From the Head of School

Fifty Years of First Days!

ISA’s first ever day of school was August 1972.  8 teachers welcomed fewer than 40 students.  Yesterday dozens of teachers began the day with nearly 500 students.  

Numbers aren’t the only thing that has changed. There are new staff, new students.  We are in a different building, on another site.  Even our name has changed - from the American School of Aberdeen to International School Aberdeen. 

But we are still the same school  with the belief through 50 years that the student is at the centre.  A.J. McComick, the original owner, said he wanted a school where “more emphasis is placed on the day to day education than on just exam day”.  That is, educating to the child, not to the exam.  Nor has our purpose as a school changed.  As one of our early headmasters, Robert Bishop, put it, students should “learn to function productively within our democratic society and to understand, respect and live in harmony with other societies.”  Clearly the forerunner of our mission to educate “active and responsible global citizens”. 

In the last couple of days, you have engaged with the school as a building, as a group of teachers and as a group of students.  But it is also a mission.  And at the beginning of the year we should make it front and centre.  Here it is:

“ISA's mission is to deliver excellence in education through a safe and caring learning environment. Our students are challenged to reach their maximum potential through academic success and personal growth, becoming learners for life and socially responsible, active global citizens”

This is a statement that both A.J McComick and Robert Bishop would have been comfortable with, even though all the other changes would have bewildered them.

We are not looking for our students to bring glory to the school with their achievements, but for each one to find their own path to personal success, which is both personal and academic.  We believe that they will thrive with care and support, and that this success is for a purpose: becoming part of a global community.  

Ultimately we want our students to find joy in education each day.  Their motivations shouldn’t just be about the distant horizon of adulthood.  There is a satisfaction in being better today than you were yesterday - regardless of how others are performing.  ISA is the first step in lifelong learning.

So welcome to ISA in 2022.  A very different school to what it was in 1972, but with the same heart.