Private boarding school, Institut Le Rosey

The campuses of Le Rosey school

Le Rosey is the most impressive Swiss school I've seen so far. To begin with, I was immediately surprised. I visited the school on March 16th. and the school turned out to be without children, we did not see a single student. I knew that the previous school holiday was at the end of February, and the next one will be at the beginning of April. That is, it was generally not a time for vacations. It turned out that I was in the school on the day of the move of the entire school from the winter campus in the city of Gstaad.

Le Rosey school is perhaps the only school that has two identical campuses: from September to December, students live and study at the Role campus on Lake Geneva, then from December to mid-March the whole school moves to the winter campus in Gstaad, where all students can engage in winter sports 5 times a week (alpine skiing, snowboarding, ice hockey, figure skating). And in the middle of March, just when I was attending school, it was time to move to the summer campus. Before that, all the students packed their belongings for the move and left home for a few days, and the school staff moved all the necessary equipment and students' belongings to Roll, and by Monday, by the time all students return, the campus should have been ready to continue the semester.

Le Rosey has 400 students and they all live on the school grounds. This is exactly 200 girls and 200 boys, because the places are distributed among houses, according to the capacity of dormitories, that is, - 200 rooms in three houses for girls and 200 rooms in three houses for boys. Pupils from 8 to 18 years old live and study in Le Rosey. The school follows the Bilingual program - education up to 16 years old at once in two languages: French and English. That is, if a child has a stronger French language, then he teaches basic subjects in French, and subjects such as sports, the art studies in English. Or vice versa. After 16 years, students choose to either have an IB program in English or a French Baccalaureate. That is, for the last two years they have been studying only in English, or only in French, in order to make an international or French program, respectively. The school dropped the GCSE exam as it had done before, instead of replacing it with the Pre-IB program. It is its own high school program that prepares students for a French or International Baccalaureate program.

Le Rosey has excellent infrastructure, the school has everything of its own. For example, the school has stables with a hippodrome, they are located 30 km from the school in France, but these are their own stables. Not far from the summer campus there is a golf club where everyone can practice golf. The summer campus has 2 indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, sports grounds, and a multifunctional gym. The winter ski resort in Gstaad, where the Le Rosey winter campus is located, provides an opportunity for all students to engage in winter sports: 4 times from Monday to Friday they go skiing, snowboarding, or ice hockey for several hours, on Saturdays skiing is provided for the whole day. In the autumn and spring trimester, children are engaged in one of 116 sports, while each child has to practice sport for 1 hour 5 days a week, from Monday to Friday, regardless of his age. Also, each child must engage in the art, which is 2 hours a day, from Monday to Friday. It can be absolutely any art: drawing, music, choreography, acting, digital photography, graphics, the school has everything for this.

In 2014, the school opened a new arts center - an absolutely impressive building located in the center of the campus, with a concert hall that can seat 900 people. Every month famous concerts are held here, to which all students and teachers of the school are invited, and the remaining tickets are sold to residents of Lausanne and Geneva. It can be a performance by a famous symphony orchestra, it can be a ballet, a theatrical performance of a London theater, and more. At the same time, the students of the school help with the technical part of the performance, learn to control light, sound, and decorations. In addition, of course, the students of the school prepare their own musicals, performances, musical concerts.

On the territory of the arts center there is a large music school with excellent music studios, where, in addition to the students of the school, professional musicians are practicing - 16 string instruments. There are also art studios where design classes are held: from clothing design to 3-D modeling, as well as a huge library, where, in addition to places for independent studies, there are sound-isolated conference rooms that are used by students to complete group assignments.

Classes at Le Rosey are scattered throughout the campus, there is no single building like a school building. The huge Le Rosey campus is divided into an area for girls and a central area where everyone studies and where boys live. In each of the boys' residences, the two lower floors are dedicated to classrooms: one residence houses a large multi-functional gym and math and language classes. The other contains scientific laboratories. In the third, there are simply classes. All art classes are located in the music center.

Le Rosey has 185 teachers per 400 students, and these are, of course, the best teachers in Switzerland, because the cost of the school dictates that the best work here. It is very difficult to enter the school, applications are submitted from September to December, and when the places in certain age and national groups run out, then the acceptance of applications stops. For students 8-15 years old, the competition is 4 people for 1 place, when for high school students the competition is 8 people for 1 application. At the same time, it will be easier to enter the French Baccalaureate program, because, according to the school, if a family chooses the French Baccalaureate program, then this is already a very balanced path, the student understands what he will do, what he will do, where he will enter, it is considered that potential students made a more deliberate decision. You can apply at any age, even from 8 years old, at least for the last 2 years. Of course, if you are applying to school and want to try, you should never say that the child is only enrolling for 1 year. In the worst case, you can always tell later that your circumstances have changed. Because the competition is very high, and it is considered a weak application if a person is not going to graduate from this school.

Accommodation at Le Rosey

As I said, both campuses offer a similar infrastructure for study and living. Both campuses are designed to accommodate 200 girls and 200 boys. All children live in a double room with private facilities, from 8 years to 18, the only thing is that the graduates of the last class live in a single room and share a shower and toilet for two. The summer campus has more modern residences, where each floor has its own recreation room. On the campus in Gstaad, the residences are built in the chalet style, where children live in fewer numbers per chalet, but there are more residences themselves.

Worldview and education at the Le Rosey

Le Rosey School prepares real leaders. For example, this year, pupils of the Le Rosey school, who traveled to Ganna, saw children at the host school who needed prompt medical attention. The girls decided to raise money for the operation and, in order to attract the attention of other children in Switzerland, 4 Le Rosey girls decided that they would swim across the English channel. The school went to meet them and allowed them to do it, giving them time in advance for additional swimming training. Also, these girls turned to other schools in Switzerland to attract students from other schools to their event. And in the fall of this year, 4 Le Rosey girls and four more from 4 other schools in Switzerland, under the supervision of coaches, the press, and television, swam over the channel. Moreover, it seemed to them quite easy: when they reached the English coast, they turned around and swam back to France. After this charity event, the girls decided that they could raise even more money, attract even more attention from the residents of Switzerland, and they decided to swim across Lake Geneva in July.

Another impressive event this year was proposed by the headmaster of the school: Le Rosey's students were asked to build and launch their own satellite for which the schools have allocated a budget. And now work is underway to build this satellite, all the students who are passionate about engineering and robotics are busy building a satellite that will be launched into space next year.

Holiday camps in Le Rosey

In summer and winter, on campuses in Rolle and Gstaad, there are vacation camps for international students with the study of English and French and an active sports program. These camps are in great demand and are limited in nationality and the number of students the school can accept. Reservation of summer vacation programs opens on September 1 of the previous year and places close in 6-8 weeks, while programs for July are recruited twice as fast. Therefore, if someone wants to feel like a student of one of the best schools in the world, even for the duration of the holidays, you need to take care of booking a place no later than September-October.