Belgian Waffles and Karaoke 🎤

Not only during the Easter Egg Hunt the girls were surprised with chocolates – They also enjoyed Belgian waffles with different toppings this night in our Leman dining hall 🧇
I was very glad and excited to share these delicious treats from my home country with them 🤩 🤩

It was very much needed to shake off all these sugars and calories – so nothing better than a Karaoke / dance Session 🎙️ 🎤

Bunny Kisses 🐰 and Easter Wishes 🐣

This night we did a little Easter Egg hunt.
We hid chocolates all over the house for the girls to find 🍫
They sure did their best to not leave any eggs behind  😂

Follow them on their hunt: 

   

 

The Treasure 😍 

Smile and Pose – Graduation pictures day 📸

This year two of our girls will be graduating – Parisa and Kate.
On Monday they got to make pictures in our beautiful Concha garden.
Surrounded by their friends they stroke a pose in front of the camera 📸

Here is already a preview of the results and a behind the scenes!
For the other pictures, you will have to wait until their Graduation day in June 🎓👩‍🎓

Cozy Sunday at its best 🤗

This weekend we did not have the weather on our side. 🌨️
We planned to do an Easter egg hunt🐰but this one we postponed for a later time in the week.
Nonetheless, we made the best out of it and the girls spend some good times with their friends.

Watching a movie, playing poker, eating McDonalds – what do you need more? 🍔🍔

 

Life is a lot better with chocolate 🍫

Polina and Sakura took the initiative to make some delicious chocolate treats for today’s meeting.
(hot) Chocolate milk, topped with whipped cream, and home-baked brownies – NJUUUUUMIEEEE !!! Afterwards we wrapped up our 4th wellbeing pillar: Online safety –
We discussed the question: “Why would I not want to live a day without my phone?
Here are some of the answers that came up
– It is a way to stay in touch with my friends and family on the other side of the world
– It helps me to disconnect to watch some funny video’s
– It is my alarm to wake-up
– My schedule and planner are in here
– I have apps that gives me daily reminders of important things that I cannot forget

Of course, the girls realize there are alternatives, and they all agreed that one day they could do without a phone, but at this point it is just very convenient as a phone is an everything in one device/tool 📱

And what about you, could you live a day without a phone? 

✨ Talentshow ✨

WHAT A SHOW!
The talentshow might be truly one of the highlights in our boarding year.
Each house gets the chance to perform and shine on the stage for all the other boarders, management and the directors!

Our girls were just AMAZING!

They did a combination between Parisa signing and a dance with Flashlights.
As you can see, they got the whole audience to sing along and they literally and figurally lit up the room! 🌟
Well done!!!

 

Sunday’s are for baking 🍪

This afternoon, we baked some delicious Kinder Bueno cookies in the house, and believe me, they went down extremely well! 😍

As chocolate lovers, we found a recipe online that met our chocolate desires in every way possible! 🍫

The recipe uses a traditional cookie dough mixture as demonstrated by our lovely Sakura. 🥰

Once the dough is formed, we added the kinder chocolate and divided them into equal amounts. Somehow, a few bits of chocolate went missing during the process… 😅

Once baked, we added a Kinder Bueno square to each cookie and left them to cool down for half an hour… however, we thought it would be best to try one as soon as it came out of the oven, just to double check they tasted good… 🤭😏

We shared them amongst everyone in the house and I think it’s safe to say we all have a sweet tooth here in Louis Degallier. We just wish we could share them with you across the world! 🌎

Alongside our cookie making, Daria was baking some Russian sweet treats using her Grandmother’s recipe. Lots of creativity in the kitchen today!

Weekend in Rome

This weekend our students fully enjoyed Rome’s vibes. They had a mix of nice walks, great Italian flavors and visiting the main attractions.
Overall, they had great fun!

Definitely an experience to repeat!

Happy International Women’s Day 🌸🌹🌻

Today is International Women’s Day and what better way to celebrate than with beautiful flowers! 🌹🌸

We are so proud to have such strong, intelligent and ambitious girls in our house. It’s clear to see that they are all each other’s cheerleaders when it comes to supporting their personal achievements, whatever they may be 👯‍♀️

They are all inspiring young women, each with their own purpose and talents and we are so excited to see how they use their incredible powers in the future ⭐❣

The girls received gorgeous bouquets from their loved ones to celebrate this special day ❤

Thank you ladies for being you! 🥰

 

Ice Ice Baby 🧊⛸

This afternoon, we took some of the girls Ice Skating in Geneva and had a great time!

The girls showed off their amazing skating skills and I am happy to say that no one fell over – I think we could even enter a CDL figure skating team for the next Winter Olympics ⭐⭐⭐

Smiles all round from the girls in Louis Degallier 🥰

The hardest part was putting the ice skates on – luckily Bea had some assistance from a friend!

 

 

 

Wellbeing Pillar 4 – Online Safety

During our boarding assembly Mr Gordon introduced the next pillar that we will be working on: Online safety or Online life.
Polina and Dasha will be our advocated for this and during the following weeks they will provide us with fun but interesting learning objectives around this topic.

We also had our housemeeting where we discussed what we will do as a performance for the upcoming Talentshow on 21/03
(Ps: Can you see how our decoration changes 🐰🐣 this months theme is: Easter!)

After the assembly we got pleased with a delicious Bulgarian dinner! 

Skiweek & Welcome Back

We hope that everyone enjoyed a great holiday.
Three of our girls went to the Wintercamp were they enjoyed a full week of skiing and fun activities.

Lisa took some very nice pictures that we are happy to share with you:

We hope our other girls spend an equally Fun week!
We are looking forward to have them back in our boarding house❤️

💕 Love is in the air 💕

Today is Valentine’s day or how we prefer to call it: Galentine’s day
A day to celebrate friendships with your friends. It’s Valentine’s Day with your ‘gals’.

We wrote some cute personal messages to each other, ate tasty strawberries with chocolate and watched a romantic movie.
A perfect way to pass this day 🥰

We love you girls! Each one of you is so unique and amazing ❤️


               

  

There are Sundays and then there are ☀️ SUNdays ☀️

The Sun is out and so are our girls! This weekend we could enjoy our beautiful garden and work on that tan ☀️

We are craving and looking forward to warmer days so we can do a barbecue! 🍖♨️🔥

and enjoy all other things that Spring and Summer have to offer in Switzerland!

On Saturday, Parisa, Regina, Sakura and Beatriz went to the cooking class. They made delicious soft cookies. I am pretty sure the necessary dose of chocolate made them even better! 😀
They could not wait till they were back home to devour them.

Cooking class – Making soft cookies 🍪🍪

          

 

Dasha enjoying our gym facilities – She is a real goalsetter and goes every day! 💪

Cosy Thai dinner at Home ❤️😊

This evening, we enjoyed a lovely meal in our cosy Louis Degallier living room. Prepared by our wonderful chefs at Collège du Léman, we were spoilt with a delicious Thai meal including Sweet & Sour Beef Wok, Thai Noodles, Thai Salad and an exotic Mousse for dessert. Most of the girls went back for seconds, especially for the tasty beef dish! 🤩🍜

It’s always lovely eating in the comfort of our home, sitting around one table together where we can share stories from the week – an added bonus is that the girls can wear comfy slippers to dinner! ❣

 

 

 

 

You’re incrêpable 🥞

Today during our weekly housemeeting, Kate and Kseniia were in charge to lead it.
Together with the other girls from the house, they decided what activities we would still like to do this year with all of us.

When we do our meetings, we always try to have a tasty snack.
Polina and I decided to make crêpes.
As you can see, the girls loved them (with the necessary dose of Nutella, ofcourse!🍫)

We can honestly say they were incrêpable 😋

Enjoy them with us!

       

❤️❤️❤️

It was a very quiet weekend on campus.

Some students chose to go to the mountains with boarding, while others enjoyed a relaxing weekend on campus or away with their families.

For our house, this was the perfect opportunity to get ready for Valentine’s day 🌹

We hung our decorations and made little envelopes so the girls can send friendship messages to each other 📩

Let’s spread some love, good vibes and positive energy!

 

Collège du Léman Mountain Weekend 🌞🎿

Collège du Léman Mountain Weekend 🌞🎿

This weekend, we went on our first snow trip to the mountains and had an amazing time! 🙌🌞🎿

On Friday afternoon, we set off on a beautiful drive from Versoix, passing some lovely views overlooking Lac Léman where the sun started to set. We then continued through the Rhone valley and then finally onto our destination, Fiesch.

Views of Lac Léman 

We were very lucky to have sunshine and blue skies on both days, and even luckier to have fresh powder on the slopes, ideal conditions for the perfect skiing & snowboarding experience! 🎿🌞🏂

Views from the gondola on the way up

Our girls definitely enjoyed their first skiing experience of 2023, even if they were a bit cold!

Whilst some of our students were enjoying the snow up in the mountains, others were able to relax in the thermal baths in Brigg and explore the local town of Fiesch. A very Swiss experience indeed!

Views of Fiesch

The evenings were spent enjoying food in the resort restaurant or indulging in some typically Swiss food in the local restaurants. After dinner, all students had the option of playing Bingo, board games or a game of Bowling, however, it was clear that our skiers needed some well earned rest so instead spent the evening relaxing and preparing for the next day on the slopes!

Views from the top of the mountains

Plenty of fresh snow waiting for us!

All in all, we had a lovely weekend where plenty of beautiful memories were made. We are already looking forward to returning soon, fingers crossed we get spoilt with the same sunshine and snowfall! 🌞

 

Friends become our chosen Family

During our weekly housemeeting we introduced the next wellbeing pillar: Building Positive Friendships
We concentrated on the questions:

  • How does the boarding house support and encourage international friendships, give examples
  • What advice would you give future students coming into an international school environment
  • Can you think of some examples of famous international friendships?
  • Self-Reflection – Do you embrace the international community, or do you prefer the convenience of building friendships within your own culture and language?

By the end of the pillar we want to find an answer on the take-away point: What are the benefits of an international friendship? 👬

A first reflection provided us with the following answers.

We learn about differences in culture and how other nationalities perceive things that are for one considered ‘normal’ but are not for others. This opens very interesting discussions and broadens our view. It occurs as well that we encounter funny situations because of this!
-Being able to travel all over the world and know people anywhere
-…

Afterwards, we discussed what we will be doing as a house project. We came up with some fun ideas that we will put into practice for next week! So keep an eye out on our blog 🤩

For those who want to see the video that we watched together:

Of course, there are no International friendships without international dinners. For this week we had a Chinese caterer! 

Weekend Goals 🧡

Our first normal weekend back in Boarding.
And it was one with a lot of laughter, fun and activities!

On Saturday Morning, Polina, Dasha, Kate, Kseniia, Beatriz and Sakura went for a cooking class.
They made a delicious Couscous with chicken meatballs 🐔

Afterwards most of the girls went to Geneva, only a few decided to stay in the house and to relax.
Beatriz took some time to do her laundry – Look how enthusiastically she is ironing!


On Sunday it is time for Brunch!
Afterwards, Beatriz went to bodyshaping and Lisa to the music club. 🎶


We finally could welcome Parisa back into the house! Now we are complete again 🤗

The girls had some friends over in the house and spend a lovely time together!

 

Boarding assembly and well-being pillar 3: Building Positive Friendships

During our first Boarding Assembly in 2023 we launched The Third Pillar of our Well-being Program: Building Positive Friendships.

Being in an International boarding school gives the students many opportunities to form deep and strong connections with other students from all over the world.
This brings many challenges but mostly also a lot of benefits and great experiences!
The upcoming weeks we will dive deeper into this pillar and work on several projects.


Launch of the Pillar

Our girls are already making friends with students from other houses!

 

 

Welcome Back!

We hope everyone had an amazing holiday.
We wish you a great 2023 and all the best wishes!


This weekend we also welcomed a new student in our house: Beatriz!
The girls helped her settle in and we are excited to have her finally here with us.

Welcome Beatriz, and to an awesome year together in CDL!

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays From Louis Degallier!

Thank you for a first wonderful semester ❄️
Enjoy this well-deserved break and we will see you again in January!

The boarding house will open on Saturday 07/01 from 9am.

Big hugs 🤗

WATU Winterconcert and Parisa Performing

This evening we attended together the WATU Winterconcert.
A musical and festive eve whereby the school choir perform various songs for Charity.

We got to listen to students playing the piano, watched them dance but the highlight of the evening for us was for sure…
Parisa! 
Her voice made everyone quiet and it is just breathtaking to hear and see her light up on the stage.

We are incredibly proud!!!! Enjoy the night with us again through some videos and pictures:

 

⭐ Boarding Award Ceremony ⭐

We want to start with saying that all of our girls should have deserved a medal.
Our first semester with them has been wonderful and we could see them bloom throughout the weeks.
Some strong bounds have been formed, a lot of laughter shared and amazing memories made!

This evening during the assembly we congratulated from every house students who were outstanding in living the RISE-values and integrating into the boarding life. As well the students who participate in many activities and get the most out of their experience.
We selected Polina and Regina as representatives for our house. Congratulations ladies!

It is starting to look a lot like Christmas ❄️🎄🤶

December is about to start ❄️
The Countdown to Christmas has begun 🎄
But in the House we already celebrated all together a cozy Secret Santa night 🤶

All of us snuggled up together

Each one of the girls bought a present for another girl in the house!
All the gifts were so thoughtful and we experienced a lot of joy, happiness and thankfulness!

Lara being very excited with her present

 

After the gift exchange, we watched the football while enjoying a dozen of different snacks 🥨🥨

The whole house is breathing Christmas vibes and we had an amazing night!

Groupselfie
Our cosy corner
Some more gift exchanges

Walking in a Winter Wonder Land

Entertainment, excitement and magic await you in Montreux at one of the prettiest Christmas markets in Europe.
And that is exactly where Polina, Daria, Kate, Regina and Parisa went this Sunday!


The girls strolled throughout the street and discovered the 170 different stalls and chalets.

Lisa went to Chess club to improve her skills and tactic.

 

Sakura enjoyed a relaxing mindfulness session of Sound and Soul.
Afterwards she went to help with the “giftbox wrapping”.
An initiative whereby we aim at collecting and sending gift boxes with utilities to poor families in eastern Europe.

Each one of them got to enjoy their weekend to the fullest!

 

Busy Wednesdays in CDL

Wednesdays are always in the sign of discovering a new culture.
Today we got to taste delicious Asian noodles.

During our weekly housemeeting we discussed the second take-away point from our well-being pillar and reflected about the question: We all say we value diversity… but are we really comfortable with difference?

Here is the link to the video that we watched:

After that it was time to enjoy a freshly baked cake and chitchat together.

And now it is time for a well-deserved goodnight rest!

Happy Birthday Polina

This weekend Polina celebrated her birthday.
She had a nice day out with all her friends of CDL.
Back in the house we ate all together from an amazing fruit cake and Polina also finally got to open her presents that the other girls got for her.

 

Wednesdays Housemeetings

Every Wednesday we have a housemeeting with the girls to discuss some important points.
This is also a moment we take to be all together and catch-up on everything that has been going on.
Some freshly baked brownies set the mood for having everyone’s attention and to be able to listen to each other <3

Wellbeing Pillar 2. Integration and diversity

Wellbeing Pillar 2. Integration and diversity


Globally what we want to achieve with this point is that students understand that Diversity and Integration are present far beyond the school environment or our individual background and that it’s a top priority in the world today. Sometimes, this might be overlooked, and we believe it’s important they acknowledge that the work and reflection being done here is echoed in the World Leading Institutions.Take away point 1 – Integration and diversity are part of the international agenda of the world’s most important institutions.

We also watched this interesting video about UN volunteers

A weekend to relax

The first weekend after the October break the girls enjoyed to have some relaxing time in the house.
Polina and Regina made some tik-toks together, others enjoyed a movie and they all went out to Geneva to get some fresh air and do the necessary shopping.

On Sunday, Parisa motivated the girls to take part in the activity ‘Sound of Soul’.
A workshop where they focus on the energy in their body.

This Monday, all the students have one more day to rest and prepare for school as there are the parent-teacher meetings.
Like that, their batteries will be recharged for another week full of responsibilities, fun and activities.

 

Pumpkin Carving 🎃

We cannot get enough of spooky days so we are still rolling on these halloween vibes!
Yesterday evening, under the command and initiative of Sakura, the girls took part in the “Pumpkin Carving house Competition”
Our incredible creative and scary pumpkin got the 5th place out of 13!
 

Here are some of the other creations that the boarders made:

HALLOWEEN 👻

Yesterday night might have been the scariest night of all year

it was… 🕷️ ! HALLOWEEN !  🕷️

The boarders dressed up in their most spine-chilling costumes and enjoyed a spooky meal 👻

Today they took part in a pumkin carving competition of which we will show you the results tomorrow, so make sure you check our blog! 🎃

Happy Fall Break!

It is the first break of the year and the girls deserve it! From Louis Degallier, we would like to wish you a wonderful holiday! We hope you can take a rest and come back full of energy!

Enjoy your break and see you soon!

 

Fall Break Kick Leave GIF - Fall Break Kick Leave Peanut GIFs

Weekend activities

The weather was a little bit grey this weekend so the girls decided to do some indoor activities.

First, Polina and Daria chose to do some cooking on Saturday morning. It smelled so good! 

 

Then,  on Sunday, Lisa went to the chess club where she seemed very concentrated. Please don’t disturb her!

Finally, Sakura and Parisa decided to relax this weekend with the “Sound of Silence” activity. All their stress ran away!

Music Concert

Today Kate and Parisa participate in the Music Concert at the School. Kate played the bongo and Parisa sing the song “My heart will go on” by Celine Dion.  We had two starts in the house. Well done girls!!!

May Assembly

Today we had our monthly Assembly and Martina went to the stage to explain her mum’s Charity and everything that it means for her to participate in this project. Martina will go to Madagascar to help to build a library and what she did in CDL was to collect some books and she will bring them to the library in Madagascar. Well done Martina we are so proud of you!!!!.

House Activity

Today as a house activity we had lunch at the house enjoying the sunny day. Our Chef Sakura did some chicken in the oven with salad. After we all went to Geneva to do a scape room but using our senses. So much fun!!!

 

House Meeting

During the house meeting, we discuss our well-being project as a house and the individual one. We discuss what it is a toxic friendship or relationship. The girls were involved during the discussion.

Weekend Activities

This weekend the girls from Louis Degallier were so busy. On Friday Parisa and Kate participates in painting with lights. Saturday Parisa did Horse Riding and Kate Cooking. On Sunday Barbara, Parisa and Kate did Baking with Mrs. Lucelia.