Wellbeing is a complex combination of a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social health factors. Wellbeing is strongly linked to happiness and life satisfaction.

Today we put all of this in our plates and had an amazing time at home.

Today Anna Mariya came home and we spent the evening showing her around campus

Elsa got a new bike!!!

We also participated in the September Fitness Challenge – How long can you hop on one leg for?

Chisa holded it for nearly 1:3o – WELL DONE!

Our Well-being is one of the most important part for us. We are all starting to miss home a lot, therefore we want this to be our new home. We are trying to give ideas to make Old Portena cosier.

When you feel home and comfortable all your habits change. In this Pillar we are working on Sleep and how to get more sleep and of the best quality and feeling at home is key.

These are the pastries to celebrate the mid autumn festival in China.
The moon’s roundness symbolises harmony and prosperity, and the festival celebrated the harvest, often bringing together family members from near and far.

Today’s snack was homemade non-sugar pancake

Rin and Chihana decided to sign up for chess this afternoon with our own chess master, Mr. Gordon. Maybe they will beat him soon with a little bit of training 😊

Sundays are usually trip days for our girls. Today grade 6 had a visit to the Botanical Gardens of Geneva and the rest of our girls enjoyed a variety of sports on campus.

During our Geneva trip, we cama across a Street Food Festival! There were so many options it was hard to choose just one! Our girls were finally tempted by the fish and chips, but we could also enjoy some fries, Mexican tacos, Argentinian empanadas and Venezuelan arepas, yum!

Today Mrs. Aida came during social time to continue the Crochet Club because the girls can’t wait to Tuesday to continue.

Weekends are always packed with activities! Today some of our girls decided to take a horse riding lesson in our local school in Versoix. They are both advanced, so we are sure that very soon we will see them jumping high 😉

Today  during the Wellbeing Session of selfcare. So the girls made some face masks with oat, yogurt and honey.

Today we start the Crochet Club. Ella, Amy and Elsa love that!! Next time we will start with the headband.

Old Portena loves sports! Today’s fitness challenge was “How many basketballs can you score in one minute?”. Alana and Chihana gave it a go and did pretty well!

Today the girls learn how to selfcare of themselves as a part of the wellbeing Pilar 1. They made face masks with oats, yogurt and honey.

• Last night we celebrated not one, but two birthdays in the boarding house! Paria and Maria, our boarding assistant, enjoyed two delicious chocolate cakes and everyone’s birthday wishes. To another wonderful year 🙂

We had a lot of fun in Leysin, we enjoyed the amazing weather and landscape with our friends.

What an experience!

Chisa and Chihana took the most challenging experience, they decided to join the group for an overnight stay, up the mountains at 3000 metres.

So proud of you girls!

Some of us could learn some orienteering skills and took the time to get to know Leysin forest.

After our first day in Leyin we got ready for several activities:

AIGLE CASTLE

Annie and Amy had the best time visiting this part of the country. Such a lovely castle!

The girls from Old Portena went today to visit Lausanne and the Olympic Museum. Perfect combo, Museum and shopping for a day without school.

Yesterday in the House Meeting we organized the Mountain Weekend to come, some news and we watched a video about body image. Here some quotes from our girls:

“Societies beauty standards are generalized. We should all love each other for who we are, non of us were born the same and we will never be the same”

“Don’t judge by looking. Inside of the body is more important than looking”

“Everyone should be confident in their own body. Everyone is different”

It was great to celebrate Rin’s birthday today. We are so lucky to live in an international community, we were able to sing for her in English, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian!

This month we are dedicated to wellness. As we know, taking care of our body is a great part of our wellbeing, so our girls are taking part in the Fitness Challenge organised by Mr. Rob 🙂 Today the challenge was to hit a football as many times as possible. Of course, the winner was Chihana, with a record of 3 minutes 14 seconds, and she could have kept going!

In our boarding houses, we have a House rep and House Captain to support their fellow students and give them a voice if they feel they have something they want to share. Two of our students came upfront and volunteered to take on these roles. Both of them will be a role-model to our community and we feel they are capable of this and more 🙂 Allow us to introduce them to you…

HOUSE REP

Paria Jowkar

Paria was house captain last year. As an experienced and returning student, she will lead by example and give voice to our girls in front of the whole community. She presented her candidature in the form of a poem which warmed our spirits and demonstrated her amazing use of words. We knew right away she would be perfect for this role!

HOUSE CAPTAIN

Manuela Kapose

Manuela is a new student at school, but since the first day her warm and caring personality has brought her many friends and made her a support for those around her. We believe she will be a great leader for our girls.

What a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Today, Annie, Amy and Berru decided to spend their time baking some sweet treats. Cupcakes, apple crumble, peach cobbler… Old Portena smells like cinnamon!

What a fun way to spend a Sunday!! We had so much fun at the Aquapark this weekend. Pirate ships, slides, swimming pools… The perfect balance between fun and relaxation 🙂

This afternoon we enjoyed our usual afternoon in Geneva. It’s a great opportunity to relax, do some shopping, enjoy the city atmosphere and enjoy some of our favorite snacks! Today was specially busy, as we needed to get the last bits and pieces for our upcoming Mountain Weekend 🙂 after our long day, we are getting ready for a Disney movie night!

STEAM stands for Science Technology Engineering Art and Maths. For the first session of this year, our students participated in the Egg Drop challenge! Helium balloons, recycled materials, PET bottles, parachutes… and of course a little bit of art to give life to our eggs. Chisa did an amazing job and both of her eggs survived!

Today Mrs. Jody visit us to meet the girls and do some mediation. After the mediation the girls make some dream catcher for the  wellbeing Pilar 1 the first week sleep.

Social hour is the perfect time to enjoy playing some sports with friends. With the last weeks of Summer rapidly approaching, some of our girls decided to spent their time participating in some outdoor activities.

What a treat for the palate

Today Chihana played football with the boys in Concha

Welcome back Chihana, we missed you!!!

If you have a moment come and visit our new wellbeing space in Old Portena. Here we will inform you of all the news, activities and ideas we will use for all of us.

This year as usual we will start with our Pillar 1: Healthy minds and healthy bodies and we will focus this first week on:

 How do we find our balance?

How much sleep is enough?

Today, as every sunday we enjoyed the beauty of our Lake Geneva. We took the boat in Geneva and had a lovely tour around it.

Today we ate our favourite meal of the week; BRUNCH!

And then we made some origami, Chisa is a professional!!

The girls enjoyed together this amazing weather playing volleball

This afternoon, we had the perfect Summer afternoon in Versoix, so we thought it was the perfect opportunity to enjoy an afternoon by the lake! We walked down all together and enjoyed some local snacks.

Classes have already started at Collège du Léman, and we thought the best way to celebrate was having a traditional Swiss dinner. Yum! Our students enjoyed a lovely night all together, filled with cheese, laughter and lots of Swiss flags. We captured some of their best moments 🙂

SMIIIIIILEEEE!!!

First day of school means “no homework”. So, the girls enjoy their time having fun while getting to know each other.

It is never easy to go to a new school and a new house, but with these lovely girls, everything is easier

Today the new girls in Old Portena did the test,  meet her homeroom teachers.And bonding time.

Today we welcomed our new students and their families.

We are very happy to see the House getting full of happy faces.

The Welcome Assembly and Cocktail took place today in the Eiger Auditorium.

Alana and Ella are full of energy and ready to join any activity, the pool was awesome!

Alana and Ella met today, they will be roommates and they are the first girls to come this year. Welcome to Old Portena ladies 🙂

Chisa also arrived today. She had a great week of fun during the Summer Camp Excursion Week. She looks tired but happy. Welcome back home Chisa!

We are looking forward to meeting our new girls and welcome them to their new home

Old Portena team is waiting for you!! We can’t wait to have all of you in the House.

Old Portena team wish you Happy Holidays!!! Enjoy the summer!!!!

Today was the graduation of Chisa,Lola, Yustyna and Elsa.Well done!!!

Today Taissia,Arina,Raquel,Roberta and Anna  graduates. We are so proud of you!!!

Miss Maria’s personalised cakes      are so delicious that we may need more than one!

This evening the girls had so much fun at the end of year party! They played in laser tag, water activities, slides and many more, while enjoying some delicious ice-cream!

Today all the girls went to the Lake to do the Dougnut activity.

Arina won a gold medal for her incredible art work this year!

today Arina, Taissia and Paria went to Coop for the Samedi Du Partage they went in the first group at 8 am. We are so proud of you girls!!!!!

Over the past year, Old Portena have made wonderful memories with friends and taken part in so many activities, that we have enough photos to fill up our Memory Books! The girls will be able to keep these books forever to remember our special year together! We are looking forward to seeing the finished books next week!

Today we enjoyed a beautiful walk in Lavaux.

Today as a House Activity we went to SENSA. We had so much fun and full of sensations.After we had McDonald’s and our Geneva time.

Even that the girls don’t have School they did Biking, STEAM Club and Volleybal.

Paria and Anna represented Old Portena in our Annual House Competition! Good job ladies!

On Saturday the girls participated in Cooking, Running Club and  Photography where they took amazing photos with Dia.

This week the Old Portena ladies took time to think of someone that had been truly inspirational in their lives, and they wrote a letter of gratitude thanking them for all the ways that they had made a difference. Soon afterwards, the girls sent these special messages to the person that they had in mind via photos of their letters, phone calls, and emails. Many families, members of staff, and friends were contacted throughout the evening. These tokens of appreciation brought much love and true happiness to both people involved. It was a special evening as we heard of the truly inspirational ways that people can make a difference in another person’s life, and of the power that a grateful heart has towards everyone’s happiness.

Today the girls did Tennis, STEAM Club m, Volleyball and Football. The rain don’t stop them 💪🏻

Today the girls did Tennis and Cooking where they cooked delicious crepes with orange.

On Friday Arina,Karina,Paria,Rin,Anna and Lola went to  Signal de Bougy to do the Accrobranch they love that!!!

Yesterday the girls went to the Jumping Park in Lausanne. They had so much fun like Kangaroos!!

We a visitors in Old Portena. The ducks couples 😍

To the mothers of all these blessed kids who are far from their children on this special day; we are thinking of you and wishing you a very happy Mother’s Day! Your kids are very special to us, each one unique in their own extraordinary way; all gifted and talented in different areas that create our CdL family.

Today was another Recycling Day where the Old Portena gilrs, with the help of their friends, all had fun being Environmentally Friendly! Great job!

This  Weekend the girls enjoyed Tennis, Cooking  and STEAM Club.

Today we went to Cailler and Gruyere. We came back to the school with our pockets full of chocolate 😄😄

The girls went to visit the tulips in Morges  and also enjoy the day  in a theme park.

Today the girls did  this activities Tennis , Biking in the forest and Cooking where they made Sushi.

you have all left and the House is quiet without you! We are comforted by the fact that you will be back in a couple of weeks and fill the House with fun loving energy, each one of you in your unique way. In the meantime, we wish you the Happiest of Holidays with your families and friends!! See you in a couple of weeks..

Miss Monica coooked a wonderful House meal of burgers, fries and salad for all the girls to enjoy! Thank you!

The Individual and Community Projects have enabled the girls to research and understand, for themselves, the importance of online safety, which will stand them in good stead for many years to come.

It’s been a great evening of laughter, listening to music, enjoying pizza and spending time together!

Each Wednesday, we are very privileged to enjoy a meal from a different country around the world!

This week was delicious Japanese food!

Yustyna is painting a drawing from Mr.Corbin. Thank you!!!

The girls were so happy because the shops are open and we could go to Geneva!!!

The 8th of March is International Women’s Day that grew out of the labour movement to become a recognised annual event by the United Nations. The seeds of it were planted in 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote. The idea to make the day international came from a woman called Clara Zetkin. She suggested the idea in 1910 at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen. There were 100 women there, from 17 countries, and they agreed on her proposal unanimously. It was first celebrated in 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland and in 1975 the United Nations started celebrating the day officially.

International Women’s Day has become a date to celebrate how far women have come in society, in politics and in economics. Please join Old Portena as we celebrate this day by honoring our Director General, Pauline Nord, and thanking her for building an excellent school community and helping our students achieve outstanding academic results by inspiring them with her hard work and dedication, to becoming the world’s future leaders.

This week we began our new project on etiquette and manners. The focus in our meeting last night was on the importance of greeting people correctly.

The girls enjoyed the role-plays and we hope to provide them with some life skills which they can use with confidence and grace.

Karina, Annie, Amy and Elsa  have been having a wonderful day of celebrations and have sent us some lovely home photos of their special meals. The Old Portena girls thoroughly enjoyed the  Chinese dinner in the dining hall last night too!

Our students enjoyed a day of skiing unlike any other! In fact, the yellowish light and brown skies that you see are not a photographic error but rather a rare meteorological phenomenon that occurs around three times a year in Switzerland due to dust sand travelling from the north-west African Sahara Desert and upward towards Europe. Until next Saturday!

A lovely healthy meal, served with chopsticks!

Part of building positive friendships in our house has come from the fun games nights! After much laughter, we have made many great memories together!

Getting ready to start Speed Smarties and Trying to beat the two dice chocolate game using gloves and cutlery!

Miss Jody, the Boarding Counsellor, gave a workshop on Peer Pressure to all the Middle school students last Friday. This was followed up by some positive and negative peer pressure acting! After these scenarios, we discussed how each of us felt about being in that particular situation and how we could help others in need or promote positive friendships.

After the all day skiing and tobogganing the girls deserve a dinner in the house.

Our Chain of Respect reminds us of all the qualities that are needed to make friendships stronger by respecting each other despite our differences, in our similarities and by standing up, together, against bullying. With all of these qualities that the girls identified this evening, we see that we can build feelings of trust, safety and wellbeing. We enjoyed Chisa’s birthday cake as we learned some valuable lessons.

Paria has opened her nail salon.

This evening the girls took time to think about this month’s ‘Take-away’s’ and did a Tik Tok challenge about Peer Pressure for their Wellbeing session.

Today we had the Options meeting for Grade 8 for High School. Now the girls can choose their subjects. We can’t wait!!!

Tonight after dinner the Primary Concha boys and Chisa went to the Wellbeing space with Mrs. Jody. Thank you Mrs. Jody!!!

These are the activities that the girls have done during the first weekend since returning from the holidays. They did Tennis, Cooking, Photography, Beauty  and Chess club.

Taisiia opened her salón in Old Portena.!!!

We wish you a Happy Birthday and have a lovely day. We will celebrate in January!!

Old Portena team wish you Happy Holidays!!!!!

We are closing the Boarding House from 20th of December until 9th January. See you next year!

To our lovely Housekeeping staff, Susana and Marta, we thank you for keeping our house beautiful and clean! 

For this Pillar 2 the girls from Old Portena decided to do different indivual projects. These are a few examples.

For this second Pillar, Diversity -Bulliyng, the girls from Old Portena decided to cook some dishes from their Countries ( Iran, Japan, Mexico, China, Russia, Ukranian and Gabon. All of the plates were delicous!!!. Thanks for sharing with us (of course we serve in different plates)

We had lots of fun activities for our last weekend before the winter holidays! Such as, tennis, biking, chess, cards and drawing!

Roberta got to celebrate her 14th birthday with friends, cake, and balloons!

We wish you a very special day 🙂

Tonight we exchanged the Secret Santa gifts in the house. Everybody was so happy!  😃😃😃😃

Tonight we had the Monthly Assembly. We wear masks even though we live in the same house.

This weekend the girls were so busy from Tennis, Coop, Biking, Beauty club, Chess club, Cooking and Horse riding.

Karina and Chisa are teaching each other Japanese and Chinese. So much fun!

Paria, Rin, Taisiia, Vlad, Sasha and Oscar all volunteered at Coop Versoix supermarket today to collect food and hygiene products from customers. These products are stored by the Geneva food bank Partage and distributed throughout the year to charitable groups all over the city, which collectively provide around 900 free meals every single day to those in need, thanks in part to the generosity of the public. Great Job guys!

This  weekend the girls from Old Portena enjoyed  Tennis,Photography, Biking and the Beauty club.

Last night we had dinner in the house. The girls helped me cook Moussaka. They really enjoyed the opportunity to learn different dishes and how to make a healthy dinner. GOOD JOB!! 👏👏👏

rptnb

This weekend the girls were super sporty! They played Tennis, went Biking and took part in a Photography workshop. Healthy bodies and minds- a good balance!

Every Thursday Sakura from New Portena comes to help Chisa to do her homeworks. We help each other😀😀

Marshall Rosenberg, an American psychologist, author and trainer, who came up with the jackal and the giraffe, explained them this way: “At an early age, most of us were taught to speak and think jackal. This language is from the head. It is a way of mentally classifying people into varying shades of good and bad, right and wrong. Ultimately it provokes defensiveness, resistance, and counterattack. Giraffe bids us to speak from the heart, to talk about what is going on for us, without judging others.”

One of Marshall Rosenberg’s key points is that it’s not just about communication. It is about two different worldviews: One that sees the world in terms of conflict, constant struggle, and competition; and the other, while recognising that conflict exists, sees the world in terms of harmony, empathy and cooperation.

So, which one would you choose? The Jackal or the Giraffe?

This past week we celebrated ‘Spirit’ from our school motto and each section of the school did a project to demonstrate their Community Spirit. Within the Boarding Community, we aligned this with our Wellbeing Pillar 2- Promoting Diversity and Protecting Against Bullying. We believe we have a strong bond as a Boarding Community and that together with the diversity among us we bridge cultures to come together and show our community spirit. To demonstrate this we created a video.

This weekend our girls enjoyed Tennis, Photography, and Biking on Saturday.

On Sunday they did a Beauty and Fashion club along with Tennis!

Our girls did Tennis, Photography ,Horse Riding and Biking. They had a fun time.

Paria helps Chisa reading a book. We are a family.

Chisa, Yustyna Victoria and Mrs. Joanne have fun playing basketball.

Today after lunch we went to Villa du Lac to do a workshop in Halloween. We did scary masks and make up. Thank you Villa de Lac for hosting it. This is the result.

Today Paria,Raquel,Chisa,Liam and Yuto went for a ride with Mr George in the forest.

Today we visited the Olympic Museum and Lausanne.

Today Paría, Raquel, Chisa and Hectorine went to Bern.

After baking a Banana Bread we decided to go to Olympus and then play Uno.

Today Rin, Karina, Roberta, Raquel and Arina enjoyed the activity of Climbing. They had so much fun.

Chisa inagurated the new corner that we have for relaxing and chill for them.

Today our girls did Tennis and Biking

Thanks to Champs de Bois for hosting the dinner.

Afther the dinner we came back to Old Portena to celebrate with the girls in the Boarding House.