This Is Where They Shine: How Aiglon College Is Going to the World Championships

School Blog Profile | DAIGON Esports | SEWC 2026

Darren Benson started walking during the call.

He picked up his phone, opened a door, and took us through the building. Past the classroom. Past the Lego arena and the VEX space. Out through another door and into a room he wanted us to see.

“That was the canteen the year before last,” he said, panning the camera. “People would be eating breakfast and lunch here.”

The AIR Lab does not look like a canteen anymore. There are funky neons on the walls, VEX equipment, Lego and engineering projects.

The ET Lab is where esports happens. It has fifteen gaming chairs, driving simulators in the corner, and two rows of Xboxes and Apple devices.

This is the ET Lab at Aiglon College. Emerging technologies. And it is from here that two Aiglon teams have qualified for the School Esports World Championships in Malta.

From a Room That Had to Do Everything

The story of how esports arrived at Aiglon is the story of a space that kept getting bigger.

When Darren Benson joined the school’s technology department three years ago, the entire provision lived in a single room that had to be a classroom, a Lego arena, and a VEX arena, all at once. The driving simulators were in another room, where older students with updated access could come in on evenings or weekends and race.

“It was kind of a gaming activity rather than an esports activity,” Darren says.

Xboxes arrived. Then Minecraft. Then Rocket League. Then the school expanded, the old canteen became available, and everything moved.

Now the ET Lab has fifteen seats, gaming chairs, neons, and the driving simulators brought across from the other room. There is one rule that has been in place from the beginning.

“Anything with a gun, we don’t install,” Darren says. “Even though Steve can get a bit violent in Minecraft, it is not with a gun.”

What a Session Looks Like

Sessions run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 3:30, for an hour. Darren Benson runs some. Darren Wise, Director of Technology and head of the department, runs others. On Thursdays, a girls-only club runs with a separate member of staff. There are roughly five sessions across the week.

The activities have different names on the sign-up sheet. The Minecraft activity. The FIFA activity. The engineering activity. But the students who love Minecraft will sign up for any of them and come and play Minecraft.

“And we kind of let them,” Darren says.

During Minecraft sessions, the noise level tells you everything. Students shout across the room. When something goes wrong with the server, three or four students fix it before the teacher has finished speaking.

“They are self-organising and self-managing. I am not the expert. They are much better than me at navigating the world of Minecraft. And they know it.”

The room is loud, Darren says. But it is the right loud.

FIFA runs differently. There, Darren focuses on training and practice. If a player’s crosses were poor during a practice session, they work on crosses before the next one.

“No one just gets better at basketball by playing basketball,” he says. “You get better at basketball by practising the drills. We want kids to think about what their role is, not just get better at Minecraft by playing Minecraft.”

For Malta, the team has a couple of strategy Saturdays and Sundays planned. Individual improvement. Deliberate practice. What would you do as a player.

This Is Where They Shine

The students who fill the ET Lab at Aiglon are not the obvious ones.

They are not the basketball players. Not the goalkeepers. Not the students who already have their name on something.

“They shine in different places,” Darren says. “And they shine here.”

The group heading to Malta is twelve. Three in Year 9, three in Year 8, six in Year 7. When Darren told the team captain first, quietly and outside the room, that they had been invited to Malta, the response was measured.

“Oh, nice one,” the student said. And then went back to playing Minecraft.

Darren laughs about it. Aiglon offers so many experiences that a world championship invitation can land softly. Cultural learning experiences send students to France, Italy, Germany. End of year trips go to Japan, Greece, Costa Rica. Malta is, on first hearing, another journey.

“It was underwhelming,” Darren says. “They just carried on playing Minecraft.”

But the data tells a different story. Expression of interest forms went out to twelve students. Ten said yes immediately. Two said maybe. Five of twelve consent forms came back within a day.

“Every student shines somewhere, they just need the opportunity to find out where.”

The Common Language

Aiglon’s student body represents 65 nationalities. The team heading to Malta reflects that.

“We have an American. Someone from Luxembourg. Japan. China. India.”

Different countries, different cultures, different approaches to almost everything. And then they sit down in front of Minecraft, and something happens.

“The culture is Minecraft,” Darren says. “Whatever Indian culture might be different to Chinese culture, different to English or American culture, they kind of land in the same place when they are playing Minecraft. That is their world. It is not China or India. It is Minecraft.”

“We are really excited to be going to a World championship. We started out just playing Minecraft together after school, and now we’re going to Malta to compete against teams from around the world. We can’t wait!”
- A student, Aiglon College, SEWC 2026

The Boarding School Difference

Aiglon is a boarding school. Students live here. That changes things.

Access to devices is carefully managed. Younger students do not have consoles in house. Older students, from Year 9 upwards, have a little more freedom, but for most of the team heading to Malta, the ET Lab is where they play.

Students can come on weekends too. They message to ask if the lab is open. When they arrive, they tap into the ORBIT system, a tracking screen that records where students are on campus. The ET Lab is the only non-house location in the school with one.

“So if you are a ten year old, the house parent in the junior house can look at the screen and see that you have tapped in down here,” Darren explains. “We are not just saying, go on, do what you want. There are rules.”

Vertical friendships come built into boarding life. A Year 9 talking to a Year 7 does not raise an eyebrow. Older and younger students have been living together in house since the day they arrived.

“Those conversations do not raise eyelids,” Darren says. “It is just part of boarding life.”

A Different Feather in the Cap

When the Malta trip was proposed inside the school, one staff member asked a reasonable question: why do it in person? Why not just compete online?

Darren’s answer was practical. Teams across time zones cannot compete reliably online. Singapore and California cannot share a server at a sensible hour for both.

But the significance goes further than logistics.

Aiglon already sends teams to compete in volleyball and basketball. VEX robotics students reach the world finals. A Lego team competes in Yverdon. There are concerts and productions and football tournaments in Switzerland, and beyond.

“We have just got another division of competition,” Darren says. “The opportunity to extend the school’s reach a little bit. It is a small school in a competitive market in Switzerland, but a school wants to be known for more than academics.”

He pauses. “Learning maths is a predictable environment. Learning computer science is a predictable environment. This is not. And I think the school likes the fact that we are adding a breadth of competition to the reach the school wants to develop.”

“The esports programme is really important as it encourages the development of so many skills, team work, communication, resilience, dedication, struggle and many many more. It is also fun, we all need time to play even adults, maybe especially adults. Time to focus on something that is not work, and a time to share with friends. We are delighted to be invited to the World Championship. A few years ago we started with five Xbox’s around the edge of a classroom, now we have a whole ET lab and are off to the worlds. Amazing!!!”
- Darren Wise, Director of Technology

Win Respectfully, Lose Gracefully

Ask Darren what he wants the students to take away from Malta, and the answer does not start with Minecraft.

“We win respectfully and we lose gracefully. That is what I want from the students.”

He has seen this before with VEX. The team has finished in the top 16 for two consecutive years, and the Junior Team ranked number one in Switzerland. For Darren, though, the result is not the only measure of success. Whether they finish first or last, he wants the students to be proud of how they contributed. And if they come away having made a new friend and new connections, that would be a bonus too.

“For me, that is job done,” he says. “If we come back with a trophy, that is just a bonus.”

What Comes Next

The ET Lab’s ambitions do not stop at Minecraft.

Aiglon is soon to join DAIGON’s Rocket League competition. FIFA is coming, starting as an in-house tournament. And Darren already has a vision for where that tournament takes place: the Mogadam Campus Hub, the school’s new theatre, where the seating rises like an amphitheatre and there is a stage at the bottom.

“We host the FIFA competition on the stage. Two matches simultaneously. The school comes down to watch.”

He is already thinking about the production. Dry ice. Music. Players are introduced by name as they walk through a curtain.

“Introduce players like they are stepping onto the big stage,” he says.

He does not know yet what the Minecraft equivalent might be. He is working on it.

The Whole Child

Near the end of the call, the question is the same one put to every school in this series: when someone reads this profile and thinks about Aiglon College for the first time, what do you want them to feel?

Darren does not reach for a brochure.

“The whole child matters. And that is me speaking, not quoting the school.”

He lists what that looks like in practice.

“Friends. Diet. Sleep. Rest. Volleyball. Minecraft. Academics. Expeditions. The mountain. It all matters, and we demonstrate it here. You can see and feel it around the school.”

He looks around the room he walked us through at the start of the call. The neons. The chairs. The fifteen screens. The old canteen where students used to eat breakfast and lunch, now the place where many students come to shine.

Aiglon College competes in Minecraft Capture the Flag at the School Esports World Championships 2026, Malta, November 18 to 23. Aiglon College qualified through the COBIS x DAIGON Esports Competition.