Welcome to our School!
parents, teachers, and friends,
It is with tremendous gratitude that we acknowledge our early community members in 2018 who helped turn the preschool program (8 students) into the thriving PS-3rd grade program that IFS is today. Along our journey, it remains inspiring to find so many parents and educators who are re-thinking the vision of the child.
I hope that you can find great clarity on our website about the mission of the International Friends School. What is impossible to capture is the powerful self-concept that our students possess as they navigate the world as bilingual speakers with a resilient, flexible spirit. It astounds us everyday!
As the world has surpassed a population of 8 billion people, schools must be as dynamic as possible to truly meet the demands of the 21st century. We feel at IFS that we meet these demands by reimagining the student learning experience. We know that creative engagement and problem-solving are the oxygen for enduring learning. We also know that students need to be challenged and to develop a flexible mindset about learning and failure. To this end, our school program emphasizes project-based learning.
Bilingual education builds a better brain! Students outperform their monolingual peers in both academic standards and tests of higher intelligence by the end of 5th grade. Bilingual education also fosters greater perspective sharing and the ability to communicate (and listen) across diverse audiences worldwide. Students who are bilingual feel greater comfort talking to speakers of other languages, and in other places. I think my favorite benefit is how it adds to a very important quality for children to have in their futures: cognitive flexibility.
Our Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, equality, community and stewardship nurture strong values within our students, and indeed, in all of us. We are proud of the people that they are becoming and we know that they will lead lives that matter.
Thank you again for exploring our website and reaching out to us with your wonderings.
Dr. Sue Brooks
Head of School