Howdy folks! It’s Mr. Jakob from Collège du Léman with another weekend wrap-up blog post and one heck of a weekend it’s been! Due to Ascension being kept in this neck of the woods, the C.D.L boarders have been blessed with a long weekend lasting from Thursday morning until Sunday night and we took the opportunity to get the students as active as possible by throwing them into a spiffing array of wonderful activities.

The Lesser-Coat-of-Arms of the City of Copenhagen

Over this long weekend, it’s the perfect time to squeeze in a wonderful trip somewhere and over this long weekend, CDL boarding has put together a lovely séjour to the Danish city of Copenhagen!

(left to right) Alexandre and James can be seen here enjoying a blustery afternoon in the city with a fantastic view.

James and Alex on the canal tour of Copenhagen, which are said to be some of the most sumptuous in the world, rivalling even the city of Bruges.

Everybody knows that there’s really only one way to traverse a town with a lot of canals and that is by bicycle! The kids careened around the city on a guided bike tour that allowed them to take in the full majesty of a place like Copenhagen.

It’s a weekend for sharing experiences and here is our Olympian ambassador Boris paying a visit to Leman’s kitchen to share in a lovely meal.

With his Sunday return, Nihad was quick to put together a celebratory Tea session for the fellow boarders he’s missed so much.

Everyone crowded around for a good look at the Champions League game this Saturday evening! A tense event to be sure as Liverpool and Real Madrid fans came out of the woodwork to loudly celebrate or lament divine victory or eternal defeat!

It’s been a sumptuous weekend here at CDL and we can only feel sorry for you that it’s impossible for you to have had as much fun as we’ve had this weekend!

Best of the best from the Olympus Boys!

Following on from Pillar 1 in September we continued the theme of Healthy Body & Healthy Minds by having a May Fitness Challenge. Organised by Mr Rob from Leman 1 who is the advocate for this Pillar. He set a daily fitness challenge for the boarding community to compete in each day this month. Those who win the day, win the prize and get their photos displayed in the dining room. An example of this was today’s challenge “How many Mountain Climbers can you do in 30 seconds”. Our Davyd was keen to compete in this and organised it with his friends with the following results

Maksim: 96
Davyd: 94
Ayu: 91
Leonid: 59

Today we held our annual International Day at CDL. We celebrate having over 110+ nationalities and try to find ways for us to share in each other’s cultures. International Day is an opportunity for students to cook delicacies from their home country and showcase them to the school community. It is also an opportunity to raise money and support the CDL charities.

This week, we focused on Attachment figures during our well-being tutorial; the second critical takeaway of this Pillar 5. Attachment theory focuses on long-term interactions and bonds between people, such as those between parents and children and romantic partners. The quality of our early attachments has a significant impact on two things:

• Our Personality

• Our later-life relationships

Our pupils empathise with others, communicate sentiments with others, display trust, engage in long-term relationships, have high self-esteem, enjoy intimate connections, seek out assistance, and so on, depending on their attachment style.

We don’t recall much about this stage of development since our attachment styles are formed so early, and we don’t have influence over it. As a result, our attachment tendencies are often unconscious and automatic. We may find ourselves repeating the same unhealthy patterns again and again in our relationships with ourselves and others.

Since awareness is the first step toward change, we requested our students to complete an attachment questionnaire quiz this week to help them determine their attachment style.

https://quiz.attachmentproject.com/

Our goal is for students to identify the type of attachment style they have and see whether this has an impact on their current relationships. If they see a link which needs to be shifted or changed, they then have the enlightenment to do so.

With final exams just a few days away, our students are taking advantage of the spring weather to take care of their body and mind.

Aleks & Ilya started the weeked at the rock climbing center.

Tony took part on the 10k running race of Boarding.

Mr. Jakob supported and joined the race too.

Kirill and Nikita enjoyed the beautiful weather while playing golf.

Wenyan joined the cooking workshop.

In the meantime Kaishu was playing tennis.

… against a very motivated and focused Leo.

Chris added boxercise to his work out routine

Our students also help the community. Ayu was helping to clean the surrounded areas of campus.

And Alex joined the badminton games. Ready to start the weekend.

On Wednesday we had a lovely Oriental Food evening and enjoyed it outside in the warm weather. We welcomed an outside chef to cater this delicious offering.

We have now reached the 5th Pillar of our Wellbeing Programme. We are focusing on Making Safe and Responsible Choices.

In the Boarding Assembly we introduced the key takeaway points of:

• Time in: how do you connect with inner world?
• Attachment figures: how our attachment style influences the way we make our decisions?

This week we will focus on Time in!
What we experience in our inner world, which includes our feelings, thoughts, perceptions, memories, beliefs, hopes, dreams, desires, motivations, longings etc, can occur even without us being aware of it. The lack of self-awareness entails the failure to see the patterns in our behaviours and thinking. As a result, we risk making choices that are not aligned with what we really are and with what we really want.

On the contrary, when we develop the habit to pay attention to these inner experiences we become more self-aware. This can help us have more control over the decisions and choices we make and prevent us from being at the mercy of our own feelings, desires and external negative pressure.

This weekend we had another action packed offering of activities in our Weekend Programme. The students had the choice of Tennis, Cooking, Horse Riding, Woodcraft, Photography, Running, Climbing, Golf, Music Club, Nature Walk, Chess, Boxercise, Baking and a trip by boat to Yvoire.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Pongs were Pinged! And Tables were thoroughly Tennised in the crucible of sport that is Olympus and we would’t have it any other way with two of our boys fresh from the fight!

(left) Firdavs of Concha Blanca faces off with (right) Olympus’ own Davyd who they should call the Disgruntled Diner, because he sends everything back!

(left) Our very own Nikita does battle with another Concha Blanca boy!

Ping Pong is a vigorous sport filled with strategy and incredible amounts of core strength to stop yourself from flipping the table after a close call in your opponent’s favour. It’s a firm favourite and we’re proud to have been a part of this season’s championship!

On Wednesday we had our weekly international dinner. This week we enjoyed the cuisine from Japan.