Wellbeing – How smartphones affect your sleep

We all have heard that, and we all do it… But this explanation is so concise and straight to the point that it made us all think about it and wonder about a change of practice.

Smartphones are great devices but they need to be taken into account carefully. Overusing it becomes a worrying practice.

And when it comes to sleeping, we are probably talking about the most essential function of our body. Neglecting it is a major mistake which can lead to serious damage if not addressed.

Sleeping is great, delicious and the key to a healthy life.

And for the sake of curiosity, check the 22 interesting facts below 🙂

Teachers visiting the Houses

Some of the High School teachers came for a visit… We welcomed them in our terrace, and organized for some treats to share with them and to make them feel welcome.

This is a great opportunity to get to establish a little bit more of a personal connection with them and for them to have an idea of what the life of a boarder is all about.

Teachers, if you are reading this, you are always welcome to pop up for a visit, a chat or simply to say Hi. Our doors are open 🙂

Funny weekend in the mountains

This weekend we were in Leysin, a beautiful place in the middle of the Alps.

On Saturday we were able to do some activities such as climbing, horse riding, visit the Aiger castle, accrobranching, orienteering, etc…

And today we enjoyed a lot of outdoor games in competition with the other houses of course.

We leave you some pictures so you can see how we have enjoyed it.

           

How Sleep affects your brain

This little video introduced our Wellbeing session today and served as a reminder of something we all know but don’t always respect.

Sleeping is definitely one of most important functions of our body and it plays a key role in the regulation of all the other system.

Lack of sleep provokes an unhealthy balance which can have visible effects in a short and long term. Obviously one bad night of sleep is not enough to hugely disrupt our “machine” but several nights, in a row, without proper recovery can lead to several health problems and a dramatic lack of energy.

Hand in hand with it we also used our session to introduce our Boarding Counselling team who challenged us to try a few minutes of very simple meditation. The aim was simply to allow us to relax and it is visible that some took the challenge seriously while those in the back row, were quickly overwhelmed by the benefits of meditation and the help it provides to fall asleep… (everything is related 🙂 )

All in all a curious experience for some and we will surely continue to work on this in future sessions.

House Assembly… Wellbeing back in business

With the start of school, we have started our Boarding Programme and naturally our weekly House Assemblies.

The first one is always an important one ( they all are, but the first… is the first ) so we gathered some chocolate bars and sat down in our common room for a chat.

Among many other practicalities of our House and important notices… and after finishing the chocolate bars we entered our Wellbeing programme… (after the chocolate bars 🙂 )

 

 

Our first pillar is “Healthy bodies and minds” and for as evident and obvious this topic may be, there is always plenty to talk about, think of and apply for our personal balance.

These are the two take away points for this pillar. Each weekly topic for your house assemblies will relate to one of these:
1. How important is sleep?
2. How can we use our hobbies to de-stress?
We didn’t really get into much detail yet but we have discussed about the projects that the students can complete. An important message is that the Boarding Programme and the Extracurricular Dept provide the students with plenty of options for them to complete an individual or collective project and therefore enhance their wellbeing, take on-board healthy daily habits and lead by example thinking of the younger ones.
Some boys have already picked what they will want to achieve. Taichi and Kotaro are joining the Volleyball team from the school. They have been a part of it for years now and their game is an asset to the team, and source of pleasure and exercise for them. Mateus is super keen on football too and he is also trying to join the school team. Aryavir mentioned about keeping a sleeping diary and checking how his sleeping hours affect his promptness and punctuality in the morning.
Any tool, idea or project is a positive source of guidance and a valuable experience and we are happy to see that some boys are already onboard with the concept.
Next week, more details shall follow. Stay tuned.

Our Induction for new students

For all new students, the first days in a new school are a little bit daunting. So in these first days of the school year, we do focus all our energies in supporting and reassuring the new students that people are here to help as we get to know them better.

Our Induction focuses as well in encouraging them to make friends so that they support each other and this process is eased.

Today, all the High School students and some staff went on a tour of Versoix. This is quite important as this tour shows them the nearest supermarkets, train stations, bank and post office…

No tour of Versoix is complete without a visit to the Lake and this is where we stopped, removed our masks for a moment, just to take a quick photo-souvenir. The spirits seem to be positive and some friendships about to emerge 🙂