END OF TERM NEWSLETTER - Winter 2023

SECTIONS

SENIOR SECTION (IB1-IB2) & UNIVERSITY GUIDANCE

We have just received the results of our IB evaluation visit and it confirms the school’s greatest strengths, notably our personalised learning and pastoral care, the wide variety of activities on offer, a strong sense of community, and the teachers’ unwavering commitment.

IB2 students are receiving their offers from universities across the globe, while some IB1 students are preparing for the SAT university entrance exam for their applications to US and private European universities this autumn.

In February, the IB1 students had a Core and University day aimed at providing the students with time to work on their Extended Essays, meet their supervisors and finalise their titles. The range of topics selected is quite wide, from looking at the impact of electric cars on the environment through to the development of Japanese language. In the afternoon the students attended talks on specific university destinations with University Counselor Matt Tomich and gathered the information needed to start deciding on their destinations at the end of their studies at Le Régent.

Le Régent attended the Council of International Schools (CIS) conference on University Admission and Guidance in March in Abu Dhabi, an opportunity to meet with admissions counsellors from 70 universities from North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This is one of the benefits from Le Régent’s membership application to CIS, the premier global organisation for international schools.

There are still places available for the university tour to the US in October. The trip is open to students currently in G9-IB1 and will allow them the opportunity to visit some of the top universities in California. Please contact Mr Tomich if you are interested in your child attending the trip.

learning and consolidation taking place in school. G10 students are to be commended for their resilience during the exam period at the beginning of January and have since been working towards PreIB and IGCSE assessment pathways, concluding in exams in May and June. We encourage strategic revision and proactive independent study of all students in these two important secondary years.

As we learned, the IOM is a UN agency that provides services and advice concerning migration to governments and migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees and migrant workers. Mr Dela Cruz coordinates global and regional initiatives on migrant integration, with a specific focus on promoting social cohesion between migrants and local communities. He explained his work and career path, which began as a youth leader and activist on issues regarding climate change, human rights and rural development in the Philippines.

whole, enthusiastically in our ski programme this term. It was wonderful to see beginner skiers go 3000m up to Plaine Morte and ski down confidently. Despite the deterioration of snow, the children thoroughly enjoyed the long expeditions - the husky dogs in particular were very popular! Teachers and instructors on both the expeditions were very much impressed by the children’s ability to work collaboratively and positively while enjoying our beautiful mountain terrain.

Academically, a highlight for G2 was learning about earthquakes. Using an earthquake simulator to test structures made out of toothpicks and sweets gave them a taste of what it means to be an engineer! G3 flexed their artistic muscles while exploring the composition of paintings, pictures and photographs. They particularly enjoyed learning how to photograph landscapes using the thirds rule and re-creating landscapes through a range of chosen media. G4 produced some wonderful hieroglyphics and clay pyramids while studying their topic on Ancient Egypt and G4-5 ended the term exploring sustainability through the UN Sustainable Development Goals! These highlights, of

ren have experienced and learned about this term. When looking back, we feel great pride in all that they have accomplished - and they deserve a well earned break!

INFANT SECTION (N-G1)

A busy term for the Infants this winter! In the classroom, we saw lots of exciting learning taking place. Nursery had plenty of adventure during their weekly ‘Jardin des neiges’ sessions where they sledged, explored in the snow and even enjoyed a hot chocolate now and again. Reception learned to count in English and French and made lots of artistic creations in the afternoons. Kindergarten and G1 really enjoyed sharing their family history in IPC. The ski season was an integral part of our learning this term, and our youngest students made tremendous progress so much so that by the end of the season they had overtaken the teachers in their ability to ski! Despite skiing taking its toll on energy levels, we truly saw fantastic progress academically. We are very impressed with the children’s ability to balance sports and academics. We wish all of our students a wonderful Easter break.

DEPARTMENTS

IT & DIGITAL LEARNING

OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released to the public last November and a few weeks later the generative AI tool became viral, urging Microsoft to invest reportedly $10 billion in the start-up and announce plans to integrate the technology into its search engine Bing. After two months, ChatGPT had over 100 million regular users, the fastest-growing consumer application in history. In early February, Google unveiled Bard, their own generative AI tool. The giants of the tech industry are clearly positioning themselves for the next significant shift in the technology revolution and it has left many people feeling a little unsure.

This January, in our first professional development session of the new year, all of the teachers spent time together looking at this tool and considering the changes it was bound to bring and the potential advantages and disadvantages for education and for Le Régent. Luckily, everyone was openminded from the start and genuinely interested, which reduced the primary sense of uneasiness. Within a short session, we were able to creatively see how this tool could be a big advantage to our students and our learning community. Ms Devine looked at how ChatGPT could be used to generate model answers in English for analysis, Mrs Thomp son and Mr Holden looked at how it could be used to explain complex maths concepts in a simplified way. We also looked at how ChatGPT could be used to create learning materials for language learners or EAL learners, how it could be used to generate practice questions for IB or iGCSE and how we could personalise learning even further. We even had Mr

and Mrs Bredow perform an impromptu song and melody generated by ChatGPT. What an amazing way to get students into music!

How is Le Régent responding to generative AI tools? We are embracing it, discussing and amending our policy on academic honesty, regularly sharing best practices and sharing regular news within our community to improve teaching and learning. Our approach is participatory. Miss Cogbill recently engaged our students in an assembly on this topic and posed moral questions and ideas on ChatGPT and a number of our staff attended the lecture in March by Professor Johan Rochel from EPFL on ‘The Ethics and Law of Artificial Intelligence’. We want to support our students to act with integrity and to learn about the digital world around them. ChatGPT and Bard are, after all, only two of a long list of generative AI tools available now. Whilst we do this, the state of New York, the Australian districts of New South Wales and Queensland, Science Po University in France and Bangalore RV University (to name just a few) have decided to ban ChatGPT. Who is right? Who is wrong? This is not another simplified binary narrative as some people might assume. This is a moment in history that requires critical thinking, it requires creativity, it requires active research and collaboration and above all else, it requires our students and teachers to learn. This is exactly what we plan to do as a community. We will collectively find a way to bring this tool into our classrooms, to improve the learning of our students and embrace this latest tool to continue to make our school a better place to learn.

MODERN & FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Chinese New Year French Language and Francophonie Week

As every year, we celebrated the Chinese New Year with many exciting activities. The children had a chance to discover calligraphy, origamis and Chinese paper-cutting while the teachers were invited to attend a traditional tea ceremony (Gong Fu Cha meaning “good tea made with time, energy and effort.”) kindly hosted by one of our parents. Chef Antoine delighted all of us with a scrumptious lunch (noodles, nems and mochis), which made our Chinese students very happy and proud of their traditions.

A few days ago, we celebrated French Language and Francophonie Week, a unique opportunity to promote French language and explore global Francophone cultures. The department of foreign languages and French organised various entertaining cultural, intellectual, culinary, and literary activities. Some students entered a poetry competition tailored to their age levels, the native French speakers took part in the “Mots en Or” contest (previously known as the “Dicos d’Or). Chef Antoine treated us to a delicious culinary experience and by the end of the week the whole school community had explored the cultural diversity of the French speaking world. We intend to give French a prominent place at Le Régent and with this in mind, about 30 students in G7-10 will sit the official DELF (A1 to B1) examinations to be held in May in Lausanne.

MATHEMATICS

In an effort to convey a current and lively image of maths, we celebrated World Maths Day and G6-7 took part in a mathletics challenge. Hats off to everyone involved.

We also celebrated Unesco International Day of Mathematics (known as Pi Day in the USA) and G8IB1 were challenged to make a poster on what communities they belong to and what inspires them to be a mathematician.

HUMANITIES

We took 16 students to visit the United Nations in Geneva. They enjoyed a private tour inside the Palais des Nations and a meeting with Priyanka Chauhan, the ambassador at the permanent mission of India. They learnt about India’s policies on pertinent issues and gained a better understanding of what an ambassador to the UN does. They also observed and partook in a diplomatic Q&A session with the ambassador, practising valuable communication skills and framing questions on important topics in a formal setting.

SCIENCE

Our IB2 physicists explored the world of nuclear research in Geneva. We visited the ‘Universe of Particles’ exhibition, learned all about the history of CERN and for most of us discovered the first Synchrocyclotron. This was followed by a visit to the ATLAS visitor centre where we learned about current and future research and developments. We look forward to next year’s trip when the new ‘Science Gateway’ visitor and education centre will be open.

I am a mathematician

From India

An IB student

A Movie enthusiast

A couch potato

A Dog owner

CREATIVE ARTS

Delightful shows and rewarding trips!

Cirque du Soleil CRYSTAL was a breathtaking performance on ice. The show was truly spectacular and filled with entertaining acrobatics and figure skating from beginning to end. We finished the evening with an after show dinner and returned to Le Régent buzzing with enthusiasm for the next trip.

Simply Theatre is a Swiss based theatre company offering performing arts training in English for children and professional productions for families. Their production of Peter Pan the Musical whisked us away to NeverLand and we sang and clapped along throughout their amazing show. It was a great experience for our students to see other children their own age on stage performing in such a professional performance.

More theatre trips coming soon - please check out the Creative Arts Theatre Portal page.

MUSIC

“The winter term is when skiing takes over and music takes a back seat.” - Anonymous teacher with decades of experience.

Not quite at Le Régent! This winter term could not have been busier for our music department. We hired 4 new instrumental teachers to meet the increasing demand, and have added ‘DJ / Music Production’ to our list of offers, as well as Double Bass. If your child would like to take additional instrumental lessons, please visit the “Forms” tab on the Portal.

Our musical groups and additional instrumental lessons still continued during the winter term and we supported some evenings with the boarders, notably the “Formal Dinner” and the “Carnival Party” where our DJs made their debut. In addition, we are holding monthly “Open Mic Nights” to give the students an opportunity to perform in a casual school setting.

We are very much looking forward to the summer term, when the School Orchestra can resume (I guess skiing does have a small impact after all…), and we can commence our preparations for the Summer Showcase!

cesses with record-high numbers of participants. Our students achieved many podium finishes with particular highlights being:

Individual Successes:

Lucas Hart and Aloïs Aymon (1st place in the Le Régent SGIS ski race); Liza Rossazza-Rivis (1st place in Le Régent and Morgins SGIS ski races; Aimé Serval (2nd place) and Theodor Kaskiv (3rd place) in the Le Régent SGIS ski race; Daniel Laurie (1st place in the Coupe Le Régent); Dasha Johnson (2nd place in SGIS Snowboard) and Roman Boschetto (2nd place in SGIS Morgins ski race).

hampered by the difficult conditions but our students remained positive and motivated in order to keep on skiing and improve their techniques when performing on mixed terrain (ice, slush, bumps, pisted). As a result, most of the students are now much more accomplished when skiing and snowboarding in less-than-ideal conditions. All students can be proud of their achievements on the mountain during the course of the season.

Team Successes:

Overall winners in the Le Régent SGIS ski race; second place in the SGIS Snowboard; second place in categories B boys’ and C girls’ ski races in Morgins.

in fairness call the expeditions from cross-country skiing to ski touring quite successful. The initiation to dog sledging was certainly the highlight for G2-3 students and it is not hard to imagine their enthusiasm and joy during this activity!

Joanna, an alumna

“My best memories? I’d say the winter expeditions because up in the mountains, friendships grow stronger and you learn a lot about yourself.”

STUDENTS’ VOICES

A NEW ONLINE MAGAZINE

A secondary and senior student-led online magazine is in the making. It will celebrate our students’ incredible creativity across all our many languages, the arts and beyond and help to express our identity as a community. It will include student writing, topical debates, artwork, music, videos, interviews, competitions, puzzles, comic strips and much more. Please contact the staff facilitator lucy. shaw@regentschool.ch with any suggestions and submissions!

FROM A JUNIOR BOARDER

JUNIOR SCOOP

Do not forget to check out our Junior Scoop.

“Hi, my name is Carlin, I am from New York and I have been in this school for nearly five years. I wanted to tell you about the fun and exciting things we did this winter term from start to end. The winter term is always one to look forward to because there is so much skiing and snowboarding. This term, I finally made the ski team and the snowboarding team with all my friends. It was like a dream come true and we had the best time ever together. We laughed so hard our heads nearly popped off. During the ski sessions we experienced many different pistes, which was so much fun. In the boarding house, we have a diverse community from different countries: Ghana, South Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia, Belgium, Hong Kong, and Spain. I share a room with a boy from Ghana and a boy from South Korea. After class, tutors take us to the sports hall or let us dig tunnels in the snow. When we come back, we get to eat Mrs Webber’s snacks - they are the best! She makes lots of international food and the okonomiyaki are my favourite. In the evenings, we chat and have a lot of fun, and sometimes we disagree of course. It is a bit like having many brothers and sisters! Then it is bedtime. PS. There are lots of rules, but we also have plenty of time to relax, play and be ourselves.”

C-SHARP CHARITY

Massima, Pilar, Alejandro, Miranda and Natalia in G8 organised with their Spanish teacher a Chocolate with Churros event. With the proceeds they bought food for a charity in Crans-Montana that will help several families in the area.

The whole school community supported the Chandeleur charity pancake event with great enthusiasm. A big thank you to Chef Antoine and his team for all their help cooking delicious crêpes. The proceeds will go to Tendi Sherpa Foundation Nepal.

The Saint Valentin fundraising event was another great success which rallied the entire school community. The proceeds will be allocated to a charity association providing relief and recovery in the wake of the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

SPECIAL EVENTS

WELCOME TO TENDI SHERPA

Tendi Sherpa, a humble child monk turned mountain guide hero and force for good in Nepal, gave beautifully illustrated and detailed presentations of what an expedition to Mount Everest involves. Although he climbed all the other major mountains on each continent and Mount Everest 14 times, Tendi’s speech was fresh and he spoke about his work with a lot of humility. “Be prepared and respect the mountain” encapsulates his approach. Tendi’s wisdom, humility, passion for mountaineering and love for his community inspired us all. A big thank you to Deborah Thompson, Cristina Laurie and Flore Dussey for making this possible. Part of the book sale profits and all donations will go towards The Tendi Sherpa Foundation and Nepalko Sathi. The school charity group C-Sharp is also donating part of the proceeds of the Valentine’s day rose delivery.

ECO-SCHOOL

After two years of hard work, we are now proudly flying the Eco-School flag, however, our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint/waste and increase the biodiversity of our surroundings are far from being over. A sustainability committee has evaluated our carbon footprint and the plan is to reduce what we can and offset the rest in order to be carbon neutral (Switzerland aims to become carbon neutral by 2050). With this in mind, we are extending our tree planting programme up the stream above the sports hall and are working with the local golf club to establish a nursery down in Sierre. We are also looking into the possibility of planting high alpine trees (eg. Larch) above the treeline as they cannot migrate at the pace of the rising temperatures. More to come.

RÉGENT INTERNATIONAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION (RIAA)

A handful of alumni have been working behind the scenes since 2021 to connect and serve Le Régent’s growing global alumni community. A lot of progress has been made in the last few months and the association is taking shape. Below is a quick overview of the milestones they have reached.

“We hosted individual reunions for each of the graduating classes and one to which all IB graduates were invited this past December which was filled with memorable moments and provided a fantastic opportunity to see everyone in our community. We are currently planning to host our first in-person reunion weekend this summer where we look forward to welcoming the graduating class of 2023 and hosting the inaugural General Assembly alongside smaller activities and events for alumni to spend time with one another. We are also proud to announce our recruitment of new committee members, who will support the development and direction of the association as well as our Region Representatives who will be responsible for hosting events and welcoming graduates and soon-to-be IB graduates in their area. The Board is also proud to announce it has formalised and written its bylaws and constitution and is currently working on its website, which will be launched during the alumni weekend.”

Keeping in touch: alumni and students can keep in touch on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook or via email at alumni@riaa.ch.

RÉGENT CAMPS

Our summer camps are enjoying a steadily growing reputation and enrolment increased considerably compared to last year. The steady growth in student numbers over the past 3 years is being driven by the increased reputation of Le Régent International School and our productive collaboration with Le Rosey. “New Heights” already counts 30 different nationalities.

CONTRIBUTORS

In reading order

Jennifer Cogbill, Head of Senior Section, IB Coordinator

Matthew Tomich, Guidance Counselor

Amelia Voice, Grades 9-10 Coordinator

Andy Park, Grades 6-8 Coordinator and Head of Sport

Shane Ahearne, G4 Form Teacher

Claire Park, Head of Junior Section

Shelley Naylor, Head of Infant Section

Jon Snell, Head of IT & Digital Learning

Chi Vocat, Mandarin Teacher

Yuan Yuan, Chinese Language & Literature Teacher

Ophélie Behem, Head of Modern Foreign Languages

Emma Thompson, Head of Mathematics

Heather Thexton, Head of Science

Raymond Phillips, Head of Geography

Catherine Snell, Head of Drama & Performing Arts

Anton Bredow, Head of Music

Tom van der Meij, Head of Co-curricular & Outdoor Education

Lucy Shaw, English & Art Teacher

Joanna, Régent Almuna

Carlin, G7

Ruth Bermudez, Spanish Teacher

Manon, G10

Ben Wood, Science & ESS Teacher

Maleeto Memela, Régent International Alumni Association

Véronique Andrin, Régent Camps Director

Proofreading, translation, editing, graphic design

Véronique Kampmann, Marketing & Communication Coordinator

Line Müller, Visual Communication Coordinator