Leysin American School students, staff, and faculty took the 2020/2021 school year in stride, not just meeting but surpassing expectations in the fields of academics, athletics, and extracurriculars.
Academics
Thanks to the support of LAS’s stellar University Advising team, our seniors were accepted into over 200 universities, in more than 15 countries. LAS students receive step-by-step support as they navigate the university application, interview, and acceptance process. It is thanks to this individualized guidance that 92.5% of our students were accepted into at least one of their top 5 universities, and 80% were accepted into at least one of their top 3.
Athletics
Leysin American School offers an excellent ski program that allows students to practice and improve upon their skills at our local ski resort, whether they are an absolute beginner or competing at a professional level. For one student this year, Jakob, that has meant receiving training and assistance that made it possible for him to compete at the World Championships of Alpine skiing in Italy. With the backing and continued encouragement from his global family at LAS, Jakob competed for the first time in the adult circuit, finishing 44th out of 100 skiers in the Men’s Slalom qualification.
Extracurriculars
LAS students wowed us in all areas of the extracurricular sphere this year, but one activity that stood out in particular was our Math Olympiad team. Twins Martin and Michael competed in the Economics Olympiad in Zurich in May. After a difficult competition against over 130 students, the brothers were chosen to represent Switzerland this summer in Latvia at the International Economic Olympiad.
Excellent Students Begin with Excellent Staff
At the heart of everything we do at Leysin American School, we aim to help our students achieve excellence. Most often, raising excellent young learners starts with supporting excellent staff. With an ever-changing academic landscape, it’s important to provide passionate teachers with the tools they need to keep up with the most innovative teaching methods. At Leysin American School, the LAS Educational Research (LASER) Center seeks to do just that. LASER operates with the mission to “provide support for creative and driven staff to explore educational issues in depth in our school context to enliven their experiences of professional development at LAS while enriching the academic environment for us all.”
Over the years LAS has seen and benefited from many different fields of research, ranging from topics like “Social Emotional Competencies in the Classroom” to “Testing Agile in Education.” Most recently, LASER staff had an article published in the RIPE Research Journal of the Ecolint Institute for Learning and Teaching entitled “Teacherless Observations: Supporting Student Agency.” The article explores how monitoring teacherless classrooms can give us hints as to what it takes to develop independent, self-regulating learners. Therein lies the best part of a strong professional development program: enabling staff to explore the subjects they are passionate about allows them to improve their students’ experiences in the classroom.
