Hi KateB

My understanding is that it is still the intention to go ahead with building the school. The organisers are meeting with interested sponsor companies in March for a definitive meeting to get their final commitment.

The school would be sited in the area near Morges. It would open in Sep 08. They would start construction of the school building as soon as possible whilst at the same time operating out of temporary facilities on an adjacent piece of land.

If you want to get an idea of what the school might be like, visit the International School of Frankfurt website http://www.isf-net.de/ I think the intention is replicate the Frankfurt school.

One thing that I learned is that it is not SABIS that are planning to build the school. The school will be built by the organisation that run the Frankfurt school using funds provided by sponsors. The school building is actually owned by a company that will be set up for the purpose. SABIS are then contracted by the company to come in and run the teaching programme at the school.

I visited the Frankfurt school and was comfortable with what I saw. I thought it was well run and the pupils looked happy. They have great facilities, nice classrooms and good extracurricular activities.

I think this meeting in March is the "crunch" meeting. If they get the sponsors they need and they get the deal they need on the land at Colombiere then the school project will get the green light.

One extra thing to add: I initially had my doubts about children working out of "portacabins" until the school building is built. I guess I based that on preconceived ideas of rickety old leaky portacabins. However, during my tour of the Frankfurt school I saw one of their leftover portacabins that they still use and this thing just looks like a big two storey building. You wouldn't really know it was a temporary building. I can see how this could work.

I'm not sure about the figure of 60 as the starting figure. I think they just want to get as many as they can. I know that they opened the Frankfurt school with 65 pupils so maybe that's where the figure came from. (The Franfurt school now has 1000 students).

Anyway, I believe that there is good interest from local employers so this school project has a good chance of actually happening - well, hey that's what they told me !

Hope that helps.