From the Head of School

 

Reflections in our 50th Year

ISA will be 50 this year. A pretty significant landmark in the life of anyone, an opportunity both to celebrate and to reflect, to ask bigger questions away from the hurly burly of the day to day. Bigger questions, such as ‘why does Aberdeen have an international school?’ It is a city of only 200,000 people - Glasgow, three times the size, doesn’t have one; Edinburgh, the capital, only got its first a couple of years ago. Which leads to the further question ‘who put an international school in Aberdeen, and why?’ Last night I attended the third board meeting of the school year. The board’s structure contains some important insights. It has eight members: four of them are appointed by the big companies that send their employees’ children to the school (BP, Shell, Schlumberger); three are elected by the parents; one is appointed by the board to provide an outside perspective. ISA’s founding date, 1972 - three years after North Sea Oil was discovered, is another obvious sign post to the school’s purpose. It was, at that time, the American school, the brainchild of Aberdonian, AJ McCormick. It was clearly a school for foreign workers, all of whom were American and worked for oil companies. By the end of the decade, the oil companies took over from Mr McCormick, forming a company, Paloak, to take formal ownership of the school. Paloak is still the owner, hence the board membership. But the corporations only appoint half the board; there is also a strong parent presence - something many international school’s don’t have. Paloak isn’t a normal company. It doesn’t exist to make profits - there are no dividends on shares; it doesn’t have any employees. It exists to own the school, and for nothing else. The school itself is a charity, which means that any surpluses we make in a year are either put in reserve to cover deficits in other years (we never borrow money) or are reinvested in the school. Hence the parents on the board. The school’s purpose, it’s mission, is not to make money but to provide an excellent education to children. That happens in partnership with parents. Ours is not a board of directors, but of trustees. ISA was created as a response to the discovery of oil fifty years ago. A hundred years from its founding there will be no north sea oil; does that mean there should be no ISA? I believe the school’s purpose goes beyond its origin. We are unique in northeast Scotland in offering an international education. That is as relevant for the children of an Aberdonian as it is to those an expat oil worker. We live in an increasingly integrated world, where even if we never leave our home city, we will work with people of our dozen different nationalities, of mixed origins. ISA will become 50 this autumn. We will use the opportunity to look back over the decades. However, we always look forward as well. We expect to celebrate our century in 2072, still in partnership with parents, still with students at the heart of what we do. Still offering an international education to the people of this city, wherever they come from, however long they are here.