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International

“The novelty is that we now offer our pupils What are the differences between yours and
the other schools?
double diplomas – the International
It is the concept that’s different. We have a
Baccalaureate and the maturité. We are mission, and that consists of developing the

the only school in Switzerland offering desire to learn and stimulating the pupil’s
creativity. Children are hypercreative. If you
these two diplomas to our pupils.” listen to TED talks, Ken Robinson says school
kills creativity. I think he is right, and this is
why we are encouraging it here, in this school.
There are three areas – the first involving
Association genevoise des écoles privées and academic skills of a very high level. The
was the president of the Association suisse des Swiss baccalaureate, or maturité, is extremely
écoles privées. difficult to obtain. Only 20 percent of the
pupils in Switzerland succeed in earning
When did you take over the schools? this diploma. In comparison, for the French
I joined the school in 1996. The school in baccalaureate, it’s 90 percent, for the German,
Nyon needed somebody to carry out daily approximately 60 percent. We are the Swiss
management, so, I stepped in and remained school of reference. The novelty is that we
there for six years. Then I returned to Geneva. now offer our pupils double diplomas – the
It was at that time that we built this new International Baccalaureate and the maturité.
building here at Chêne-Bougeries. It brought We are the only school in Switzerland offering
with it a slightly different pedagogy with these two diplomas to our pupils. In the other
amphitheaters where the classes are taught. schools, the pupil chooses either one, at our
There are no traditional classrooms but science school they get both!
laboratories of different sorts. Today we have In other words, a very high academic level and
700 pupils in Geneva and 400 in Nyon. Ten social skills are key here. The International
years ago, I set up a subsidiary in Berlin to Baccalaureate also encourages social skills,
make linguistic exchanges. but the learning environment in our school
can be described as positive discipline which
Why did you decide to set up a subsidiary consists of firmness and kindness. It consists
school in Berlin? of developing collaboration, autonomy and
In general, the French-speaking Swiss do responsibility. If we develop these skills in
not like the German language. They have the children, they learn better. We have a
to learn it in school, but they rarely use it. pedagogical system that makes the children
It’s therefore very hard to make pupils love collaborate, and they are show solidarity with
German. I asked myself why, and how to go each other.
about making them like German, because it’s The second area that we develop is digital
fundamental. In order to motivate children proficiencies. What is digital at the Moser
to use German, the idea was to send them to School? It consists of three different aspects.
Berlin to use their language skills. I looked for The first is about how it works – programming
partner schools in Germany where French was and understanding the digital language. It is
taught, but we did not find a suitable partner. important that in the twenty-first century we
So, I told my colleagues, that if we want the understand this language. The second is: in
pupils to like German, we have to make them which context do we use it? Is it important
like Germany. And what is better than Berlin? to have an iPad in the French class? What is
Berlin is the “New York” of Europe, and I love the added value of using an iPad in French, or
Berlin myself. mathematics? What more does the iPad bring
I brought my family with me and set up the to the subject? If there is no value added we
school. In the beginning we had only one do not use it. They all have IPADs, but they
class, but it soon became a success. What my also have textbooks and they love to read. Last
father spent 30 years of his life to build here in year the school library handled more than
Switzerland took me 10 years in Berlin. 16,000 book loans. There are 700 pupils, so

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