Blog

Exam season is upon us and students at Brillantmont are working hard preparing for the big day. There are a number of exams coming up in the coming months, including mocks and then the IGCSE and AS/A levels, the IELTS, plus language exams such as DELE and DELF.

Exam time can be stressful, but good preparation is the key to success. By structuring your study, reading up on what to expect and looking after yourself mentally and physically, you can build yourself a pathway to exam success.

Take your time

Starting your revision too late makes it hard to retain the information, and often leads to panic. Our brains can’t focus on learning when we are stressed, and rushing your revision at the last minute is definitely stressful. Instead, create a study plan several weeks before the exam and use it to space out your subjects and topics.

This school year, we are celebrating our 140th anniversary since in 1882, Brillantmont International School was founded by the great-grandparents of the current owners, the Frei family. Our school is the only Swiss boarding school which has belonged to the same family for five generations.

In 1882 Brillantmont opened as a boarding school - the Pensionnat Heubi -  for just seven girls originally in the rural setting of Lutry, only to move a few years later to the more urban setting of Lausanne.

Swiss private education has a reputation which stretches far beyond its national boundaries. Generations of young people have enjoyed not only a challenging, personalised education which has opened doors across the world but have taken advantage of the range of activities offered within the natural playground of Switzerland.

Switzerland is a safe country at the crossroads of Europe, sharing national borders with France, Italy, Austria and Germany. With four national language areas there are huge cultural differences, yet these differences make for successful cohabitation, earning the Swiss a reputation for tolerance, respect, understanding and safety. Moreover, multilingualism is a key part of the international school experience in Switzerland

As the current school year draws to a close, we are very excited here at Brillantmont International School. We are not only looking forward to celebrating our Class of 2022 in our upcoming Prize Giving and Graduation Day, but we are also looking ahead to the new school year,  since 2022-2023 marks our 140th anniversary year. Over that time there have been hundreds of people across the world who have enjoyed studying on our incredible campus here in Lausanne.

The students of Brillantmont International School’s STEAM coding classes have been tackling some new and exciting programming language skills, as their studies dive deeper into how the web works, and the processes behind the sites and apps they use every day. To learn more about how websites work, the students have begun to create their own sites using the hypertext markup language (HTML).

We are focusing on how to create and format responsive websites that include buttons, forms, and design elements that work on multiple platforms. After covering the basics of HTML tags, such as inserting images and links, students are now moving onto Cascading Style Sheet formatting (CSS). CSS enables websites to look professional and consistent, no matter if it is seen on a phone, a tablet or a computer.

The Brillantmont YES (Young Enterprise Switzerland) Club is excited to be nominated for the Young Europe organisation’s ‘Entrepreneurial School of the Year’ award for Switzerland. The results will be announced at the Gen-E 2022 European Entrepreneurship Festival that takes place in Estonia from 12th - 14th July. Our educational partners at Young Enterprise Switzerland organization have nominated Brillantmont for the award and we would like to say a special thank you to our representatives Dominic Vomsattel and Silvan Margelist for their efforts on our behalf and to BM teacher, Mr Joe Brogan.

Brillantmont is in Lausanne, famous as the Olympic capital, since the Olympic Committee is based here. The Olympics is not just about sports these days however.

The Science Olympiad is an international competition, which promotes young people, awakens scientific talent and creativity and proves that science is exciting. In Switzerland, ten Olympiads are held every year: workshops, camps, exams and competitions for over 4,000 talents in biology, chemistry, geography, computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, physics, robotics and economics. The organizers are young researchers, students or teachers who voluntarily invest many hours and passion in the national programme. The participants are young people who are passionate about these subjects with remarkable talents.

Fondée en 1882, la Brillantmont School offre une éducation de pointe pour les leaders de demain. Ce prestigieux lycée, qui propose aussi bien de l’internat que de l’externat, accueille les garçons et les filles âgés de 13 à 18 ans, venant des quatre coins du monde. Les étudiants interagissent avec leurs pairs, ce qui permet de construire une communauté multiculturelle et d’avoir un état d’esprit dynamique, tourné vers l’international.

Cette institution indépendante, possédée et gérée par la même famille depuis 1882, ne compte en moyenne que neuf élèves par classe, ce qui assure à chaque étudiant une attention individuelle suffisante pour réussir. Ses jolies chambre offrent des vues sur le lac ou sur les Alpes suisses, tandis que les équipements de premier choix de l’école incluent une salle multifonction et une scène dédiée à la musique ou au théâtre. L’École Brillantmont se trouve à quelques minutes seulement du centre de Lausanne, une ville pittoresque en Suisse, bordant les rives du Lac Léman. Les sports aquatiques et les aventures alpines sont faciles d’accès, ce qui permet à votre enfant de se défouler autant qu’il le souhaite en extérieur. L’Aéroport International de Genève est à 45 minutes en voiture.

Brillantmont welcomes students of many different cultures and nationalities. Inter-cultural learning lies at the heart of the Brillantmont experience and is part of everyday life at school. Whether comparing geopolitical situations in their own countries, discovering their room-mate’s musical taste or learning a new recipe, there are so many ways that our international students can learn from one another. Similarly, our staff represent many cultures between them and are integral to the exchanges and learning.

Education is big business these days as chains of schools pop up a new campus across the world. Switzerland is no exception to this, with new groups of schools seeking opportunities and other schools often changing ownership.

This begs the question; as a parent, when you are looking for a school for your child, would you prefer them to be in a school which adapts its international model to the local market or would you choose a school which has been in situ for generations, with decades of expertise as a Swiss private school?