Villars Child Care

A good choice for families with children over three years old, Villars has family friendly skiing and a wealth of facilities off the slopes for kids - including the swimming pool, ice rink, and special children's lanes in the bowling alley. Children aged up to nine ski free. The whole village is geared up to a positive attitude towards children's happiness and well-being, and it feels like this goes beyond an underlying desire to attract families to maximise profits by being the best. Instead there seems to be some higher purpose. Villars operates the 'Families Welcome' initiative which indicates hotels especially keen to welcome and entertain families. Both of the ski schools have 'Snow Gardens' for the kids for children aged from three. Both the Villars Ski School and the Swiss Ski school offers care for full or half days in groups of up to seven children, with 90 minutes snow play each morning. Older children can join the Kid's Club which offers skiing for a full or half day. Villars reputation as an education centre is rarely reported, however there are five establishments offering some form of sports and education packages for children. The largest, the Aiglon College, is a British International Day and Boarding School (www.aiglon.ch) which takes 280 boys and girls aged 9 to 18 years with bilingual classes until age 11. The College Alpin Beau Soleil (www.beau-soleil.ch) accepts children from aged 10 to 18 and is an Anglo-American college, teaching in French. La Garenne (www.la-garenne.ch) accepts children from age 3 to 14 and offers holiday courses, with French language tuition, as well as providing a nursery and snow garden. The Pré-Fleuri is an Alpine International School with 2 hectares of grounds for specialist Summer and Winter Sports training. Les Ecureuils has classes for 3 to 13 year olds in French and English, mixing cultural instruction and sporting activities. Finally the Petit Poucet is a multisports holiday club for children aged 7 to 14. Most of the clubs in these establishments are in the village of Chesières by Villars.

4 stars out of 5 overall