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Ski school for 3.5 year old Valloire
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead

Hi Long term lurker occasional poster.

We’re taking my son and his family to Valloire in March and are trying to decide between ESI and ESF for our 3.5 year old granddaughter.

ESI jardin offers 2.5 hour sessions every morning with a bit of fun skiing/sliding and playing.

ESF offer 5 hours with ski lesson, playing and lunch.

Can’t decide which will be our best bet. Obviously the appeal of 5 hours child free is strong, but really want the one that is best for her not us.

Anyone know of both or either school and have any comments to make?
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latest report
 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person

At 3.5, my kids would have found 5hrs with a new group of kids, in a foreign environment, etc., much too long. We did 2hrs only. However, that’s my kids, yours might be very different!
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snow conditions
 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

This is actually a question more about the personality of your child. If she’s good with new places & people, confident for her age & never suffers from obvious anxiety then stick her in for 5hrs. It doesn’t matter how amazing the ski school is if that isn’t your child as the ones who do struggle on that side will be more stressed over the course of the holiday regardless. But let’s be honest any young child given the choice would prefer to stay with their main carers all the time, just some cope better than others when they aren’t able to.
ski holidays
ski holidays
 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.

She’s pretty confident and does 20 hours a week at nursery so is used to long hours without a parent. It was more the difference between ESF and ESI I was interested in. It’s been a long time since I had children in ski school but what I’ve seen of ESF is that they tend to have bigger ( I’ve seen a snake of 12 plus kids behind 1 instructor) groups and ESI say they have between 5 and 8 per instructor. I know that at this level she is unlikely to actually be out on the hill but I wonder if t speaks to the quality of the offering.
ski holidays
ski holidays
 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

snowlamb wrote:
She’s pretty confident and does 20 hours a week at nursery so is used to long hours without a parent. It was more the difference between ESF and ESI I was interested in.

I have had better experiences with ESI and would choose them over ESF. ESF can be good - and may well have improved since I used them. My position is - unless I got a personal recommendation from someone here for a particular resort, I would go ESI as being less risky.
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.

At 3.5 years kids really need to play to learn. She'll probably learn as much in the ESI play environment as with the ESF. What you really want is for her to have a good time and want to do it again next year.
On our first ski trip with our kids and friend's kids, the youngest was 3.5, we had a bad experience with ESF, and she didn't want to do it the next year, so that family didn't come.
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ski holidays
 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I'd go for the 2.5 hour option - it'll be quite a different experience from nursery, outdoors in the snow can be quite tiring, and a very French environment with not much English being spoken I assume.

It also means you can pick her up, have a family lunch and some family time in the afternoon.
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latest report
 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!

My almost 4 year old has just finished six days with ESF Morzine. I booked him in for mornings inc ski lessons (9-11am). I was pretty happy with them - the dropoff/pickups were easy. He wasn’t too keen on the skiing part, would probably had rather stayed in the nursery all morning.
The lunch with ESF is optional I think - we picked him up at 12pm rather than the 2pm post lunch. The extra 2hrs skiing was appealing though and tbh he was often asking why he couldn’t stay for lunch!
I think if your little one goes to nursery in the UK and isn’t too clingy then they’ll be fine with the longer session.
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snow report



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