The New Family Portal on the ISZL website has plenty of information to help families get organised - how to register with the authorities, information about insurance and utilities, and good local websites. You will also find details of the school’s lunch and bus programmes, clubs and activities, and you can download our ‘Guide to Living in Switzerland’.

The portal also provides contact details for our Community Representatives, parents who are ready to help with your transition and who speak your preferred language. They are here to answer your questions about the school and help you settle in.

New families will be given login details for the New Families Portal ahead of their arrival at ISZL.

The Community Representative can connect you with a buddy family, who has the same cultural background or nationality, and children in the same or similar age groups. This buddy family will have answers to all your burning questions - on local services, health care, dentists, hairdressers, or where to buy food from your home country.

Separately, children will also get a classmate to be their main contact on their first day of school, to make sure that your child quickly feels at home. This is organised by the school. ISZL counsellors meet all new students in person, to make sure they feel happy and welcomed.

All new families who join ISZL in August will get an invitation for the orientation day at our Zug and Riverside Campuses before school starts. Your child will get a guided tour, will meet other students and see their new classroom. You will get information about the school bus programme, school nurse, lunches, music, sports and other after school activities.

At ISZL, we use the online platform Schoology to communicate between the school, students and parents. Training is offered for Schoology, as well as the Parent Portal on the school website.

New parents are also invited to a welcome breakfast with the ISZL leadership team. This is an ideal opportunity for them to share their first experiences with each other and discuss questions or first observations.

Families arriving in August are invited to the ISZL Welcome Fair, which will be held in September or October. This popular event, organised by the Parents Association, is a great chance to shop and socialise, with local service providers and vendors selling a range of gifts, services, food, language courses and much more.

All parents can enjoy numerous parent clubs. This is a great opportunity to enjoy your favourite activity or sport and socially interact with others. There are parent clubs for tennis, running, hiking and knitting, the pudding club, a Dads club and a parents’ choir.

After school at the Zug Campus you can meet other parents at our Snack Attack Shed at the playground. Children can play, while parents chat and enjoy a hot drink or a snack. This is a perfect opportunity to meet other families. The school is also proud of its Coffee Corner - an informal coffee morning for parents on Mondays and Fridays after drop-off, in the lunch room of the Zug Campus. This is the way many parents make friends, and ask informal advice about Zug family life.

Finally, make sure that you don’t miss out on the many annual events that our active Parents Association organises for the ISZL community. We are assessing these each year depending on the Covid situation, but popular ISZL events include International Day, the Winter Market, the Welcome Fair, Trunk or Treat, our Quiz Night, the ISZL Gala, our Wine and Cheese tasting, guided tours through Zug, Lucerne and Zurich. Our events calendar is rich and fun, with ample opportunity for new parents to volunteer, bond and make new friends.