Some things you just can’t rush. Learning to talk. Spotting your first worm. Working out that flour plus water plus excitement equals something you’d actually want to eat.
Children develop in their own time. Our job is to make sure that time is spent well.
At the Les Marronniers nursery in Vevey, every day is designed around your child: their pace, their curiosity, their growing need to understand the world. It’s warm, unhurried, and built on the belief children thrive when they feel safe enough to explore.
Toddlers absorb language like they absorb everything else: by being around it day after day, in contexts that make sense.
At our international nursery, that means English and French are heard at mealtimes, on walks and during activities, with each educator speaking only one language consistently. No drills, no pressure. Just two languages becoming normal, because they are.
Books matter at our bilingual nursery too. Children are drawn to stories, pictures and the sound of a voice turning pages long before they can read. We therefore make sure they get daily reading time and regular library visits through the Né pour lire programme, supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and UNICEF.
Circle time, free play, obstacle courses. The activities look simple but the skills they build are anything but. Taking turns, speaking up, stepping back, trying again.
Les Marronniers in Vevey is often where children take their first steps in all of it, and where many meet their first real friend.
Every day, our little ones head out to explore Vevey and its neighbouring forests. No agenda, just open eyes.
They start noticing things. Seasons. Mud. The sound leaves make when they’re dry versus wet. These aren’t lessons. They’re discoveries. And discoveries stick.
In summer, the Corseaux paddling pool becomes the destination of choice. Water, laughter and a whole lot of physics no one’s calling physics yet.
At Les Marronniers, cooking is real learning in disguise. Children measure, mix and make together. Every birthday gets its own celebration: a cake baked by the children themselves with simple ingredients, no sugar, a little patience, and a lot of pride when it comes out of the oven.
The children also spend time in the Haut-Lac school garden, digging, planting, watering and eventually tasting what they’ve grown. There’s something quietly powerful about a two-year-old understanding that carrots come from the ground.
Little bodies need to move. A lot. Our indoor spaces are built for exactly that, with room to climb, build, stretch and spin.
But knowing how to be still is just as important. Weekly yoga gives children that chance. They build balance and coordination, discover what it feels like to breathe, to settle and to take up space without filling it with noise.
Our approach to movement carries the Youp’là Bouge label, awarded to nurseries in Switzerland that meet federal recommendations for children’s physical, social and cognitive development.
Music is one of the first languages children understand instinctively.
Each week, the Haut-Lac music specialist works with the children on call-and-response games, sing-alongs and instrument play to build musical skills alongside listening, language and confidence.
Parents get to see their child’s growth in action twice a year, when they perform on the Haut-Lac school stage in the Nursery Winter and Summer Shows.
Les Marronniers is part of Haut-Lac International Bilingual School. The same values developed over 30 years of bilingual education run through the nursery: curiosity, warmth and a genuine belief that children learn best when they feel at home.
We’d love to show you around.
It means your child hears, speaks and plays in English and French every single day.
Each group has two educators, one English-speaking and one French-speaking, and each one sticks to their own language. No translating, no switching mid-sentence.
Children pick up both languages naturally, in the same way they learn their first one: by living them.
We welcome children from 18 months to 4 years. Some little ones are ready earlier than others, and that’s completely fine. Every child is different. Come and visit, and we’ll have an honest chat about whether the timing feels right for yours.
Play. Conversation. Discovery. Lots of time outdoors. A formal curriculum doesn’t fit how young children actually learn, so we don’t use one.
Our educators are trained in early-years development and plan each week around what the children are curious about. So if a child finds a snail in the garden, that snail can become the doorway into language, science, art and storytelling, all in one morning.
Structured learning comes later, in the Infant Section at Haut-Lac International Bilingual School from age 3.
They don’t get confused. Decades of research on early bilingualism, and 30 years of doing this ourselves, are pretty clear on that.
Toddlers can absorb several languages at once as long as each one is used consistently.
Some children mix words for a while. It’s normal, it passes, and it’s actually a sign their brain is doing exactly what it should.
A balance of free play, small-group activities, outdoor time, meals shared together, story time and rest. Groups are kept small, with about 7 children per group and 4 qualified educators looking after them.
Outside time happens every day, whatever the weather. There’s also yoga, woven into the week to help little ones learn to slow down, breathe and tune into their bodies.
Children help with real tasks too: setting the table, tidying up, watering the Haut-Lac school garden. These small responsibilities are where independence quietly grows.
Because young children learn with their whole bodies, not just their heads. Climbing, balancing, picking up leaves, watching the rain do its thing. All of it builds coordination, attention and a sense of wonder.
Our nursery sits a few minutes from the lake and the forest, so we use that every day. Boots and a waterproof, and off we go.
Because little bodies hold a lot, and little minds can spin fast. Yoga gives children a few quiet moments in the day to notice their breath, stretch out, and settle.
We keep it playful: pretending to be a tree, a cat, a butterfly. No pressure, no perfect poses. Just a way to slow down and feel calm in their own skin.
Parents often tell us their child has started doing it at home too, eyes closed, very serious. It’s one of our favourite things.
By making sure they arrive there confident, curious and used to being part of a group.
The skills that matter most at this stage are not reading and writing. They are listening, asking questions, finishing what you’ve started, asking for help, sharing a space. We build all of that, every day.
Children who come up through Les Marronniers can then move straight into the Infant Section at Haut-Lac International Bilingual School (ages 3 to 5) in St-Légier-La Chiésaz, with no break in approach.
Absolutely. Most of our families are in the same boat.
Some children arrive with no French, some with no English, some with neither. Within a few months, they’re playing, singing and chatting away.
The trick is total immersion in a setting where nobody is asked to perform. They just live the language until it becomes theirs.
Yes. Children are placed in groups with others at a similar stage of development, so the day is paced for where they actually are.
A 2-year-old needs different things from a 4-year-old, and grouping by age means each child gets activities, language and rhythm that suit them.
Within each group, plenty of moments still bring the whole nursery together: outdoor time, shared meals, singing, big events. The best of both worlds.
A few things. We are the only bilingual nursery in Vevey that’s also part of an international school, so children grow up in English and French from day one, with families from Switzerland and worldwide. Most of our families live nearby in Vevey, Corseaux, La Tour-de-Peilz, Montreux, Saint-Légier or Blonay.
We have small groups led by qualified early-years educators, with daily time outdoors at the lake or in the forest, real responsibilities, real cooking, real gardening, yoga and music.
And because Les Marronniers is the nursery of Haut-Lac International Bilingual School, your child can carry on at the same school all the way through to the IB Diploma if you’d like them to.
Les Marronniers nursery in Vevey is the first step on the bilingual Haut-Lac journey. From here, children can carry on into our Infant School (ages 3 to 5), followed by Primary and Secondary School, all on the same shores of Lake Geneva.
Same values, same approach, all the way through to the IB Diploma.
Parents who join us at nursery often tell us that this is what gave them peace of mind: one school, one philosophy, no big transitions to worry about.
