Hi All,

Appreciate feedback about Obersee Bilingual School in Pffakion or Gemini International school Ferienbach.

Thanks
Landmark

Pfaffikon and Freienbach for those about to post.

Hi All,

I haven't met anyone who's kids goes to one of the bilingual school in Canton Schwyz.
PLEASE ...Any inputs , feedback, complains, etc... will help us make decision.
rgds
LAndmark77

Have you read the other school threads? Maybe you can try to contact some of the posters by PM.

There was thread on International Schools in Zurich.

http://www.englishforum.ch/family-ma...n-zis-isw.html

There are also these threads

http://www.englishforum.ch/tags/schools/
http://www.englishforum.ch/tags/state-schooling/
http://www.englishforum.ch/tags/swiss-school/
http://www.englishforum.ch/tags/schooling/

Hope you can get some help from this.

Hi Landmark77,

Did you ever get any feedback about the two schools you were interested in? I might need to move my 8 year old from his current school and am extremely interested in the two schools that you mentioned.

All the best

Hi Odie

My son goes to the Obersee Bilingual school Wollerau, as he is in prekindergarden. I am really happy with the school and the teachers. Although he is only 4 he can understand a good amount of German already and sings in both German and English. let me know if I can answer any questions etc you have.

Slan
Irishlass

Hi Irishlass,
Thanks for your reply. Out of interest, did you look at the other school and then still decide on Obersee...? Any reason for the preference or was it a gut feel?
Thx for any feedback you can give!
Odie

I didn't know about the other school when I was looking for a place for my son. I have older kids at the International school but wanted to try something different for my 4 year old. I'm really happy with the Obersee school and it gives me a good chance to mix with Swiss mothers as a lot of the kids are Swiss, there to learn English !!

I don't know about the international school but I do know that Obersee is very small (although growing) and the children were working all together rather than in age classes. They didn't seem particularly well resourced although this was a while ago and I know they had big plans.

Things must have changed. When I visited recently, the children were in classes grouped by age, and the school was extremely well resourced.

I was pretty impressed by what I saw, to be honest.

Yes me too, it is very well organised . The pre school has a range of ages from 2 to 4 but that's pretty normal.

Hi,
As i did not find any feedback on the forum(before the date we wanted to decide)

SO.

made a visit to school
looked around the campus.
looked at the progress
growth of the school
Staff
saw teachers profile.
Found Various after school activites at school.
well experienced teachers
well structured curriculum.

Overall we were happy.
hence choose OberseeBilingual school.

we are happy with the decision.

rgds
Landmark

We visited several schools ourselves. Obersee was one of them. The problem for us with Obersee is that they were quite expensive, considering that they take alot of holidays. I suppose most schools are not cheap for this sort of education. The one in Wollerau is called Gemeni I think. The Obersee was very well organized, and already building a 2nd building to keep up with the demand.
We tried looking into the french school, but with out being a french by birth citizen, as it prepares kids for the BAC, it was too much as well. My kids, also 4, speak 3 languages, french and english the best. I do not know how long we plan on staying in Switzerland, but getting them more involved in the experience of being here, AND from what I saw at Obersee, Gemeni and others spending that sort of money for the kids to do what mostly turns out to is a play group, seemed a little crazy. They were in school last fall in France learning to write, do numbers, and even read. Everything I saw for their age in Switzerland, as every school is just basically playing. If they were older it might be a different story.
So we enrolled them into local Kinderhort, and now they speak more German then either of us. The "teachers" there speak in English, French, Spanish, and German with my kids. It seems to be working out quite well. AND I am not getting charged extra for things like after school, meals, and little trips. If they were enrolled at Obersee, I not only would be paying their tuition, but also paying the Kinderhort on all the vacation days the Obersee has off. We both work, so it's not practical.