Boarding school: an unforgettable experience

Imagine the mixture of excitement and apprehension as a Mexican, or a Japanese or Turkish student prepares to join Collège Champittet’s boarding school in Pully in August. These students are leaving their family cocoon and their habits behind to enjoy an educational, social and cultural experience in Switzerland.

What to pack? Students and parents read and reread the school documents. Then it's departure day, the long flight or the train, the family's arrival on the quays of Ouchy. The future boarders first notice the sports fields and quickly want to discover their room and, above all, their roommate. Girls and boys live on separate floors, with a shared lounge and kitchenette. Eventually, the parents leave, some stay in the hotel for a few days, and the children start their new life together. They have to get used to the time difference, get to know new faces, get used to the uniform and find their way around the classrooms. We allocate specific places for meals, so that the children get to know all the others, and don't naturally withdraw into those who speak the same mother tongue.

The first friendships are made, and this is certainly the greatest asset of boarding school life: 100 potential friends living in a community under the affectionate, and if necessary firm, gaze of the 'house parents'. There are activities on offer every weekend: from sailing in autumn to skiing in winter, as well as excursions in Switzerland and Europe. For some, the opportunity to wander safely through the streets of Lausanne is a novelty compared to their home country. The most active students offer to act as boarding school prefects or ambassadors for the school.

Waking up at 7am, having breakfast at 7.30am and lessons from 8am, the boarders save on commuting time and go off to do an hour's sport every day after lessons. Aged between 11 and 18, we learn every day about the various facets of life as teenagers in 2024, and transfer what we learn to the pastoral care of day students. Health and safety are on the agenda right from the start, and boarders are woken up at least once in the middle of the night for a fire drill. Students study every evening and hand in their electronic devices before bedtime. Their lives are organised around house parents, colleagues with a passion for education, outside the classroom.

At the end of the school year, the dreaded moment when you leave your classmates, sometimes forever after living so close for 10 months. Around 2/3 of them return in August, and welcome the newcomers as buddies.