ISSion aims to prepare students for successful higher academic studies. It recognises the values of an international education and combines a challenging programme with opportunities to develop personal and interpersonal skills. It encourages curiosity in every aspect of life and cherishes the potential of each and every student with benevolence and compassion.
Students should strongly feel as if they belong to the school. They should make their school their own and have a feeling of ownership in every aspect. If students understand that their school is what they make of it, they will become responsible and want it to be successful. Thus, students should be in charge of the school environment, some of the learning and most of the extra-curricular activities.
Students and the pedagogical team should be given every opportunity to be in contact and collaborate. Education is only possible when students have access to the pedagogical team and when the pedagogical team has access to students on a regular basis.
Collaboration is key and technology should be used in that way and made efficient. Students should have easy access to technology and opportunities to share and collaborate should be made easier through its prism. This has proven to take even more importance throughout the COVID-19 situation. All in all, technology is necessary and unavoidable but it should be made meaningful in everyday practice of teaching and learning.
Making mistakes should be recognized as a way to improve and evolve and not as a sanction. In any aspect, students and the pedagogical team have the right to be wrong and to make mistakes. What is important is that those mistakes should be acknowledged, understood, and when possible corrected. Mistakes are part of the learning process.
Benevolence must be the attitude in every aspect of education.
Pedagogy should be inquiry-based and the environment of the school should provide students with all opportunities to do so.
International education is necessarily transdisciplinary and cross-cultural. This should be reflected throughout the pedagogy and throughout the environment. This is the reason why collaboration is crucial. This is also the reason why equal importance should be given to the culture of the host country and to the individual culture of the students.
Students should not fear education but see it as a positive space, where mistakes are tolerated, but where healthy study habits are also necessary. Assessments which are often the focal point of this anxiety should be dealt with in a way that allows students to show their potential and to work on their areas of improvement.
Literacy is still key. In a digital environment where everything is online and nothing needs to be “remembered” anymore, it is important to emphasise reading and literacy.
In a world where information flows and changes instantaneously, it is primordial to remember to give ourselves time to learn.
