A few years ago, we came together as a community to review the mission statement of our school. During this process, we felt that there were three core values that embodied, not only our mission statement, but the Learner Profile and Attitudes to Learning from the International Baccalaureate programmes. 

Our core values are ‘Be unique, Achieve potential and Take responsibility’ and underpin everything we do at ISSH; the way we learn, the way we teach and the way we grow together. In this blog post, we explore what the core values look like in everyday life across our departments. 

Be unique

Early Learning Centre
All learning in the ELC and ISCC is child centred and therefore activities are planned based on the child’s needs, interests and level of development.  Recently, the students in the Foxes group were given the opportunity to create a festive decoration for a local farm of their own design. They began to create their decoration as a group, which naturally led to some discussion about what they would do as a group. From this, they began to explore how to create the perfect colour that they wished to use, which led to a sensory exploration of paint. 

Middle School
The Grade 8 students are currently preparing for a ‘portrait parade’ and working on this within both Art and Design lessons. First, the students decided upon a significant individual that they would like to create as their artwork. The students explored different techniques and individuals and are now selecting their final pieces to create on a large scale. In Design, the students have started to create the unique frame that they will use for their portrait as they will become the individual; their face will become part of the portrait. Once the students have completed their work, there will be a chance for everyone to see in 2024. 

Achieve Potential 

Primary School
In Grade 1, the students had a group of parents join them to create some jack o’lanterns for our Primary Halloween party. The parents were expert carvers and helped the students to create some very interesting lanterns. As part of the process, the students helped to remove the seeds from the inside and were curious to find out how many seeds they had altogether. This began a maths based, student led inquiry! Although it was a challenge, the students found a range of strategies to help them with counting such a large number and worked together as a class to find the answer. 

High School
The students in the High School participated in Core week. This is a week to focus on the other elements of the IB Diploma Programme: CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service), TOK (Theory of Knowledge) and Extended Essay. During the week, the students engaged in a variety of activities and visits that supported their development in each of these areas in a creative way. They began with some workshops in school, focusing on each of the elements before heading off to Freiburg. Here, they counted their steps at Europapark, learned about the city on a walking tour and visited the University to find out more about the courses available. 

Take responsibility 

Primary school
At the beginning of November, the Primary Student Council chose to join the worldwide ‘Gift box project’ which collects gift boxes for children in Eastern Europe who need vital supplies, toys and games and essential items like toothbrushes. They set a target of 30 boxes and successfully surpassed this with a total of 44 which are now making their way to Romania. 

Early Learning Centre
The Kindergarten group, the Bears, have recently moved to a newly refurbished classroom and took full ownership of planning and preparing the space. With the support of their class teacher, they planned the areas of learning they would like in their environment and then helped to collect the resources and place them in their new classroom.