The education we provide at the Cambridge International School is a dynamic alternative to national systems of education. Our intention is to provide a school where all children, regardless of family background, country of origin, intellectual levels and social class are helped to flourish in a stimulating international environment.

We are entirely academically non-selective. We cherish the broad range of abilities each child possesses and do not expect them to have reached a particular milestone at any specific time. We anticipate that the stimulating, flexible curriculum offered at CIS will ensure the pupils are engaged, motivated and excited to learn all that is offered to them. Our class sizes are deliberately small with a maximum of 12 pupils per class. Much of the study for the older pupils is of an informal seminar style with all pupils expected to play a major part in each discussion.

A particular feature of the school is our commitment to providing an unpressurised learning environment based around a child’s readiness to learn. Hence some four and five year olds are learning to read and write while some of their classmates are continuing their development more through creative play.

While we anticipate a stable section of British pupils who will attend the school for many years, it is also our intention to provide internationally mobile families with an excellent stable educational philosophy. Such children may only be with us for one year and our adoption of international curricula ensures that what we teach the children is relevant to them. We have taken the best of many curricula for subjects such as mathematics and science and added the Cambridge University Checkpoint programme, the International Primary Curriculum for topic work and the IGCSE for older pupils. We encourage a balance between the very best of different academic approaches blended with our unique understanding of what we believe can work for children with a range of experiences, abilities and cultures.

A basic tenet of our school is the early exposure to other languages. From the age of four children will be taught other European languages. We have staffed the school with teachers and other professionals from across the world. Other languages are used incidentally throughout the day, for example during snack time and lunchtime where children can learn, through absorption, a wide range of vocabulary.

We are currently applying for funding from multi-national businesses, in order to be able to offer places to children from a wide range of social backgrounds. We will not refuse places to parents of low income and will attempt to subsidise such families where we can. It is our intention to educate children from a wide
range of social backgrounds and to encourage entry from less affluent families.

The CIS promotes environmentally sensitive practices. We encourage recycling and teach children to minimise waste. As we start to refurbish the school we will adopt solar power where practical and will teach children how to harness this form of energy.

Our international approach exists in many dimensions from staffing and pupil range, through our curriculum and in the day to day life of our classrooms. We are an international community with a significant percentage of our pupils from outside the UK. It is a main intention of our School that we nurture respect, intercultural understanding and a desire to learn more about the countries and traditions of our peers.