Young School

After speaking with the schools Communications Director, Paul, I discovered that the High School part of our campus is very young. The school itself has been around for 25 years, but it was always an elementary school and not necessarily a high school. Paul told me that last years graduating class was the first class to go all 4 years of high school through ASB at the Sukhumvit campus.

From my understanding, the parents of the students in the elementary school asked if the school could include a 7th grade one year so they could keep their kids at the Sukhumvit campus, which has a good location in the downtown area. The parents repeated this annually and eventually the school developed a high school. The main reason is that the parents did not want to send their kids out to the Bangna Campus, which is a little bit farther out from the city.

Having heard this, I can understand now how the school can be having some issues and why certain aspects of the school are the way they are. I had thought the high school was much older than it is, but this new information makes sense now. It also would explain why the elementary classes are very large and the middle school and high school classes are much smaller. I've been told that the students will come to ASB for the elementary program and then go to another school for middle school and high school, due to the fact that we have a strong elementary program and it can prepare students for speaking and studying English.

I also believe that there are going to be problems with any school that has high turnover like ASB has (which is actually an issue not just at ASB, but at any International School). The contracts are two years long and many people will put in their two years and then go back home or to another International School. This creates problems with communication and developing a consistent educational setting.

Our principal is an example of this. He came here on a two year contract from Canada and is going to complete that contract at the end of this year. He has done some great things at the school and helped develop the high school program into a more reputable and challenging setting. My concern is what happens when he leaves? Will the new person just come in and change everything and the school start all over? I was talking with Paul about this and told him the turnover would not be as big of an issue as long as their is communication between the people leaving and those coming in.

As long as the people coming to the school knew, this is where we were, this is what we've been doing and here are our goals that we had established, I think the transition would be much smoother. Now, I understand that everyone is going to have their own spin on things and ideas of how to handle certain aspects of the educational setting and environment, which is fine. But as long as there was some consistency between these transitions, the school would still be able to thrive.

I have already decided that when I leave, I am going to ask for the contact information for the teacher coming in so I can introduce them to the school and the students a little. Not that I want to tell them how to teach, but I just want to give them an introduction as to what I found works well, what I've found does not work well and some information about certain students or classes. I'm assuming the person coming in to replace me will be a brand new teacher right out of college. The new teachers at ASB are usually straight out of college. I think the teacher will appreciate this information, I know I would have.

Aaron