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Our
History
Founded in 1962, originally to
meet the needs of the English-speaking community, the English School of
Lausanne opened with seven pupils in the Rehearsal rooms of the Municipal
Theatre of Lausanne..
The following year, the School was
renamed The Commonwealth-American School and moved to Pully, on Avenue
Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz.
Within five years, the School had
grown to over 100 pupils from 9 different countries.
In 1977, despite a precarious
financial situation due to the oil crisis, the School added a new
construction on its site, known as the Magnolia Building, in honor of the
tree that it was built around
Students and Teachers in 1977
John Curtis became Headmaster and
remained at the School for ten years.
He was succeeded by Robert Landau,
who took up the position from 1988 until 1997, when Simon Taylor was appointed
as the Director of the newly renamed International School of Lausanne.
Over forty years, the School has
grown not only in size, but also in scope. In order to serve an increasingly
mobile international community, the curriculum gradually took into
consideration the practices and requirements of a number of different
systems, not only British and American.
The addition of the International
Baccalaureate in 2000 has further influenced the multicultural outlook of
teachers and students. More than 50 countries are currently represented in
the student body.
Despite the purchasing of an
additional building on Chamblandes in 1995, the rapid expansion since then,
with enrolment doubling to 450 students in 2003, has obliged the school to
continually seek new premises.
In 1998, the ISL Board created a
task force to locate land and commission the design of a new purpose-built
campus. More than twenty different locations were considered before
Le-Mont-sur-Lausanne was finally chosen the following year. With the generous
help of our sponsors, the project has reached its final stage of planning in
September 2003.
In September 2005 we moved into a
new era with the opening of a new campus, offering a state-of-the-art school
environment, on-site sports facilities, including a double gym, a drama space
as well as a cafeteria.
After 10 years at ISL, Simon
Taylor left the School in July 2007 to pass the torch to Lyn Cheetham, from
Australia. ISL has reached 600 students and due to the quality of an
exceptionally close community, its future continues to be a promising one.
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