By Nick Yates, ISB Communications
Published on Monday, September 5, 2022
A new academic year is about to begin at the International School of Beijing (ISB), with all the excitement that brings. This year, we’re going to keep you informed on what’s happening at the school in a fresh, different way.
Our news stories have always showcased the high-quality learning taking place at ISB, our aspirational Mission and Vision, our more than 40 years of history, world-class facilities, and the students, families, and teachers who make up our international community. Now, ISB has a new Strategic Plan, a roadmap for the future of the school that consolidates our efforts and resources into three main focus areas. Each news story this year will look at an event, academic program, or topic that’s an example of one of these focus areas.
The focus areas are things we’ve identified as most valuable and prized by the ISB community. We’ve decided to double down on them after a series of exercises last academic year to gather feedback from our key stakeholders and align it to the practical realities of Beijing. These exercises told us what parents, students, staff, the Board of Trustees, and alumni value most and where they think the school should head from here.
ISB has created a new Strategic Plan every few years throughout its history, and this is the latest version of this document to ensure we are providing an excellent international education in the current environment.
The three main focuses are:
- Our core: challenging and joyful learning. We will keep focusing on quality academic programming especially literacy plus science, technology, engineering, and math (STEAM), ensuring appropriate challenge for ALL learners so that every student is achieving their potential in core courses. We will also further strengthen the pipeline of great teachers coming to ISB.
- Use ISB’s resources to empower students to purpose and compassion. School is about so much more than academics! We want to keep ensuring our students have integrity, strength of character, and that they are healthy socially and emotionally. To that end, we want each student to find at least one academic area and one co-curricular pursuit they are passionate about and in which they can excel. Our policy over the next few years will be based on making sure students can sample real-world professional experience and have chance to provide service to others and create a positive social impact.
- Strong, lifelong peer relationships across national, linguistic, and cultural lines in our inclusive community. Our social-emotional learning program will continue to focus on relationships, and our co-curricular teams and performance groups on coaching peer collaboration. ISB is also developing the greatest alumni network in Asia.
2022-2023 is the first year of implementation for this Strategic Plan, which will be in place for several years.
With our news articles, we’ll show you how students are challenged and find joy in projects like this and this, and how innovative academic and vibrant co-curricular programs are sources of empowerment for those taking part. Just as individuals find their place in the world in many different ways at ISB, so are there many different national, linguistic, and cultural lines in our inclusive community. Through our news stories like this one, you’ll see too how we help learners successfully navigate these lines to become citizens of the world.