The Home-School Partnership
Like you, my children went through an international education: my eldest for some of her schooling, my youngest - the lot. My wife and I both experienced national systems; our children’s cousins were in national schools, the children of our old friends were in national schools. Probably also like you, the international school was an unknown land to me.
Unlike most of you, I worked in the school my children went to. Although, at first it was all quite unfamiliar I was in a position to learn fast: in fact, as it was my job, I was required to learn fast how things worked and the reasons behind them. At ISA, we can’t offer every parent a job, but we can find other ways to help you adapt to the unfamiliar.
Education is a partnership between home and school. Parents are (or should be) the single biggest influence on their children - the values, the assumptions, the overall perspective on life. Our children may make their own way, and end up with a very different approach to life. But it is parents who provide the starting point.
But children also spend a lot of time in schools, places designed to help them discover themselves and the world around them - that teach them how to think (but not what to think). Students not only discover the realms of subject knowledge, but how to interact with peers from other families with not quite the same perspective on the world, sometimes with very different assumptions about how it works.
It is a privilege to be amongst this discovery each day. It was particularly great today to also see so many parents come into school for the Parent Teacher Organisation’s (PTO’s) coffee morning. I enjoyed chatting to parents, finding out a bit more about family backgrounds, telling them about the school.
At ISA, we know we can’t assume you will know how things work -its not what you grew up with. It is great to have you part of what is going, so you better understand your child’s experience.
Best of all are the families who find a bit of time in the week to volunteer - our fantastic PTO helping to organise social events and raise funds, our committed Classroom Event Coordinators (CECs) facilitating communication, the buddies welcoming new families, the parent librarians … If you would like to be a part of this, please reach out. If other demands make this impossible don’t forget the regular events parents are invited: the grade level coffee mornings in middle and high school, the head of school coffee every Friday morning (online and in person), the elementary assemblies each Friday afternoon; tomorrow’s Back to School social between 2pm and 5pm, the PTO Uno evening, and the Open Houses early next month. If you haven’t found it already, log on to ISA’s Community Hub to keep up to date with what is upcoming. Use the tabs at the top to delve into more detail about us.
Discover how an international education is far more than a cluster of classrooms; it is a community.
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