The Surval Experience

We are committed to emboldening our girls with the confidence, tenacity, and resilience to find their own path and success in life, through a modern and forward-thinking bespoke education built around a foundation of championing social enterprise, forging global perspectives, and celebrating language and culture, lived out in our everyday life.

At Surval, our core values of courage, curiosity, honesty and openness equip our girls for their tomorrow – promoting a culture of courtesy, consideration and care.

We prepare girls to play an active part in our increasingly global society. Our international community, made up of students and staff from many different countries across the world, enables girls to grow in understanding of other cultures and customs and to take their place as world citizens who will have positive influence and impact on the lives of others. Our aspirational environment motivates, challenges, encourages and supports each girl.

Each girl’s Surval experience should be happy and fulfilling, making friendships that last a lifetime and instilling confidence and independence to face future challenges. Our girls should feel able to seize every opportunity to develop as confident leaders, team players, ready to ‘have a go’ and learn from all we offer. We celebrate a culture of achievement that sets no limits and which enables each and every one to become the best she can be.

What makes The Surval Experience so special?

Our community’s global, cultural tapestry
Our innovative curriculum and enrichment programmes
Our tailored and personalised learning with space to explore and discover
Our broad offering of study programmes - Foundation Year, American High School Diploma Program with Advanced Placements (APs), IGCSE & A Level, AHSP, DELF, Gap, Winter and Summer Camp experience
Our exceptional Enrichment opportunities:
- Sports
- Clubs and Societies
- Commitment to Communities
- Activities, Cultural Excursions and International Trips
Our home from home boarding experience
And the focus of the life we live out every day:

Social Enterprise Global Perspectives Language and Culture

Enrichment

Co-curricular enrichment is at the heart of each girl’s Surval Experience. We take girls beyond the syllabus and classroom to inspire them further in all areas of their personal growth, encouraging every girl to try new things and have a go. Visiting specialists are invited to come and talk to the girls about careers or their remarkable lives and achievements, and we make the most of our location close to CERN, the UN and the UN, leading Swiss higher education establishments and professional organisations to enhance our girls’ learning and experience.

Clubs and Societies

The school provides a broad range of activities for girls to discover their passions and talents. These include MUN (Model United Nations), giving girls the opportunity to participate in local, national and international Conferences. Our Charity Committee is also very popular and the school boasts an outstanding record of achievement in this vital area. We also enjoy Arts and Crafts, Army Fitness, Fashion and Style analysis, Baking, Yearbook and language clubs, as well as the International Award (equivalent to the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme). The girls have also recently set up their own Sustainability Society, which is flourishing and making a real impact within the life of our community

Commitment to Communities

As visitors to Switzerland, Surval takes seriously its commitment to the local community. Girls work on a weekly basis with Cartons du Coeur and help to pack boxes for the ‘invisible poor’, delivering them to safe and unidentifiable collection points. Recently the school has started working with the L’Etape programme which sets up a weekly food kitchen for the most neglected in the community. The girls also go for weekly visits to the elderly at the Byron Home and do activities with the residents there. These activities help the girls to consider the lives of others and build in them a strong sense of social responsibility. The school has established strong links with Habitat for Humanity, raising significant funds for the charity and sending senior girls on the AHSP and GAP year programmes for 10 days to help build homes in Kenya for dispossessed families.

Activities, Cultural Excursions and International Trips

Surval takes the weekends seriously! Girls enjoy the different opportunities and experiences offered through our extensive Weekend Activity programme: ranging from cultural excursions, extreme sports experiences and in-house projects. As part of discovering the beautiful, traditional cities of Switzerland, the girls have also enjoyed this year giving presentations in the United Nations and taking part in projects at CERN in Geneva, as well as visiting the Paul Klee, Natural History and Einstein Museums in Bern.

The fantastic accessibility of our location also offers the opportunity to explore the famous sights and sounds further beyond the Swiss borders. In 3 hours our girls can find themselves in Milan or Paris! Europa Park is also a firm favourite.

Surval girls love to travel! International trips are an essential part of what we offer, typically taken during Public and School holidays and with a wide-ranging choice across the world. This year the girls have experienced a cultural tour of Greece, which also included a cruise around the Greek islands, as well as long weekends to Copenhagen’s famous Christmas Market, Budapest, Iceland and an Easter tour of Japan!

Sports

Surval is a small campus, benefitting from its own tennis court, dance studio and fitness room. We also make full use of the wonderful surrounding environment to enable the girls to make the most of the beautiful outdoors and take advantage of a rich sporting programme, both as part of timetabled sports and after school and weekend activities.

We offer a wide range of individual and team sports from basketball, volleyball and soccer, to running, climbing, rollerblading, hiking, tennis, cycling, dance, aerobics, fitness and yoga. Winter brings the opportunity for skiing, snowboarding, ice skating every week, and with that exploring and experiencing various Swiss resorts and slopes. With the warmer weather comes the opportunity for water sports on the nearby and stunning Lac Leman, including water skiing, stand-up-paddle, sailing and kayaking, as well as rafting and water canyoning high up in the Swiss mountains. The girls also love horse riding at a local equitation centre.

Become a Surval girl

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