From the Head of School

The Graduating Class of 2025

Tomorrow, ISA will graduate its class of 2025: 29 students, 18 different nationalities from five continents. Some will stay local, going to Aberdeen university or Robert Gordon’s; others to the four universities in or near Edinburgh; also St Andrews, Dundee, Strathclyde, Stirling and Glasgow.  In England they have offers for Cambridgel, London, Leeds, Manchester, Warwick, York and Oxford.  Others will travel overseas to universities in the Netherlands, the United States, Ireland, Spain, Australia and Canada.  

Some have been at ISA for just a year; others, a decade.  Whatever the time, they have become part of our community.  As ISA graduates we hope they leave us as active global citizens, well equipped to make the world a better place.  

They have studied English, maths, science, humanities and a foreign language in one of the most rigorous pre-university courses around, with the additional challenge of a 5000 word essay of a topic of their choice, and presented on the epistemologies of their subjects.   

If their formal studies weren’t enough they also learnt other foreign languages, musical instruments, coding, chess, coding and cooking.  They scrapbooked, journalled, Djed, crocheted, cross stitched and embroidered.  They debated ethics and world politics; played jazz and salsaed.

They have represented the school at sports tournaments, concerts and debates.  They have applied make-up at elementary plays, painted faces at school events, tutored STEM, coding, maths and physics; coached ski, judo, football and mindfulness.  They have taken photos at school activities, organised the Yearbook, been ambassadors and advocated for multiculturalism.  

They have reached beyond to touch the wider community helping at CFine, Archway, Magpies, Camphill and others; they have planted trees, cleaned beaches and picked litter.  

And still they had enough energy to keep fit by cycling, canoeing, hiking and working out; playing volleyball, badminton, football, tennis, golf and basketball.  

Each of our Grade 12s has found their own way to be fantastic and contribute to their communities.  Tomorrow’s graduation is an opportunity to celebrate both the achievements and the undoubted qualities which made them possible. 

Grade 12s working on a science project earlier this year: