Who are we?
Our mission is to nurture a passion for learning and a lifelong love of knowledge. We strive to create a safe and supportive atmosphere where children can explore their interests, develop their skills and discover their potential.
Our mission is to nurture a passion for learning and a lifelong love of knowledge. We strive to create a safe and supportive atmosphere where children can explore their interests, develop their skills and discover their potential.
Six values of La Découverte.
La Découverte offers a different way of learning, by placing personal development and the freedom to act and think at the heart of its educational practices.
Self-confidence is strengthened so that children can question, inform themselves and explore the world in complete safety. Collaboration and socio-emotional skills are developed to shape responsible and empathetic children.
Projects based on the children’s interests help them to develop their passions and are a real source of motivation for learning. A bilingual immersion environment is set up to help children learn to express themselves, read and write clearly and confidently in French and English. The aim is to succeed well academically while developing a love of learning.
At La Découverte school, we provide an environment where children feel confident, encouraged to explore, develop their independence and progress in a personalised learning environment. As a Geneva-based school, we follow the objectives of the Plan d’Etudes Romand (PER), within a framework of active pedagogy. Find out more about the fundamentals of our teaching methods below.
The child spends an important part of his or her life at school, so it is essential to take into account the child’s well-being.
To this end, we consider the child as a complete being who has the right to be treated with the same respect and tolerance as an adult, all the while expecting the children to give the respect due to the professional roles of staff members.
To ensure that the child feels confident at school, we promote the transition between home and school through an open school policy every morning. We also provide a rich environment where the child feels safe and can act with great freedom to experiment and learn.
Active pedagogy emphasises learning to think. it develops self-confidence, autonomy, a critical and research mind and a taste for learning.
In order for the child to be intellectually active, their work environment must allow them freedom in both research and organisation. This implies giving them time to experiment and make mistakes.
In working with active methods, the child must be the focal point, rather than the program. The child’s individual progression in all areas, and their areas of interest, are taken into account so that the teaching program becomes as personalised to the learner as possible.
From the age of 3, children are introduced to learning English and French in parallel through a system of immersion teaching.
The teachers, native speakers, create different linguistic and cultural environments on different days of the week. The children work in both French and English across all subject areas.
We practice formative evaluation through daily and attentive observations by the teachers, through numerous exchanges and questions between the teacher and the student.
We do not use marks to avoid judgement and comparison between children. We encourage the analysis of mistakes with the child to accompany him in his reasoning and allow him to put words on them to understand them and avoid reproducing them. This allows them to learn little by little to evaluate themselves.
At the end of the school year, in 8P, to prepare the children for secondary school, we train them to take “standardised assessments”, the common assessments of the canton of Geneva in French and the Cambridge exam in English.
To help parents support their child’s progress, we organise tripartite meetings (children, parents, teachers) twice a year.
While our two campuses share a common pedagogical approach, values and fundamentals, they also have similar and specific features. The class council and the practice of philosophy are specific to both campuses.
Find out more about the specific features of Geneva and Mies!
Founded over 30 years ago by Catherine Firmenich, and now taken over by her son Nicolas, La Découverte has always offered a personalised fand amily learning environment.
Take a look back at the milestones that have marked its development.
La Découverte School is member of the Geneva Association of Private Schools (AGEP) and the Swiss Federation of Private Schools (FSEP). The School also has a Swiss School Impulse certification.
Our Geneva Campus has the Fourchette Verte Label.
