Peter and myself are both Austrian and live here with 4 kids. Our boys are aged 14, 12, 10 and we have a little girl aged 5. The younger 2 kids are still attending Swiss School in Primary 5 and Kindergarten, respectively. The two older boys have already moved on to United World College (UWC) after completing all grades from Playgroup 1 through Primary 6 at the Swiss School.
We have called Singapore our home for the past 16 years. When we selected the Swiss School for our kids initially there were the following four important draw factors that made us select this school over other international schools in Singapore:
1) This is the only ‘truly bilingual’ German/English school in Singapore (From Kindergarten onwards there are subjects taught in German and others in English, but as the language spoken during recess is usually English the kids actually speak a little more English than German during their school days);
2) The school is cosy and small, which was really important, especially while the kids were still young;
3) The school utilizes great sports facilities from the Swiss Club, including 2 pools, all year round. The dedicated sports teachers at Swiss School help the interested kids to participate in many different ACSIS (interschool) competitions, even if the kids don’t attend a particular activity as their extra-curricular activity (ECA), and;
4) The agreement the Swiss school has with UWC Dover for the kids’ continued education after Primary 6 allows all kids that pass the entry test to continue their middle school and high school education at UWC Dover. UWC Dover also allows the kids to continue with German and French and even enables them to finish school with a bilingual IB diploma in English and German. German may even be taken as a higher level subject. At the same time the school provides an international education, and has amazing facilities and possibilities for kids that have ambitions to join sports teams.
The level of the English language and science at the Swiss School has continuously improved over the years since we have been here and all our kids have been able to join the mother tongue English language stream immediately after entering UWC. We can therefore highly recommend the Swiss School, especially if you plan to stay here for longer!
(, 2017)