BEING AN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

What do you have in mind when you hear the word International School? You may imagine that the building is huge and luxurious. Students come from many nationalities. Everyone speaks English. Regulation is free. No uniform. Curriculum is done in many ways but no homework.

If we study the criteria of an international school such as from The Council of International Schools, we will easily see that there are 7 areas to be observed closely:

1. Philosophy and Objectives: written, known and understood procedures and promoting international and intercultural experiences.

2. Governance and Management: Directions, relations with governing body, strategic plan, legal, ethical principle with the school community, policy manual, using the school’s financial standard.

3. Curriculum : It reflects the school’s philosophy, objectives and policies, documented comprehensively, articulated vertically and horizontally, serve students’ varied needs using range of approaches in teaching strategies, use appropriate support and resources, regular checking of the effectiveness of teaching and learning, use student’s end result to revise the curriculum and methodology.

4. Teacher and Staff : Have sufficient qualifications and competences to carry out the school’s programs, professional in carrying out all duties, have effective systems for performance appraisals, do professional development and training and all the school’s policies and practices are available and properly documented.

5. Resources : Building must meet safety and comfort standards, appropriate school grounds, the installation and furnishing support the school’s operation, ICT support the operations, library and media centre is accessible, sufficient, and serve student’s and teacher’s needs.

6. Student Support Service : Serve learning needs of students, do remedial needs, special needs, serve special talents, give guidance and services, provide English language support, provide adequate health care and work cooperatively with parents

7. Student and Community Life : Practice mutual respect and fairness values, make sure students and parents are well-informed, effective processes on getting inputs before making important decisions, promote intercultural and international awareness, extra curricular serves broad needs and interests students and the school community.

The above general criteria, give us insight of where the direction of our school is going. It is the expected bench mark on how international our school is.

We still have a long way to go. Although our school is already accredited as an international school by the Indonesian government, surely and humbly we need to work hand in hand to really make our school become truly international. COME, TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIEVE IT!

By. Arta P Sinamo (Head of School, Stella Maris International School)