Message From The Principal, 14 June 2019

Dear parents / caregivers

Recently you would have received advice from ESF CEO Belinda Greer advising that the decision has been taken to withdraw from the Council of International Schools Accreditation system.

At the recent PTA meeting parents present requested I write a follow up article to explain the implications for our students.

CIS accreditation has served Island School well over the many years we have been involved with this organisation. They have a well-developed and constantly evolving set of standards that international schools use to ensure they offer a quality education.

This system has guided Island School to our current performance levels however our school has reached a moment in time where I, like my principal colleagues in other settings believe that ESF would benefit from developing our own approach to assuring quality.

Prior to reaching this conclusion we contacted numerous university partners to assess potential enrolment impact and did not identify any potential risk to our students continuing to access the world’s finest institutions.

I personally have significant experience in international school accreditation systems and find most of them to be narrow in their measurement, too heavily reliant on self-assessment, bureaucratically burdensome and expensive. Research shows that many do not lead to improved student learning either.

ESF has a great opportunity to learn from all of these systems and create a model that is fit for our purpose. At Island School this means we must evaluate not just our IB and IGCSE programs but all of the practices which make up the Island School experience.

Our new Director, Strategic Performance and Quality Assurance, Alan Milliken will lead the development of this system.  He has already been out to Island School and I will be inviting him to discuss his portfolio early in the new school year.