On September 15th was World Clean-Up-Day and we opened our doors to the public to raise awareness about recycling, up-cycling, reusing and sustainability. External experts came in to hold workshops and students prepared displays and presentations to talk about our planet and our oceans: To find out more about World Clean-Up-Day please visit http://www.igsu.ch/fr/clean-up-day/accueil/
We were please to have the classrooms fill up again after the summer holiday and wish all our students a great 2018-10 school year! To kick start the year we went on a school hike to enjoy the beautiful mountain setting we are luck to call home.
Lemania-Verbier International School will be collaborating with the Académie de Musique des Combins this summer offering a week's Music and French course for all levels, for children aged 8 to 15. We are thrilled to be supporting this summer camp in Verbier run by violinist Justin Lamy and LVIS French teachers. Students will be introduced to a variety of instruments and have the opportunity to work on their instrument of choice. They will also make the most of Verbier and its surroundings through different outdoor activities during the week.
Class B students couldn't hide their excitement about their first camping trip together, and the spot was nowhere else but in a tipi in the stunning Swiss Alps!
Classes C and D were invited to take part in a mini Olympics day with Les Elfes students in Verbier today, Each team had to create their own country and then participated in lots of fun activities despite the rain! The sun came out for the prize giving at the end of the day and students had a great afternoon!
Torino is an interesting and beautiful city to visit, and only a few hours away from us. Year 7 and8 students had a great day out visiting the National Cinema Museum, while Year 3 to 6 ventured off to the Egyptian Museum. Not to mention the delicious Italian pizza and ice cream students were treated to!
Students travelled down to Martigny today to once again participate in the UBS Kids Cup, a great sports day with local schools involving a 60m sprint, a 200g ball throw and a long jump. Goood effort!
Every Friday, boys and girls from Classes E and F join Coach Carter for a football practice. They work on dribbling, headers, chest bumps and agility training, ending with a friendly match. All this with our stunning mountain background.
Thanks everyone for making an effort to celebrate all kinds of books on World Book Day today! Students and teachers dressed up in their favourite character, and shared their fsvourite book with their classmates. It was great to have so many books shared in class and students had a great day exploring them, making art and bookmarks.
Year 7 to 10 students gain awareness of how art, design and craft is all around us thanks to a visit from renowned artist in Verbier, Rosalind Monks, during their weekley Art class. The visit really opened their minds to the different job possibilities there are as an artist, and they were intrigued by Rosalind's work as an illustrator, especially the way in which she gives objects another life. Rosalind's work is inspired by the natural world and many of her patterns are influenced by jewellery, textiles and tribal designs from around the world. To find out more about Rosalind, visit http://rosalindmonks.com/
Students explore Cailler's chocolate world from Aztec cocoa ceremonies to today's chocolate innovations...great day out at the Maison Cailler in Broc!
Congratulations to our LVIS Ski Team who participated in the Artemis Interschool Ski Challenge in Pila, Italy, and came 4th! This competition is a challenge to Schools in Britain and internationnaly based school to compete for the Artemis Champion School Cup. Juniors, Children and U12/U10 can take part, and the points system ensures that they all compete against each other. The races are open to individual entrants and are run under British competition rules in order to qualify for British Alpine Seeding System (BASS) national seedpoints.
Today Class B had a visit from Eloise Vestberg, who runs Aventerre, based in Volleges. She is an expert gardener and came to us today to discuss composting and how we can turn our kitchen waste into something useful for the garden. Even if you don't have a garden you can buy composting products that you can use on a balcony. Some children already knew a little about this, but they were all amazed to discover the different minibeasts (insects and worms) that live in the end product and break down the food waste into nutrient rich compost. As you can see from the photos they were very engaged!
Students are now having their cooking lessons in the newly opened Mountain Thyme Cookery School just next door to our LVIS. Children are learning how to cook healthy food ranging from easy suppers, healthy snacks and the odd sweet treat. We are lucky to have such a great spot nearby!
Class E & F have been preparing with Elaine France for our Mountain Day celebrations. In class they have been preparing a short survey to ask people. Yesterday afternoon they went out to practise asking the questions and test the survey on obliging shoppers at Migros Verbier.
On Saturday 9th December LVIS students will be celebrating International Mountain Day. Our message is PROTECT OUR MOUNTAINS. We all need to care for our mountains as the source of our water and biodiversity. At the current rate of melt, all glaciers in our local mountain community, will have disappeared in the next 80-100 years. We need to take action now! Come and find out how to do your bit to protect our mountains.
LVIS students have fun learning about the cheese making process in the Verbier laiterie. The cheeses will be ready in 3 weeks!
Classes C and D had a brilliant trip to Kerzers last Friday where they walked through Papilioramas Nature Reserve in Central America thanks to Jungle Trek, an exact copy of the 8'800 hectares of the protected area of Shipstern in Belize. They met lots of different animals amidst tropical dry forests, mangroves and orchid ponds.
Year 7 to 10 students spent the day at the UN as part of a Global Entrepreneurship Week event. Young entrepreneurs from around the world were invited to pitch business ideas contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and selected panel of impact investors and experts provided feedback to young start-ups on how to promote sustainable and inclusive growth through Entrepreneurship. LVIS students participated brilliantly in the Ideathon audience session at the event. They went up to the stage to present their ideas with great style and confidence in front of 150 business leaders, impact investors, an Ambassador, team members from the UN and the entrepreneurs pitching at the event. Well done!
We had a great trip today to the aquarium in Lausanne today, and saw a wide variety of freshwater and salt water fish, as well as some amazing reptiles and amphibians. It looks like we are looking at empty tanks in the photos! This was not the case! The children will get photos of their favourite creatures printed out to use in our science and literacy lessons. A major science learning objective this half term is to identify and use the terms fish, reptiles and amphibians correctly. This trip provides a great introduction.
LVIS Ski Club will once again be taking place every Saturday from January 13th to March 30th, open both to LVIS and non-LVIS students aged 4 and up. This is an exclusive club for skiers of all levels, with only five children per class to one ski teacher. With only 50 spots available at 400 CHF per child, sign up by contacting us via email on info@lvis.ch or by phone on (+41) 27 565 26 56.
At LVIS, we connect academic learning to real-world challenges, empowering our students to know how to be problem-solvers in the 21st Century. As a school in the mountains, exploring sustainability as a community is a key theme for each class: to celebrate and protect our incredible environment. From this sustainability perspective, each class is making the link to their learning in the classroom and on trips, enabling each student to use and develop their creativity and thinking skills. #creativity #thinkingskills #resilience #grit #sustainability #agentsofchange #mountainschool #youngleaders
In English, Class D have been inventing futuristic modes of transport and writing instructions for them. They worked in groups to draw and design them and today they presented and explained their products to the "Verbier Dragons' Den." They were confident at speaking in front of an audience and received 'special cheques' for all their hard work! Well done!!
In September, Class E & F started their Agents of Change Programme with Flow In Action Founder, Elaine France. This programme is designed to connect each student to their strengths and creativity, embedding leadership and life-skills, as well as encouraging wellbeing. Students learn how to take action to make positive impact in the community through research and raising awareness. This term, the students are working towards celebrating International Mountain Day on 9th December at Medran. They have been developing innovative ideas for saving the glaciers, understanding who is part of the community and the key messages to share with that community to encourage them to care for our mountain environment. At the LVIS event on Mountain Day, supported by Elaine, Class E & F will be creating an ‘innovation ideas wall’ in French and English, by asking people heading up the mountain for their big ideas on how to save our glaciers. #agentsofchange #mountainschool #creativity #resilience #grit #thinkingskills #lifeskills #wellbeing #servicelearning #positiveeducation
Students are learning about the environment in Eco Club this year. First stop: the local recycling center!
Class F have been studying leaves and photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the chemical reaction that plants use to transform carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen. Sunlight energy 6CO2 + 6H2O ------------> C6H12O6 + 6O2 Chlorophyll (the green pigment in plants) transforms the Sun's energy into chemical energy which powers this chemical reaction. If the glucose produced by the plant is not used immediately, it is transformed into starch and stored in the leaves. Class F tested leaves for photosynthesis using iodine which undergoes a colour change in the presence of starch. The black parts in the leaves show that starch is present, therefore the leaf has been photosynthesising in the past 24 hours. Students also looked at the underside of leaves to see if we could identify the stomata (pores) of the leaf. This is where carbon dioxide enters the leaf and also where oxygen leaves the leaf. Using our microscope with the USB camera, we were able to take a photo of the stomata. We were able to clearly identify the stomata and the guard cells around them which control whether the stomata are open or closed. This is part of the ecosystem processes topic.
Class C drew and then coloured with water colour pastels in the style of Billy McCoo. Well done!
Our literary year is off to a great start! The pupils from Classes E and F have been reading two engaging science fiction novels: The Giver and Ender's Game. The Giver by Lois Lowry portrays a futuristic, seemingly utopian society with no pain, suffering, or violence. Over the course of the book, however, the community's dark side is revealed... Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a high-energy read that makes it difficult to put down. It's packed full of many of the classic features of science fiction: alien invasions, predicting advanced technologies, a moral lesson which serves as a warning to humans today... Through this genre, the pupils are honing their analytical skills in literacy class by reading a variety of texts from this genre and by experimenting with tension and suspense writing using imagery. Debating and presentational skills are also practised as they consider ethical dilemmas and current issues such as cloning and climate change. #mountainschool #lvis #verbier #positiveeducation #creativeleaders #creativity #grit #findyourvoice #happiness #lovelearning #imagination #globalcitizens
Class C are starting to learn about computer programming by using Ozobot Robots, they are creating maps, with coding symbols to make the robots move in the correct direction. https://youtu.be/1HEqr7QZ65k
Students dress up in their facourite book characters to celebrate Roald Dahl's birthday today, September 13th, and have a lot of fun in the process!
"What a great first week at school. I'm very excited because it is a new year in a new building. I am happy to meet new friends and to learn new subjects like economics and music. I am especially happy to be one year closer to university. This week passed by very quickly and I am looking forward to the rest of the year. " - Thomas, Year 8 "Je suis arrivé cette année dans l'école, cela fait une semaine et je me suis bien adapté. La nouvelle école est magnifque, les professeurs sont cool et à ton écoute. J'ai hâte de continuer d'apprendre dans ce milieu." - Alexandre, Year 10 "When I walked into the new building I felt inspired and I was ready to learn new things and have new experiences. We had new teachers that were really motivating and I was so excited to start a new school year. When we went to lunch there were so many choices of wonderful foods. Break time is when you can relax and have fun with your friends too." Somers Wardman - Year 9
Today we enjoyed a great day out hiking in the Verbier surroundings. It was a beautiful sunny day and a nice way to kick start the school year!
We're proud to present our new Secondary School premises for Year 7 to 10 students and wish them all the best for the 2017-18 school year!
Great day wat the UBS Kids Cup in Martigny. LVIS will once again participated in the UBS Kids Cup in Martigny, where they were able to compete against many different schools from the Valais region in three disciplines: a 60m sprint, throwing of a 200g ball, and a long jump. For more information: www.ubs-kidscup.ch/fr/
Take a listen to Mountain Radio reporting at school with the students making their dragons. https://audioboom.com/boos/ 2540709-dragons-at-verbier- international-school
For your listening pleasure, the students of LVIS in Class B recorded with Mountain Radio Verbier today. Some great topics to listen to. https://audioboom.com/boo /2781513-the-first-radio-lvis-show
