Closed Weekend – Fall Trimester

A closed weekend at AIS-Salzburg is a designated weekend during which boarding students are required to remain on campus, rather than leaving for outings or trips home. The initiative is designed to strengthen community bonds among the boarding student body and to build student leadership among the school’s oldest students.

During a closed weekend, 12th-grade students take the lead in planning and running all of the weekend’s activities, under the supervision of Care Staff — both to gain leadership experience and to earn community service hours. This typically results in a packed schedule (in the first closed weekend, over ten activities were organized), ranging from outdoor games, barbecues, and s’mores nights to yoga sessions, no-bake cooking, game nights, and informal sports like 3v3 football. The activities are focused on team and community building, and the goal is to get students from different grades and friend groups mixing and spending unstructured time together, both during scheduled events and afterward, when dorms and dining halls turn into informal gathering spots.

Day boarders and day students are also welcome to join in on closed weekend activities. While attendance isn’t required for them, their participation is always encouraged — the weekends are simply more joyful with them around.

Rather than being a frequent occurrence, closed weekends are intentionally rare — held once per academic term — so that the novelty and sense of occasion stay part of what makes them work. This year’s closed weekends are scheduled for October 16–18 (Trimester 1), January 15–17 (Trimester 2), and April 9–11 (Trimester 3).