Our Team, Our Opening Hours and How to Reach Us

Richard Lord joined SIS Friedrichshafen as principal, with over twenty-five years of teaching and school leadership experience, including thirteen years as a headteacher in two secondary schools in the United Kingdom.

He gained a bachelor’s degree in German with complementary French at the University of Exeter before completing his post-graduate certificate in education at the University of Cambridge. He recently obtained a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Chester.

With a background in curriculum design, Richard Lord has a passion for the international dimension in education. Having participated in a Fulbright Administrator Exchange to the United States, he has developed curricular links and professional development programmes with schools across Europe, Eastern Asia and the United States. As a fluent speaker of English and German, Richard Lord is an avid supporter of the bilingual concept at SIS Friedrichshafen. 

In his free time, he enjoys reading, a variety of sports and spending time with his family.

Julia Maria Grötzinger has been teaching philosophy, ethics and French as well as the seminar course and TOK (IB) at SIS Friedrichshafen since September 2017. In the school year 2020/21 she took over as head of secondary school (upper classes) .

Julia Maria Grötzinger grew up in the Upper Swabian district of Biberach and became involved in voluntary work with the scouts and the youth culture association at an early age. After graduating from high school in 2009, she studied philosophy and French at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg. During this time she spent two semesters working as a foreign language assistant in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France. She obtained her second state examination at the Seminar Weingarten in July 2017.

Respectful interaction and criticially reflecting upon values and attitudes is of utmost importance to Julia Maria Grötzinger. Through this she would like to shape the future of the students. It is her greatest desire that the students grow into citizens of the world, capable of facing global challenges, and yet remain attached to their roots.

Valérie Nadeau comes from Canada and she would proudly insist that she is from Québec. She completed a Bachelor of Science (Major in Wildlife Biology) at McGill University, followed by a Master of Science (Hydrogeology and Ecotoxicology) at INRS-ETE (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Eau, Terre et Environnement) in Québec. She worked as an environmental consultant (project manager) for three years before starting her Master of Education at the Université de Sherbrooke.

This is her eighth year of teaching at SIS Friedrichshafen, as a Biology and NWT teacher. Before moving to Germany, she was teaching Sciences for four years in Québec (Collège St-Paul and Collège Notre-Dame de Lourdes). She’s also been teaching in Salem in the last two years. She is immensely happy to be back full-time at SIS, where her heart is. Both her kids have been attending SIS Friedrichshafen since Kindergarten and really enjoy their school life there.

Valérie is generally known to have a lot of energy. She likes challenges and enjoys working in a team, which she applies in her day-to-day life. As a teacher, she lets the students’ curiosity direct their learning in a respectful and cooperative environment. Her position as Head of Secondary gives her the opportunity to keep learning and have the feeling of being helpful, which she highly values. 

Sandra Huber has been teaching at the SIS Friedrichshafen Primary School since 2019 and took over as the head of primary school for the 2022/2023 school year.

Sandra Huber grew up in Oberkirch, Baden. Even in her youth, she enjoyed working with children and so she was a children's coach in the local athletics club for many years. After graduating from high school in 2009, she went to the USA for a year as an au pair. She then went on to study European primary education in Freiburg. In 2017, she came to Lake Constance for her traineeship and took her second state examination at the Meckenbeuren seminary.

It is important to Sandra Huber that the pupils develop into independent, respectful and cosmopolitan people at an early age and enjoy coming to school.

Fatma Toprak has been the head of kindergarten at SIS Friedrichshafen since February 2023.

She was born and raised in the Upper Swabian district of Biberach an der Riß. After completing her studies in "Methodology and Didactics of Teaching German as a Foreign Language", she was able to gain a wide range of theoretical and practical teaching experience abroad. Following the voice of her heart, she completed her studies in "Early Childhood Education" in Istanbul in 2016.

Since children and young people live in a world that is largely determined by media, Fatma Toprak sees media education as an important part of educational work. As part of a further training, she received training on the topic of media education "Robots & Coding".

She considers it a privilege to work with children. It is a matter close to Fatma Toprak's heart to strengthen the children in their actions, to observe and accompany them in their everyday life, to laugh with them and to let the seemingly smallest moments become big ones.