So far we have had three House Competitions this first marking period.

Our first competition was the Sports Day, in which we had to compete head-on against the other houses in a series of different sporting events.

The second competition was the Quiz. We had to put forward our best two quiz masters of the House in order to answer general knowledge and CDL related questions.

The third competition was the Pumpkin Carving competition. This showed off the creative side to our House and we went for the pure Halloween scare.

With a House of 28 teenage boys, it can be a challenge to motivate them in many aspects. As they navigate these developing years they have a mix of priorities which are always changing and a self-imposed pressure to confirm and impress others.

We are extremely proud that they are able to put this aside and bonded together and formed a House spirit in order to want to compete. When they have put their efforts into it they have done extremely well, placing 1st in the Sports Day, 1st in the Quiz and 2nd in the Pumpkin Carving.

This weeks wellbeing tutorial was continuing on the second pillar of Protecting against Bullying and Respecting Diversity.

We focused this week on Diversity. We have over 120 different countries represented in Collège du Léman. This gives us a fantastic opportunity to experience new cultures on our very doorstep.

In order to put this into perspective, we discussed as a group why we go on Holidays. Of course, the obvious answer is to relax and unwind, but if we think deeper about the choice of place we go to – it is usually to experience and try something new.

New food, new people, new scenery, new activities, new experiences- its all about exploring a new culture.

Being in an international school we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about new cultures from each other.

We then did an exercise within our groups to really explore and gain information about each others countries.

We split into pairs and each pair had to answer the following questions about their partners country.

• An interesting historical fact
• Something unqiue to their culture
• A place in their country they would recommend to visit
• A geographical feature of their country
• The most famous person to come from their country
• What their flag looks like.

It was a very simple exercise but one that demonstrates how much we can learn from just taking the time to sit down with somebody different and to ask and listen. We encourage our students to mix with people from different nationalities and to take advantage of this international community.