This Year Our School Goal -
Strengthen Our Core and Embrace Opportunities
Our 5 year strategic plan requires us to align our curriculum and offer a balanced and holistic education, this cannot happen without some hard work. Our teachers have been reviewing and tweaking their practice. Across the departments we are ensuring there are subject review cycles taking place. We can already see some of the benefits of this tweaking such as in the Science department where students are gaining more consolidation of their understanding and improving their grades as a result. In a year’s time we will start implementing a new programme at IBDP level – the Career Related IB Diploma certificate, an opportunity for our 2022 Grade 11 students to take a different kind of pathway that incorporates authentic learning with apprenticeships tied into the course. This will mean our school can offer a more inclusive programme at Grade 11 & 12 level.
Another opportunity for us to embrace is the upgrade of our facilities. We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us, which will involve new buildings that will broaden the quality of education on offer across the school. The first phase will start in Jan 2021 but as it is such a large project won’t be completed until Summer 2022. We will have to suffer the building work, however the final structure will house a performance studio and additional PK1 class.
Strengthen Our Core
Our school has been on a tremendous journey, starting off so small and growing into the solid, reliable institution that supports so many international families on the island, striving to offer access to education to all kinds of learners. However, a curriculum has to evolve with the times. 46 years ago (1973!) the way teachers taught and how students learned was very different to how it happens in 2019. Forget phones and BYODs, working in groups was unheard of then, children in many cases were to be seen and not heard, textbooks guided the learning and exams decided whether one was intelligent or not. During those 46 years the curriculum has moved through many versions of itself, these days we are encouraged to question, delve deeper and wonder, developing critical thinking skills so that the students can make connections in a complex world. I am delighted that we now have a Definition of Learning that shares those values with our community (see image). The school may be older but we still hold on to our core values and support the things that matter, the teaching resources, recruitment of good teachers and regularly remind ourselves of our VIS pillars, to be ethical, knowledgeable and inquiring contributors.
Embracing Opportunities
Ms. Totty Aris - Head of School
It is imperative that a school is true to its soul. Our soul comes from 46 years of institutional memory made up student’s stories and achievements, family and staff participation and contribution to forming who we are today.
Once this is completed we move to phase 2, our long-promised Science block behind Middle School, to be completed by summer 2023. We are very excited about these future plans as they will enhance your child’s learning experience and be of benefit to students across all sections of the school.
We aim to share the 3D designs of this project in a community meeting and in our next edition of the Fort.
Meanwhile we will continue to innovate and consolidate , uniting the best of future practice with the values that are part of our past .