ECHOS

HAUT-LAC

INTERNATIONAL BILINGUAL SCHOOL

ÉCOLE INTERNATIONALE BILINGUE

ALUMNI MAGAZINE ISSUE 2 - 2023

WHAT’S INSIDE:

› 15, 10, 5 years after Haut-Lac

› Alumni achievement

› Alumni catch-up event

CE QU’IL Y A À L’INTÉRIEUR :

› 15, 10, 5 ans après Haut-Lac

› Les réalisations des anciens élèves

› Evénements des anciens élèves

We hope many of you managed to read our first alumni magazine, which was launched in December 2021. Many of the subjects we wrote about then are still ongoing a year down the line. However, a school never stands still. I always say working in a school makes life go by so quickly because we are inevitably always working in both the present and the future.

As the 2021-22 school year headed into the winter and spring seasons, we began to feel we were at last leaving Covid behind. Students and teachers enjoyed a glorious ski season with amazingly good weather and snow conditions. Last Spring’s inter-school friendly competitions eased us into the full-on inter-school fixtures programme Haut-Lac students are enjoying this year. We ran a “normal” DP2 graduation ceremony and the end-of-year activity days happened as usual.

As a school, we were privileged to be chosen to host the IB Director General and the IB board when they gathered in Switzerland for their annual meeting. At this event, we found out we are the first IB school in the world to have a student actively participating in the extended 3-year IBCP programme. IB board members met with several secondary students and were suitably impressed by their stamina and enthusiasm for their studies, extra-curricular activities and life choices.

Having breathed a sigh of relief that lockdowns and social distancing were no longer required, we couldn’t believe it when, on the second day of the 2022-23 school year, we fell victim to a cyberattack. This could have been a potential disaster for the school and our students, but once again, Haut-Lac staff and students stepped up to the challenge. While we are still not yet completely operational, we are nearly there.

One of the most emotional moments of this school year so far has been International Day. After, three years we were finally able to organise it again. Many alumni attended along with current school families and staff. The weather wasn’t great, but the spirit and atmosphere were awesome !

In the last edition of the alumni magazine, we announced our plan to open a boarding school. If ever there was a potentially impossible task, this was it. How do you market a building you don’t yet have and a student body which doesn’t exist? Well, the Haut-Lac Marketing Department did just that. We planned to open our boarding house with 10-12 students, and we have 11 students with 4 more joining in January.

For the first time, in December, an alumni event was run by ex-Haut-Lac students in London, with a similar event taking place at school. We hope this will be a new initiative Haut-Lac students across the world will take on board, and that soon we will see Haut-Lac alumni events popping up in different corners of the globe.

We know through the grapevine you have much to share with us. Many of our older alumni have married and a number are starting or have started their own families. We even have a couple of alumni children in our infant section. Do please keep in touch with your news and find out what others are up to.

Wishng you all a happy, healthy and successful 2023.

Anne-Marie Harwood Managing Director - Secondary