Why we don't run group classes for children.
There is a particular silence in a chalet at half past nine, when the parents have come back from the drop-off and are waiting for the call. The call rarely comes; the morning is usually fine. But the unease — the unknown other children, the unknown instructor, the unknown patience — is real, and it is the reason we have never run a group class.
A group class is, structurally, a compromise: an instructor cannot match the pace of seven children at once, so they teach to the middle. The fastest child is bored by Tuesday; the slowest child cries on Wednesday; the parents wonder, on Thursday, why their daughter is doing the snowplough she was already doing last March. The morning is lost not to anyone's failure but to the simple arithmetic of the room.
A private morning has different arithmetic. The instructor reads the child for fifteen minutes, adjusts, reads again at eleven, adjusts again. There is no peer pressure to keep up, no stranger's child crashing into the queue. The child is, quite simply, the centre of the morning — which is, after all, what a holiday is meant to feel like.
A six-year-old learns to ski in two ways: by being watched closely by one adult, and by never feeling watched. The art is doing both at once. Justine Guyon, children's programme
Justine, and the theatre of the first morning.
Justine Guyon has taught the Snowtailors children's programme for nine seasons. She holds the Diplôme d'État, the children's specialisation, and a quiet talent for the part of the morning that matters most — the first thirty minutes, when a four-year-old is wondering whether to cry. Justine does not start with skiing. She starts with a story: a small bear who lives at the top of the magic carpet, a princess who has lost her glove, a fox who only comes out when children turn left. By the time the first piece of theatre has played out, the boots are on, and the morning has begun without the child noticing.
What Justine does is not a trick — it is the recognition that a child of five does not yet separate skiing from play, and that the instructor's job is to keep the play alive for as long as possible. Skiing is, for the first season, a by-product of an extended game. The technique comes; it always does. But it comes through the side door, while the child is laughing.
For older children — eight, ten, twelve — the theatre quietly recedes. Justine, or one of her colleagues, talks technique, edges, weight transfer, the small adjustments that turn a snowplough into a parallel turn. The children at this age are usually delighted to be treated seriously. We have learned to listen for the moment a child crosses that line and to switch register the same morning.
What we do, according to the years.
Children change so quickly between four and thirteen that one programme cannot fit them all. Below is what works, in our experience, with the dominant temperament of each age group. None of it is rigid; we adjust continuously.
Four to five — the first turns
Sessions of ninety minutes maximum, twice a day if the child is enthusiastic, once if not. The magic carpet, the snowplough, the gentle pizza shape. Lunch is at the chalet with the parents, never on the mountain. Helmets sized that morning at the village shop, included. Most families book three or four mornings, not a full week — a four-year-old does not need to ski every day.
Six to eight — the half-day
Full half-days, snow-bound games, the first proper chairlift, the first lift of the heart when a parent is no longer holding the back of the jacket. Children at this age learn astonishingly quickly when they are alone with one adult. By the end of a week, most are on blue runs, parallel-skiing the gentler reds, and demanding to ski with the parents on Friday.
Nine to twelve — real skiing
A full day is now possible, and often productive. The technical work begins — short turns, powder readiness, a small introduction to off-piste under strict supervision, the first video at lunch. Children at this age are entirely capable of skiing the entire 3 Valleys domain by the end of a serious week, often surprising the parents.
Thirteen and over — treated as adults
From thirteen, we treat children as adults. They join the family on the same programme, on the same terrain, with the same instructor. The dynamic shifts — the teenager skis sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes in a separate group with a younger Snowtailors instructor for a more energetic morning. By fifteen, many of our long-standing teenage guests are skiing off-piste with the parents, equipped with their own avalanche kit.
The zones we return to, season after season.
Every village in the 3 Valleys has its beginner area; not every beginner area is equal. Below are the zones we have used for the past fifteen years, and the qualities that send us back to each one.
- Pralong, Courchevel 1850 — gentle, sheltered, two magic carpets and a slow chairlift. The most-used zone in the Snowtailors children's calendar. Five minutes from the village by foot.
- Altiport, Méribel — wide, sunny, larch-bordered. A blue run that descends from the small altiport plateau, perfect for the second day of a beginner week.
- Plein Sud and the Cascades sectors, Val Thorens — the village's beginner area, south-facing, ski-in from most chalet doors. Quieter than the rest of the village, even in February.
- La Croisette, Les Menuires — the heart-of-village beginner zone, immediately above the lift gate. We use it for guests staying in the resort centre or in the surrounding hamlets.
- Saint-Martin village beginner — the smallest of the five, the quietest, and the one we recommend for very shy first-timers who would be overwhelmed by the bustle of Courchevel or Val Thorens.
How parents usually fit around the children.
The children's lesson is rarely a stand-alone arrangement; it sits inside a wider family week. Three configurations recur often enough that we have a habit for each.
Parents skiing alongside. The most common request, particularly with younger children. The parents ski the same beginner area, sometimes on the same lift, watching from a polite distance. Justine's gentle suggestion is usually that the parents take their own instructor for the technical work — children pay close attention to how their parents ski, and a small refresh of the parental edge transfer often helps the child more than another lesson.
Parents at the café. The simplest arrangement. The parents drop the children at the meeting point at nine and return at twelve, having had a quiet breakfast at La Maison (Val Thorens) or Le Tremplin (Courchevel) in the meantime. We send a single text at half past ten, never more, with a sentence about how the morning is going.
Parents on the bigger mountain. The arrangement we are perhaps best known for — two instructors, two programmes, one family. The parents head to La Masse, Saulire, or the Méribel back-bowls with Marion Levasseur or Grégoire Socquet for an off-piste morning, while Justine takes the children on Pralong or Plein Sud. Lunch is coordinated to the minute — the two parties usually arrive at the restaurant within five minutes of each other.
Equipment, helmets, safety
Helmets sized at the village shop on the morning of the first lesson, included in the price. We never let a child ski above their level — if a parent insists on a slope we judge wrong for the day, the instructor will say so quietly and propose an alternative. Avalanche kit for children is reserved for those skiing off-piste with us from twelve and over, and is taught the season before it is used.
Pricing
Children's lessons are priced at the same hourly rate as the adult half-day morning — from €80 per hour. A typical half-day morning, three hours, sits at the same level as an adult lesson. Multi-day weeks are quoted on request; the high-season periods (Christmas, New Year, the February school weeks and Easter) command a premium that we are happy to confirm before booking. A typical Snowtailors children's week is six mornings, one rest morning, and one final family ski — between €1 800 and €2 600 depending on dates and instructor seniority.