Obersee Bilingual School

In Brief

OBS is the standout choice for families who want authentic 50:50 German-English bilingual education with a choice between IB Diploma and Swiss Matura at the end - both uncommon in one school. The Wollerau campus is beautiful but genuinely remote without a car or the school bus; factor the commute in before deciding.

OBS sits on its own campus in Wollerau, a village in Canton Schwyz on the south shore of Lake Zurich. Zurich city is 25-40 minutes away depending on your starting point, and the school runs a network of buses that cover most of the lake corridor and Zurich suburbs. The campus is purpose-built and modern: an E-Sports room, Martial Arts Dojo, Podcast Studio, Maker-Space, and after-school care until 6:30pm are available, which gives the school a texture closer to a boarding school campus than a typical suburban day school. With 456 students from 42 nationalities, it's large enough for real peer diversity but small enough that average class size stays at 12.

The bilingual model runs week-by-week alternation in German and English at primary, shifting to subject-by-subject allocation at secondary - not a 90:10 arrangement labelled as bilingual. Both German and English are taught by native speakers across the curriculum. At the upper secondary level, students choose between the IB Diploma (35-point average, consistent with ZIS and ISZL) and the Swiss Federal Matura, both genuinely available and both taught to the same standard. French becomes compulsory from Grade 5. Families on the school's parent forums describe an exceptionally supportive learning environment; children who need extra German or English have EAL and DaZ support built into the fee.

Two practical considerations shape the decision. First, Wollerau is Canton Schwyz, not Canton Zurich - different cantonal tax and administrative structures, worth noting if you're comparing with Zurich-side schools for residency planning. Second, OBS is part of the Cognita group, a UK-based private school operator; some families find the corporate ownership structure less appealing than the non-profit model at ZIS or ISZL. One-time charges are meaningful: CHF 500 application fee plus CHF 6,500 deposit (refundable in stages) plus CHF 2,500 registration. Annual fees run CHF 31,229-37,590 depending on age, putting OBS at the upper end of the Zurich private school market.