Fresh snow for 2023

During the festive holidays, Villars remained entirely bare. We were therefore on tenterhooks, hoping that the arrival of snow would coincide with the start of the 2023 winter term. And then… as if by magic… on Monday January 9th the first flakes began to fall on our alpine campus, right on time. We are delighted to welcome our students and staff back to this snowy wonderland.

It is the perfect backdrop for our core winter term activities. Just this past weekend our senior students took part in an Ice Climbing Expedition in Arolla, the Valais region of Switzerland. Furthermore, our Expeditions and Physical Education teams have now opened up touring, snow-shoeing, piste-exploring, and avalanche awareness classes. Additionally, students can try snowboarding or spend time skiing socially on weekends.

While on the performance front, our students have begun auditioning for the Senior School Music Competition. We also recently held a novel innovative Drama and Dance Choreography Workshop to develop artistic expression, in cooperation with a West-End choreographer and our Head of Drama Mr Hann.

Academically, we have superb news! Our students are beginning to receive early university offers, from exceptional American universities such as Stanford University (2 students), University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Barnard College, Babson College, and Northeastern University. In addition, offers from top UK universities have started coming in from Imperial, St Andrews, Warwick, Durham, Manchester, and King’s.

Our students are actively engaged in community service, notably by participating this term in the Villeneuve Food Bank Community Service Project, which involves helping with unloading food supplies, loading shelves, and distributing food to people in need.

Looking forwards, next week we will be spotlighting another of our key guiding principles - Responsibility - with a variety of compelling initiatives:

• Taking responsibility within the community by hosting a lunch for local elderly residents;
• Taking responsibility for our environment with the presence of Aiglon alumnus Gianni Valenti founder of Gaia First, an global environmental NGO based in Paris, discussing sustainability at the 2nd edition of our Gathering;
• Taking responsibility through practising diplomatic management of our world with a MUN conference on the future of borders;
• Taking responsibility for our future with a presentation from guest speaker Henry Coutinho-Mason.

As you can see, we have much to celebrate and motivate at the start of this brand new year.