education, ex-pat life and 

parenting. 


Your Swiss summer 

Family 

vacation 

With its stunning peaks and gently 

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dramatic gorges, Switzerland provides 

a unique and alluring backdrop for 

unforgettable family holidays. 

Family destinations. 

Children want to let off steam, to explore new things and 

to be adventurous – especially on holidays. Parents and 

other accompanying persons would like to enjoy a 

moment without the kids from time to time – but they 

need to be sure that the children are in a group of peers 

and well looked after. The Family Destination label is 

awarded to holiday places and destinations which know 

all about these wishes and needs and shape their 

services accordingly. 

MySwitzerland.com/family 

Family accommodation. 

The “Swiss Family Hotel & Lodging” accommodation label 

stands for stress-free family holidays. Whether it’s a simple 

mountain guesthouse, a comfortable holiday apartment 

or a luxurious hotel – all have one thing in common, namely 

family-friendly appeal and an approach that makes both 

children and their parents feel instantly at ease. 

MySwitzerland.com/familyhotels 

City experiences. 

Swiss cities are very family-friendly and offer numerous experiences for 

families. For example outdoor raclette. Raclette is one of THE Swiss 

specialities. To enjoy one in the open air is an absolute highlight. The 

wonderful ride on the MOB cogwheel train leads from Vevey up to the 

Restaurant des Pléiades, only 200 metres from the arrival station. 

Here visitors will find everything they need to enjoy an outdoor raclette. 

The restaurant is also the starting point for numerous hikes. A hiking 

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MySwitzerland.com/cities 

Find more inspirational experiences and tips: MySwitzerland.com/expats 

or contact expats@switzerland.com or phone 0800 100 200.

Widening 

Gaps 

WRITTEN BY CONRAD HUGHES 

The Coronavirus that first appeared 

in Wuhan and then rapidly 

became a global health crisis 

has disrupted schools and universities in 

unprecedented ways. Successive lockdowns 

across the planet have led to a cumulative 

deficit of about one year’s schooling and, 

according to some studies, this educational 

loss might have adverse effects on the 

economy for more than 60 years to come 

(Coughlin, 2020). 

The pandemic has widened gaps 

between countries, systems and schools. 

This is essentially related to differences in 

infrastructure. Some countries have wide 

scale broadband access, well-developed 

online learning capacity and, therefore, 

have been able to adapt to the challenges 

of Covid relatively quickly. Others, on 

the other hand, do not, and have been 

living through Covid with patchy solutions 

such as using social media platforms or 

highly asynchronous, minimally scaffolded 

educational strategies. 

These gaps, related to access and 

infrastructure, exist within countries 

among different sectors of the population. 

In the United States, for example, the 

racial socioeconomic divide has become 

increasingly exacerbated because of 

educational gaps caused by Covid (Francis 

& Weller, 2020). In England, some argue 

that the educational gaps caused by Covid 

have caused a widening of almost 50% 

between rich and poor, affecting mainly 

BAME and disadvantaged students (Adams, 

2020). 

The Covid learning gap has widened 

between students already boosted by 

privileged learning conditions, who have 

been able to flip to online schooling 

seamlessly; and those from less advantaged 

backgrounds, already struggling to gain 

access to quality education. This has 

meant that those already predisposed to 

learning through technology have stripped 

further ahead, innovating with increasingly 

forward-looking expressions of online 

learning while those left behind have 

fallen and will continue to fall even further 

behind. 

There is another dimension to this 

widening gap: it has increased between 

students at ease with their academic 

programmes and those struggling to access 

the curriculum: students with special 

learning needs will not receive the type of 

scaffolding and support they need when 

online and in environments that have been 

heavily disrupted by Covid, they will fall 


even further behind. 

This is called “the Matthew effect”, it 

is when the rich get richer by capitalising 

on their pre-existing wealth whereas the 

poor get poorer as they fall further and 

further into debt. In education, it means 

that consolidated knowledge and strong 

pre-existing access to knowledge can be 

capitalised upon and will create even 

greater dividends for the learner whereas 

gaps in learning will cause students to fall 

even further behind as the curriculum 

moves ahead and they become increasingly 

lost. 

The fact that different institutions have 

dealt with Coronavirus in different ways has 

created further disparities. In the United 

States, in some states, private schools 

have continued teaching face to face 

whereas state schools have not. This has 

led parents to opt out of the state system, 

despite the cost factor (Dickler, 2020). 

If this trend continues, there will be an 

increased disparity between costlier private 

educational provision and state-run schools, 

leading to more division and ever-widening 

gaps. 

It should be added that this is against 

a backdrop where the gap between the 

poorest and the richest worldwide has 

never been higher (Picketty, 2017), there 

is much heated debate in the UK about 

the future of private schools (Ryan, 2019) 

and the integrity of many elite US colleges 

has suffered due to the “Varsity Blues” 

corruption scandals that have exposed 

parents buying places for their children. 

It is important to strive for an educational 

system that is inclusive and broad-based, 

as envisioned in UNSDG4. This is because 

societal renewal, public goods and a healthy 

economy all require high literacy rates 

and high quality education across as many 

sectors of the population as possible. 

So what should governments, ministries, 

examination boards and schools be doing 

to lessen these widening gaps? There are a 

number of steps that can be considered: 

● State-private mergers whereby elements 

of privilege and high quality are shared 

across systems 

● More impactful and wide scale 

scholarship programmes 

● More varied and inclusive criteria for 

higher education admission, allowing 

students to short-circuit the “gilded path” 


“There is a battle between real-life and online experiences. According to Cinelli, social 

media has closed our open-mindedness, creating homophily and echo-chambers.” 

and gain entry on the quality of their 

character and thirst for lifelong learning 

● More developed high quality, certifying 

and free access online learning 

The state system in Switzerland is 

an excellent example of how quality 

and access can be married successfully. 

In Switzerland there is an outstanding 

standard of high school education, a high 

quality professional stream that is not seen 

as inferior to the academic stream in any 

way (in fact, most students in the national 

system take up the professional stream) 

and some of the globally highest ranked 

and yet cheapest universities. As a result, 

Switzerland’s educational system has led 

to one of the least educationally divided 

societies in the world. 

Works Cited 

Adams, R. (2020). Gap between rich and poor pupils 

in England ‘grows by 46% in a year’. The Guardian. 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/ 

sep/01/disadvantaged-and-bame-pupils-lost-morelearning-study-finds 

Coughlin, S. (2020). Coronavirus: Lost school 

time ‘will hurt economy for 65 years’ - study. BBC. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-53514564 

Dickler, J. (2020). Families jump to private schools 

as coronavirus drags on. CNBC. https://www.cnbc. 

com/2020/11/08/coronavirus-why-families-arejumping-to-private-schools.html 

Francis, D.; & Weller, C.D. (2020). 

The Black-White Wealth Gap Will Widen 

Educational Disparities During the Coronavirus 

Pandemic. Centre for American Progress. https:// 

www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/ 

news/2020/08/12/489260/black-white-wealthgap-will-widen-educational-disparities-coronaviruspandemic/ 

Picketty, F. (2017). Capital in the Twenty- 

First Century. Trans. A Goldhammer. Cambridge, 

Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 

Ryan, F. (2019). There is no longer any 

justification for private schools in Britain. The 

Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ 

commentisfree/2019/sep/19/private-schoolsbritain-labour-unjust 

Whistle, W. (2020). The Varsity Blues College 

Admissions Scandal Continues. Forbes. https://www. 

forbes.com/sites/wesleywhistle/2020/09/03/ 

the-varsity-blues-college-admissions-scandalcontinues/?sh=63d2686771cb 


Conrad Hughes is campus and secondary 

school principal at the International 

School of Geneva’s La Grande Boissière 

where he teaches philosophy. Conrad, 

who holds two doctorates, is also a 

research assistant at the University of 

Geneva. He has published widely on 

education. 

Conrad recently published Education 

and Elitism, which discusses polemical 

debates around privilege, private schools, 

elitist universities, equal access to 

education and underlying notions of 

fairness. The 

overarching 

question that 

runs through 

the book is 

about the future 

of education 

worldwide: how 

can schools and 

universities 

tread the 

tightrope 

between access 

and quality?

Reinventing High 

School Transcripts: 

the Learner Passport 

At the Ecole Internationale de Genève - or Ecolint - our 

aim is to educate students to be “global citizens with the 

courage and capacity to create a just and joyful tomorrow 

together”. But what does it mean to be a global citizen and what 

do we mean by a just and joyful tomorrow? 

Our work with our historical partners, UNESCO’s International 

Bureau of Education, has led us to describe seven global 

competences that encapsulate the knowledge, skills and attitudes 

necessary to flourish as a global citizen and to contribute to a better 

world. These are the competences that we look to nurture in every 

student, and which go well beyond test scores or grades : 

1Lifelong learning: learning how to learn, curiosity, 

creativity, critical thinking, communication skills, problem 

solving, reflection and innovation. 

2Self-agency: initiative, drive/motivation, endurance/grit/ 

resilience, responsibility, entrepreneurship, accountability, selfmanagement, 

exercising rights and responsibilities, self-value. 

WRITTEN BY CONRAD HUGHES 

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT SPRING 2021 | 61 

3Interactively using diverse tools and resources: 

impactful and efficient use of resources, responsible 

consumption, interfacing with tools. 

4Interacting with others: teamwork, collaboration, 

negotiation, leadership, followership, conflict management, 

respect for others. 

5Interacting with the world: balancing rights with 

responsibilities, balancing freedom with respect, balancing 

power with restraint, being local and global, environmental 

custodianship, global awareness. 

6Multi-literateness: reading and writing, numeracy, digital 

literacy, data literacy, technological literacy, coding, media 

literacy, financial literacy, cultural literacy, health literacy. 

7Transdisciplinarity: mastery within and across STEM 

(sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the 

arts, the humanities, social sciences, religions, languages and 

vocations. 

There are many ways that we make these competences

flourish in our students: through our unique Universal Learning 

Programme with its character, passion and mastery projects, 

which develop initiative, drive and endurance; through a 

transdisciplinary “Mission to Mars” project, which stimulates 

critical and creative thinking; through our Student League of 

Nations, which enhances global awareness and respect for others, 

and in myriad other ways. 

We are not unique in our desire to educate the whole child, 

with many schools across the world aiming to develop similar 

competences, though when we invented the IB Diploma here 

at Ecolint in the 1960s, the approach was pioneering. All the 

IB programmes now do this, for example the Primary Years 

Programme Student Exhibition, with its emphasis on responsible 

action, the Middle Years programme with its emphasis on 

interdisciplinary study and the Diploma Programme, with its broad 

and balanced curriculum, core of Theory of Knowledge, the 

Extended Essay and CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service). All of these 

programmes are designed with much more than academic scores in 

mind as an outcome. 

However, when it comes to admitting students to tertiary 

education, most universities only ask for a grade transcript and 

personal statement along with recommendations. All the work on 

creativity, thinking across subjects, developing responsibility and 

citizenship that has been a core part of every child’s education is 

not looked at. The time has come to present universities with a 

much fuller story, one that truly reflects the breadth and depth of a 

quality education. 

This is why we have designed our Ecolint Learner Passport: 

to take the story of learning all the way to the end of Secondary 

School so that universities accept students on a broader range of 

criteria. 

The Ecolint Learner Passport allows students to gain credit for 

areas of competence development in the curriculum (academic 

subjects and class projects) and outside the curriculum (extra 

curriculars, vocational work, hobbies and passion). Each credit 

area, in describing a global competence, tells the story of how 

students have grown, who they are and what makes them stand 

out. 

Working with other like-minded schools across the globe, we 

have created the Coalition to Honour All Learning, which is federating 

other schools and universities to join this movement, which 

recognises that students are so much more than a number or a 

grade. The Ecolint Learner Passport is a movement to celebrate 

the whole child. 

To find out more about the Ecolint Learner Passport or to join 

the Coalition, contact conrad.hughes@ecolint.ch. 


INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT SPRING 2021 | 63

When Should I 

Worry About My Child’s 

Stress Levels? 

Tips for Recognizing When “Life Stress” Has Become Concerning Anxiety 

Stressed out. Strung Out. Tentative. Shy. Obsessive. 

Worried. Anxious. Panicked. These are all ways that your 

child or teen may feel sometimes. Each of these is a normal 

part of life. In fact, they can be an especially typical part of life 

in an expat family. I say this because change, newness and having 

to navigate unexpected things are common triggers for anxiety. 

Additionally, friendship changes, as well as attending schools with 

different learning approaches are known to evoke stress in many 

young people. We ask our globally nomadic kids to be flexible 

and handle a significant amount of change. In the long run, this 

lifestyle has huge benefits for kids and teens. At the same time, it is 

reasonable to expect that they may experience a fair share of stress 

or worries that are distinct to third-culture-kid living. 

Yet, there is clearly a point at which too much anxiety causes 

problems for kids and teens. 

After more than twenty years of working with kids, teens and 

parents I have worked with my fair share of kids and teens who 

needed specific support to help feel calmer and more at ease. There 

is a point at which healthy motivating stress becomes debilitating or 

maladaptive anxiety. 

Today my hope is to give parents an inside look at when your 

child may need specialist help to feel better. In a nutshell it 

comes down to an issue of moderation and the ways in which the 

symptoms of anxiety are impacting a child’s daily life, sense of self, 

schoolwork, family relationships, friendships and safety. 

Here are 5 key signs that anxiety is impacting your child in a way 

that isn’t helpful for them. 

1) They are worrying so much they cannot enjoy 

things they used to do. 

2) They have habit behaviors (like skin 

picking, hair pulling, or frequent use of 

alcohol or other substances to reduce 

stress). 

3) Their eating and sleeping change. 

Really anxious people often eat a 

lot less or a lot more than usual. 

And anxiety often leads to trouble 

falling or staying asleep. 

If your child is experiencing any of the 

above, it makes sense to reach out to a school 

counselor and/or therapist for support. This 

WRITTEN BY LAURA ANDERSON 

Fun fact 

A little bit of anxiety can be good for 

kids and teens. Anxiety helps them get 

motivated to do well in school, sports, 

theater or any of their pursuits. It can 

add a competitive edge - and keeps 

them productive and crossing things off 

their lists. It makes them conscientious 

friends. It helps them anticipate, 

organize and plan. 

is especially true if your child experiences more than one of the 

above. 

4) They are experiencing panic attacks (racing heart, racing 

thoughts, chest pain, uncontrollable crying or upset) that 

mean they miss out on social time or other enjoyable activities 

because they are worried that more panic attacks will happen. 

5) Sometimes mounting anxiety can lead to young people 

engaging in self-harming behaviors like scratching or cutting 

themselves. Occasionally, teens feel so overwhelmed by their 

stress and worries that they think about escaping the stress 

permanently. 

These last two indicators of anxiety can be more disruptive for 

kids or teens, and worrying for parents. If your child is having 

panic attacks or is engaging in self-harm, or having thoughts about 

death or dying, it is recommended that you reach out swiftly to a 

therapist to do an assessment for you. It isn’t your job to determine 

how serious your kid’s anxiety is. When in doubt, this is a great 

time to call in an expert to help set up a safe space to talk to your 

child and to help the family make decisions about ways to support 

your child in feeling better. 

It can be helpful to ask yourself these questions: 

Is my child missing out on activities and people they used to enjoy? 

Are they spending tons of time talking about worrying about 

things they cannot control? In a wat that feels really obsessive? 

Have they lost a lot, or gained a lot of weight? 

Is my child complaining of trouble falling asleep, or 

frequent bad dreams? 

Do they have nervous habits that seem to be 

getting worse? 

Is my child extra tearful and irritable 

lately? 

Are they drinking or using other 

substances frequently as a way “to take 

the edge off”? 

Have you seen or heard that they have 

been scraping, scratching or cutting their 

arms or legs? 

Has my child talked about not wanting to 

be here, or about dying, because they are so 

stressed out? 



“There is a point at which 

healthy motivating stress 

becomes debilitating or 

maladaptive anxiety.”

“Talk therapy with specific goals and strategies (depending on some elements 

of the anxiety) can make a huge difference in a young person’s well-being.” 

Although some of the things on this list are scary for parents, 

the really good news about anxiety is that it is highly treatable. 

Talk therapy with specific goals and strategies (depending on 

some elements of the anxiety) can make a huge difference in a 

young person’s well-being. Good therapists will do a combination 

of individual therapy, parent sessions, and family sessions. This 

combination helps parents and their children develop specific 

coping and support strategies so that the young person returns to a 

more balanced, calm, hopeful state. Don’t we all want that for our 

children? 

The good news is that there are an increasing number of 

therapists who specialize in supporting expatriate kids and families. 

I always recommend that parents “Shop around” some and ask for 

introductory meetings with potential therapists. A talented and 

committed therapist will appreciate that you are taking the time to 

ensure that they are a good match for your child and your family. 

It is also important that in addition to a personality match, you will 

want to find a therapist who has specific expertise working with 

children or teens of the same age as your child. Finally it helps to 

make sure that the therapist has experience helping families assess 

for, and treat, anxiety. 

In closing, remember that a little bit of anxiety is often a good 

thing. If you are unsure if “little bit” line has been crossed, that’s 

a great time to reach out for clarity and support. Take care and be 

well. 


Potential 

Passion 

Responsibility 

Exceptional academic results and top university 

admissions 

Inspirational teachers committed to students’ 

success 

Internationally accredited IB school for 

ages 18 months to 18 years 

Preschool and Kindergarten programmes include 

German lessons approved by Bildungsdirektion 

Kanton Zürich 

Minutes to 

Zurich 

city centre 

Visit us! 

One school 

campus 

www.icsz.ch 

Strubenacher 3, 8126 Zumikon, Switzerland

International School Parent Magazine - Summer 2021

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