Dear friends,
Our family is about to relocate to Switzerland (Zurich or Luzern area – TBD) and hopefully we will celebrate Christmas with you .Our main concern is obviously – the education of our children. We have 3 kids – the eldest daughter is 15, the younger ones are 10 (she speaks and understands basic English), and 6 years old boy who speaks only Hebrew. Needless to say none of us speak German, yet.
Here in Israel, three of them are visiting a semi-private democratic school. They are really happy, and their educational achievements are good.
We will probably send our eldest to English speaking private school, but I am not sure we will be able to do same thing with our younger ones. We don’t see it as a problem necessarily. But still we are worried.
I was hoping you could share with me your thoughts regarding the educational and more than that – the human approach in the Swiss public schools system.
We would like to know we are sending our children to a loving, caring, and supporting environment, rather than tough and uncompromising system. We would like to see our children in a challenging and thought -encouraging school, rather than in a place where they will need to memorize useless information…
So, what do you think? What should we expect?

Send the two oldest kids to a private English school. The 10 year old might find it difficult to adjust to a Swiss German / High German environment. She might be put back a year (from 5th to 4th) because of her inadequate German skills.

The youngest should be fine in a public school.

I completely agree with olygirl. Ten is a bit late for that sort of change (although, I just read in the other thread than NotAllThere's son started at ten and did brilliantly) but your six-year-old should definitely be fine.