Embracing a Decade of Growth and Vision: Celebrating 10 Years of Excellence
So, we are off and running!
The students have returned to our campus, and the joy, smiles and energy they bring is a welcome addition. This year is a very important one in the life of the College and in the journey of this institution. It marks our tenth year of operation, and with that comes a moment of maturity and reflection.
Since starting with 884 students, we have been striving to take our College from good to great and build one of the best international schools in the world. Our first five years really were a time for rapid growth and the building of so many of the ingredients required to serve our students well. We survived, we built, we grew, and the buildings grew around us. The following five years were really a period of driving forward our systems and processes to support a rapidly growing student population, and all that is needed to produce an outstanding educational experience on a large scale and that brings us to this moment, to this point in our history. We have everything we need in place, and the programmes we offer and the systems we must support them with are producing excellent results. The buildings and student population growth has concluded. Now, it is about focusing on our values and focusing on our students.
Those values that will guide our direction for the future and the next five years are described in the new whole college strategic plan. But what is that vision and direction? Well, for the first time, we have a set of statements which has come from our community. All of our students, our staff and over 300 of you have contributed to the development of this new vision, and it is driven by our vision of Live Worldwise.
Having a vision and purpose is crucial for educational institutions, and like all great schools, we have a vision that speaks to our purpose and our reason for being here, that reason being the students whom we look after. What do we want for them? How do we prepare them for happy, successful lives in a future that is difficult to predict?
Our vision is to Live Worldwise, to do this ourselves, to give our students the skills to do this in the future and hopefully for our graduates to influence others in the world they meet to do the same.
But what does it mean? Well, like all good visions, it can be interpreted by everyone differently and personalised for them, but for me, to Live Worldwise is about being a responsible global citizen with the skills to navigate an increasingly complicated world and live successful and happy lives.
Now, the thing about vision is that we do not ever reach it; it is a beacon or a direction that guides us forward. To make this vision a reality, we have a set of six commitments which drive the strategic direction of the College.
We have a statement on Learning, one on DEI, one on Wellbeing, Sustainability, Intercultural Understanding and Social Justice. But why these six? Well, most importantly, because our community, the students, teachers, and parents collectively picked these.
The six statements outline an important set of values to base our future planning for our students on. Their wellbeing is at the core of everything we do, and ‘Students First’ remains the mantra. But we are a school, and if our students are safe and happy, then education and delivering the very best educational experience for them is always the most essential part of what we do and is described in our learning statement.
We are a diverse and gloriously mixed community of learners with more than fifty nationalities represented, so making everyone feel welcome and included is important for us, as is giving the students the skills to understand and collaborate with other cultures in the classroom and beyond. The world our students will live in will be one defined by sustainability issues and challenges, so exemplifying the importance of this approach to our students is also essential if they are to thrive and be part of the solutions of the future. The final part of this vision is that we want to develop and grow active participants in a future society, leaders, movers, shakers, and innovators who will advocate for this world, themselves, and others.
We are a diverse and gloriously mixed community of learners with more than fifty nationalities represented, so making everyone feel welcome and included is important for us, as is giving the students the skills to understand and collaborate with other cultures in the classroom and beyond. The world our students will live in will be one defined by sustainability issues and challenges, so exemplifying the importance of this approach to our students is also essential if they are to thrive and be part of the solutions of the future. The final part of this vision is that we want to develop and grow active participants in a future society, leaders, movers, shakers, and innovators who will advocate for this world, themselves, and others.
Clarity of purpose is something very hard to come by, particularly in a large institution like ours. Still, we are really striving this year to make it live as an idea, as a vision and as an ideal in the classrooms of the College and the hearts and minds of our students.
So, we Live Worldwise in all that we do, and we achieve it by focusing on these six statements. Together, I truly believe we can change the world; we can make it a better place, a kinder place, and we can develop the kind of individuals we want to see making change in the future.
The strategic plan which is built on this vision is available here and on our website. Thank you for trusting us with your wonderful children, and thank you for your support over the years, which has taken us to this place of strength. Now is the time for all of us to reap our rewards, now is the time for us to thrive.
