Culture mandates progression and supports the human species to evolve. This cascades into fighting the figurative change and further progresses ahead. Having this quality to progress, the human race, the most intelligent species on earth, has progressed this far. And the libraries holding the precious history books are living proof of that.
Dusting any library while you pick any of the history books, you will understand that education is the identical progressed dust particles that make the books. Understanding culture as an important aspect of every community serves a greater vision that defines future generations.
Passing on this torch of continuous learning through a systematic system while incepting its seed in early life education has been the priority of many parents across the globe. Recognising this, The Knowledge Review ventured out in search of such progressive schools giving affordable education to the students and came across Kimberley Ward, Primary teacher of English and Science Coordinator at Lycée International Français de Taipei.
In an interactive interaction with her about the school’s journey to becoming one of the significant schools in Taiwan, the school management and Kimberley explain the thoughtful leadership ideas and an indulging roadmap for the future.
Parent’s Brainchild for Children
Taipei being a growing city in Taiwan; the French-speaking community in France realised the need for a progressive school with a vision to provide affordable, quality and progressive education. Kimberley explains the intricacies of the school journey: “LIFT school began life three years ago as the collective vision of a group of parents who wished to build a school that would provide a quality, progressive and affordable and affordable education for their children in Taipei. With the help of a dedicated committee of volunteer professionals and a team of experienced and creative teachers, that dream has become a reality.”
Offering a Unique Learning Experience
Since its inception, the school has focused on providing a unique and quality learning experience to its students embedded in the rich French culture. Explaining why choosing this unique method of education, Kimberley says, “The schools groom the students in a truly multilingual and accredited French curriculum which promotes academic excellence and enables pupils to express joy and creativity in every aspect of their school life.”
Through this holistic education curriculum, the school aims to create an affordable, accessible and inclusive school that inspires students to a true global citizens.
Kimberley Ward – A Leader and Transponder of Active Learning
Kimberley Ward is the English Primary school teacher and Science coordinator at Lycée International Français de Taipei. Being an active educator for ten years in her home country, England and other countries across the world, her philosophy has developed to be that of continuous and active learning.
Highlighting some of her qualities as an effective leader at the school, the management says, “Kimberley has designed an engaging, bespoke, and thorough English curriculum that puts pupil-wellbeing, confidence in learning and engagement at the forefront. She also runs the after-school STEM science programme and coordinates the school’s STEM activities.”
A School Inspiring Change
Only after three years of its inception has the school created an inspiring education facility within a public school in the Xinyi district. With this wonderful and collaborative opportunity for LIFT, the school presents its students with a rich cultural exchange experience and pedagogical knowledge.
Confidently emphasising these opportunities present to the school, Kimberley says, “These opportunities will continue to grow and bear fruit as the school year progresses.”
Trilingual Education for Creating Global Citizens
LIFT, being a French school, offers its pupils trilingual education, implants the seeds of continuous and quality learning in French, Mandarin and English. Along with that, the school also offers special opportunities to students in Mandarin and English.
Kimberley explains this unique curriculum in detail, “Our esteemed educators put innovative pedagogy and positive pupil relationships at the heart of everything. Pupils are able to engage with subjects in creative and engaging ways rather than rote learning. This instils the most important skills of all, resilience and a love of learning.”
An Engaging Student Development Program
With a vision of creating global citizens of tomorrow, the school offers a robust and varied extracurricular program that provides the students with plenty of opportunities to extend their learning graph and master new skills.
Emphasising these unique curated extracurriculars of students at LIFT, Kimberley says, “From Football to Jiu Jitsu, Chinese Calligraphy to Drama. There is something for everyone. Pupils who require extra academic support or just wish to engage with a particular language more can attend extra language classes provided by our experienced language teachers.”
Further expanding its wings as a holistically credible educator, the school is on the verge of being accredited by the AEFE (Agency for French Education Abroad). This international accreditation will help the school in expanding and serving many with quality multi-linguistic education embedded in rich French culture.
Preparing the Future for the Future
The learning philosophy that the school, along with the children’s parents, has adapted for their children is that of encouragement, critical thinking, problem-solving and lateral thinking.
The school grooms the students in such a way that they are not taught how to think or just a process; rather, they give liberty to students and teachers in their learning process and engage them with unique learning objectives.
“Collaborative cross-curricular projects and group work are common. It promotes a love of learning and fosters resilience for any future endeavours that our pupils undertake,” Kimberley further adds.
A Global Platform for Growth
The school has launched a HEMISPHERE project to encourage concrete experimentation that would allow sharing of a holistic experience for sustainable development. And being a school with international education programs like Spindrift for Schools, the school provides the students with opportunities that would help them inspire each other and, while growing, find a way for further progression of human society.
Explaining the further details of this global initiative, Kimberley says, “This multi-disciplinary work is proposed in connection with the concepts of the school curriculum and the SDGs. These exchanges allow young people to discover the natural wealth of the world, other ways of life, other languages, and why not experiment with new solutions for the planet.”
Roadmap for the Future
Stating the mission map of the school, Kimberley states, “The school strives for academic excellence, to enable our students to achieve their full potential and become self-assured, environmentally aware and socially engaged change agents.”
“While providing French education with a truly multilingual and accredited curriculum to inspire our students to demonstrate creativity and cross-cultural communication within a global society.” She further continues by saying, “We provide affordable educational services to ensure an inclusive and culturally diverse learning environment as accessible as possible.”
With this visionary mission in the fore picture, Kimberley states the roadmap of the school, saying, “In that way, we plan to increase our educational community and offer in few years a whole French academic education from Nursery to international ‘baccalauréat’ and thus, open the gates of high standards universities and a bright future for our students.”
