Blog

While not everyone who attends the Summer Course at Brillantmont returns in the fall to start the year-round academic programme, many students who have their first experience away from home at our school, do end up returning as full-time students.

Preparations for our annual summer course are once again underway. The language learning emphasis of our summer course is what draws many parents to send their children here year after year. Students can choose to focus on English or French, and particularly if they stay for a few weeks, they often see significant steps forward in their speaking and writing abilities, no matter what their level was when they first came to summer school.

What are the ingredients for the best Swiss Boarding School?

Some of the most popular blogs that we publish on this platform highlight the perspectives of parents who have decided to send their children to Swiss boarding school. The beautiful natural setting, excellent reputation for safety and security, world renown private education, and exposure to multiple languages, have brought families to this country for centuries.

Switzerland is linguistically a very diverse country with four official languages - French, German, Italian and Romansch - and English is often the language of business. Because of the small size of the country and the diversity of its population, students studying here get exposure to all of these languages and more. Located in the heart of French-speaking Switzerland, Brillantmont International School is an English-speaking campus, but we offer a number of language classes. We attract students from all over the world who speak many different languages and are curious towards other cultures, which is why we teach not only French, German, Italian, and Spanish and other languages, but also offer an excellent programme for non-native English speaking students.

This past weekend I had the great fortune of attending an alumni reunion event for former Brillantmont students at the Setai Hotel in Miami, Florida. A beautiful atmosphere, delicate buffet of appetizers, and lively conversation defined the evening. Many of the attendees had not seen each other for over thirty years!

As the holidays come to a close and a new term begins, we are excited to announce the 2017 Summer Course at Brillantmont International School! We have a long and rich history of providing students from all over the globe with a memorable summer experience packed with learning and fun. And believe it or not, registration for this year’s course is just around the corner!

Switzerland has the ideal environment for all kinds of year-round sports. The mountains and lakes are perfect for summer hiking, climbing, cycling, and swimming and in the winter Switzerland is famous for its skiing, skating and other outdoor snow sports. If you send your child to boarding school in Switzerland these are some of the incredible outdoor activities that await them!

Keeping students and parents in touch with their learning is of course crucial in any school. This happens in a variety of ways throughout the boarding school year depending on what the focus of the time is.  At Brillantmont International School, every four weeks students receive what is called an "Attitude to Learning" report, which grades students on their efforts and achievements, based on clearly defined and published criteria. 

This past year our blog was filled with articles on school activities, student achievements, graduation plans, curriculum highlights shared by teachers, discussion about some of the important topics that concern our parents, new policies at the school, and well wishes from our director. As the old year wraps up and a new one begins, we looked back at some of our most popular articles at the boarding school and drew them together in this year-in-review finale. Find below some of the highlights of last year’s blog.

This week we had the opportunity to sit down with our wonderful Maths Co-ordinator, JK Kennedy, to talk about how to engage students in this subject at boarding school and all of the exciting things that he is doing with the Brillantmont Maths programme. Don’t miss his enthusiastic insights and great activity ideas for making maths fun, understandable, and applicable.