In This Issue

• The International Primary Curriculum: Seven Years of Worldwide Growth >>
• New online system >>
• Country Focus >>
• Featured News Articles >>
• Advantages to being a subscriber >>
• Contact ISC Research >>
• Visit the ISC Research web site >>

The International Primary Curriculum: Seven Years of Worldwide Growth

David Griffiths, newly appointed head teacher of the Nexus World School in Putrajaya, Malaysia knows exactly why he is placing his trust in the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) when the school opens in 2008: “We want to offer a curriculum which reflects our promise of fostering dynamic talents for the world,” he explains. “Children all have gifts and talents and it’s our job as educators to encourage and foster them. This can only be done when our children are fully engaged in what they do and learning through the exciting topics of the IPC, in my experience, does this wonderfully.”

The school, part of the Taylors group of schools will be serving a high percentage of increasingly transient children from families employed in government, diplomatic and international organisations and this had significant bearing on the selection of curriculum. “We wanted an international curriculum that was relevant to our students and that would allow us to fully utilise the wonderful environment and resources available to us in Putrajaya,” says David. “Our children will be growing up in, and are likely to go on to work in an international environment and we knew we had a duty to prepare them for this.”

He’s not alone in his thinking. John Holmes at neighbouring Piasau School in Miri, Malaysia, witnessed the creation of the IPC ten years ago as a result of these exact same issues. “We were desperately looking for a curriculum. Fortunately there were some very high achieving colleagues at Fieldwork who were prepared to sit down and work out what could be done to write a curriculum that would meet the many needs of the children around the world; an international curriculum that would work well in an international school. So I am privileged and proud to be one of the founder members of the IPC and have been an absolutely addicted fan of the thing ever since! The IPC has put learning first in our school. It focuses on the three principles that many, many people love to have but don’t always have the possibility of achieving which is great teaching; providing a supportive mechanism to make sure the teaching is high quality. Great fun; so that the children enjoy coming to school. And great learning. Everything in the IPC is about learning.”

John and David are, respectively, one of the oldest and one the newest members of the International Primary Curriculum which today includes 360 schools in 45 different countries. It is a curriculum that they have in common with a variety of national and international schools around the world including the International School of the Hague, Garden International School in Malaysia, Park House English School in Qatar, the British Schools of America and the Shell schools worldwide.

Originally designed by Fieldwork Education to provide an international curriculum for a group of 14 schools serving the employees of Shell, including Piasau school in Miri, the IPC has since then gained popularity year on year, entirely through word of mouth; one teacher or head teacher telling another. And what they are talking about is its strong development of international mindedness combined with a rigorous framework for teaching. The IPC takes a cross-curricular, thematic approach with a teaching structure that separates yet integrates subjects, engaging and inspiring children of all abilities. And with its assessment for learning programme, self review and accreditation, the IPC is proving to be a significant change agent in schools, both national and international.

“The IPC was four years in the making,” says director of IPC, Theresa Forbes. “And it remains in development today to ensure a current and highly relevant curriculum that continues to evolve. No one can properly predict the nature of work that will be available for today’s primary age children by the time they are adults. Many of the jobs they will have simply don’t yet exist, especially in the fields of ICT, technology and science. So the principle of the IPC is to focus on personal, academic and international learning that will prepare children, wherever they may live, for the world of tomorrow. Fundamental to the IPC approach to learning is a clear progression in skill development. This even applies to the personal learning goals which emphasise adaptability, resilience, thoughtfulness, cooperation and respect and which, as a result of progressive skill development, help children to become able and inspired learners. As for the international context, it’s not just an add-on. Internationalism is embedded into every IPC unit to ensure our children grow up with a very clear global understanding.”

Head teacher of the British International School in Vietnam, David Lowder and his deputy, Ben Dixon both see the benefits of this amongst their children: “Although we had a fairly strong international mindset within the school prior to the IPC, we feel that we are a lot more internationally focused now.” They talk about the move from tokenistic international events to a significant global focus which is enhancing learning. “Our children are now more aware that they are life long learners,” says Ben, commenting on how the IPC is actively engaging them in the learning process. “The children are able to articulate what it is they are learning, how they are learning and in some cases the criteria that they have used to achieve learning goals. It has improved the quality of speaking and listening going on in the classroom.”

Katherine Gooch at the British School of Boston believes it’s the IPC’s child-friendly themes that encourage this engagement in learning: “The children really enjoy the IPC,” she says. “It is relevant and accessible to all of them. I recently felt that we must be getting something right during our first IPC ‘hot chocolate’ meeting with a selection of children from each class. They all talked about how much fun they are having and how much they are learning.”

And it’s learning that is preparing children well for high school and beyond. The International School of the Hague in the Netherlands took on the IPC four years ago to establish the children in readiness for the MYP and IB diploma. “We were impressed by the focus on learning and brain friendly teaching,” says teacher, Pascale Hertay. “We now have very productive and happy children, learning a lot in the classroom. Parents are impressed by the way the children are learning and how they are coming back happy from what they’re doing in the classroom. The IPC is also a very good tool to support the teacher on how they have to plan the class and what they have to do to be sure that the children are actually learning in the classroom.” Graeme Scott, Headteacher of ISH adds: “It’s the cornerstone of our learning-focused school. The IPC provides the children with great excitement, challenge and diversity within a structured and supportive framework.”

These same sentiments are being repeated in IPC schools all round the world including the United Kingdom which has seen the most significant growth in recent years including Handford Hall Primary School in Suffolk. “We have children from many different cultures in our school,” says head teacher, Jon Trotter. “The IPC is explicit in its valuing of all cultures. It’s a curriculum that makes children of every culture feel very positive about their heritage. That’s why I introduced the IPC here; because it gives the international element on a plate. However, it goes way beyond just internationalism. At its core is a dialogic approach to learning which is completely engaging our children; forcing them to think more creatively, more laterally, in a very skill-based way. And it’s bang up-to-date. It is a very refreshing way of teaching and learning. The IPC is a very powerful curriculum for British schools. It’s far more substantial than the National Curriculum as well as being global in its approach. I believe and hope we’ll see a continual growth of it across the UK.”

As for its growth internationally, with schools throughout 44 different countries teaching the IPC, there is now the prospect of a familiar, respected, internationally-minded curriculum for the increasing number of global primary age children who relocate from country to country to meet the career demands of their parents. “We are now having parents contacting us to say they are about to relocate and asking for the nearest IPC school,” says Theresa Forbes. It’s a thought that is being seriously considered by prospective international schools too. Amsterdam International Community School is an example. “When the AICS was being conceptualized,” says Leader for Learning, Della Smith, “we recognized that we were in a melting pot of cultures and knew that we would have students who would be moving abroad, into and out of varying educational systems. We knew that the IPC was created for these reasons; to support the global mobility of children of today,” she says. “In addition, we wanted a curriculum to represent our high value system of respect, enquiry, cooperation, morality, communication, thoughtfulness, adaptability and resilience. These are the IPC personal goals, integrated throughout the IPC curriculum and it was just what we were looking for.”

It may all be anecdotal, but it is now turning into secure evidence that the IPC is doing what it was created to do: reach all learners, develop international mindedness, and prepare children for a fast-changing world.

So what next for the IPC? “Most of the schools we work with use English as the primary language,” says Theresa Forbes. “But the IPC is already fully translated into Dutch, partly translated into Spanish, in some schools it’s being taught in mother tongue . We are in the planning stage for translation into several other languages including Mandarin and Arabic. With the number of international schools using the IPC growing so significantly, we are now managing to give continuity to some of our mobile families and that’s crucial for this rapidly increasing sector of today’s society. We are and will remain nationally unbiased. We are constantly reviewing, developing and refreshing our thematic units in a bid to keep the IPC vibrant, thorough and up-to-date with current thinking on brain friendly learning and teaching techniques. Our intent is to stay focused on learning for any child, anywhere, wherever they may be around the world.”

For more information about the IPC go to www.internationalprimarycurriculum.com or call 01144(0)20-7531-9696.

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New Online System - Pure Mobility

The new online system - which went live this month - not only offers access to the most comprehensive database of international schools available but also allows subscribers access to data whilst on the move. Specifically designed to be useable in any browser, the new online system can also be used on mobile internet devices such as the i-phone or i-pod touch.

Wherever you may find yourself in the world, provided there is a wi-fi hot spot or mobile phone cell available, you will be able to connect to the extensive ISC-R database. With a wealth of demographic information broken down by Region, Sub-Region and Country, a searchable database of over 4600 schools and real-time updating, the system should now be the first choice for anyone in the international school market.

Whether in the office or on the move the ISC-R online system allows subscribers to view comprehensive demographic information on over 4600 schools worldwide as well as providing:

• full search and display functionality,
• access to a continually updated international schools news feed,
• real time statistical market overview,
• calendar of international school events,
• account administration,
• email services (this allows subscribers to conduct email campaigns to the international school community),
• label services (this allows subscribers to print personalised labels based on online searches),
• letter services (this allows subscribers to print personalised letters based on online searches),
• 2 downloads per month of all schools data (subject to the signing of a licence agreement). The downloads are supplied in an open format and may be linked into a subscriber’s existing data systems (e.g. Spirit or other bespoke or in-house developed software via a unique code allocated to each school), ability to export search results from the online system directly to the user’s PC or MAC, additional downloads may be purchased at a cost of £100 per additional monthly download.

To book a free trial of the system please contact enquiries@isc-r.com.

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Country Focus: Japan

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What are the advantages to being a subscriber?

By subscribing to ISC Research Limited you will gain access to the richest schools market in the world. This market is growing at an extraordinary rate and almost certainly has a greater value than the current UK schools market. Many companies spend a huge amount marketing and selling to UK schools and very little internationally. Yet compared to UK schools, schools abroad are often isolated and have little access to information, representatives, presentations etc. Sales prospects are enormous and they are getting bigger day by day. Using ISC Research Limited’s online system subscribers can map, analyse, target and contact over 4,600 English-medium schools worldwide. Taking the current annual growth rate of 11% there will be nearly 6,000 schools by 2010, well over
10,000 schools by 2015 & over 15,000 by 2020.

As well as researching new schools, the underlying database is constantly researched and updated to reflect innumerable changes in basic school information.  ISC Research Limited specializes in providing detailed, up-to-date information about existing international schools, emerging international schools and trends in the market.

With the system you can:

• Analyse and target schools by geography, curriculum, examinations, membership of associations, pupil age, etc. using Search
• Show results using a graphics interface
• Access the up-to-date international schools News Section
• Use the Market Overview and Statistics Section to follow trends
• Find and contact international school organisations
• Manage communications appropriately and effectively with integrated e-mail and mailing utilities

Single or multiple user subscriptions are available to suppliers, service organisations and parents.

For free temporary access and system demonstration contact ISC Research Limited.

We really like this new service.  Cambridge International Examinations has been able to use the ISC Research service as a one-stop shop for targeting and contacting schools.  The service is extremely useful: the data is much more comprehensive and up-to-date than anything else and we are able to find new schools as they open.
Peter Monteath,Research & Strategy Manager, University of Cambridge International Examinations

The Council of International Schools (http://www.cois.org/) is delighted, on behalf of its member schools, with this new arrangement with ISC Research, that gives our members access to the substantive data held by ISC on International Schools around the world. CIS is providing ISC with the public domain data it holds on its member schools, while both organisations will feed each other up-dated data, so ensuring that entries are current. CIS will continue to collect compensation data as part of its joint annual survey with ECIS, but this data will remain confidential and will, as in the past, only be made available to member schools who have responded to the survey.
Richard Tangye, Executive Director of CIS

The ISC online service has been brilliant in helping us market our products effectively in each region around the world. It is extremely economical compared to gathering this information for ourselves.
Richard Gaskell, Director International Sales, Scholastic International

ISC Research has enabled me rapidly to develop a marketing strategy for international schools. Targeted marketing in this highly lucrative sector would have been impossible otherwise. I recommend this to anyone seriously interested in this market.
Ian Bourne, Managing Director, Citnexus

The new arrangements give both organisations and member schools access to the vast amount of non-confidential data held by ISC Research about the rapidly growing number of international schools around the world. It would be impossible for us or member schools to do this work ourselves. We look forward to working with ISC Research on appropriate research projects.
Roger Fry, Chair of COBIS