TAS aims to nurture individual abilities to produce creative, confident, and critical thinkers who are self-aware, socially conscious, and prepared for an ever-changing society.

An overall child development seeks to address the physical, emotional, relational, intellectual and spiritual aspects of a child’s life. The importance of this approach is that it goes in depth to examine whether a child has developed or learned different things properly at different stages of life. It is the complete development of all areas of a child. Educating students with such holistic development is The American School (TAS), which is an international school, nurturing ethical behavior, creative expression, physical endeavor, and cooperative social interaction to develop mind, body, and spirit of a child.

The school was founded in 2010 as a private and International Early Childhood to Grade 12 college preparatory school. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), which is one of the six regional associations that accredit public and private schools, colleges, and universities in the United States has accredited TAS from pre-Kindergarten to grade 12. By conducting its peer review process, WASC has provided evidence of TAS’s quality educational programs and has recognized the school as a place that has resources and practices to achieve its educational goals.

The school provides a caring, student-centered environment where the values of tolerance, appreciation, and respect for individual differences are highly prized. It focuses on vital academic skills, which include communication, critical thinking, technological literacy, research, creativity, and independent learning. The school believes that it is their responsibility to instill the desire in scholars to strive for excellence while maintaining respect for self and others. TAS promotes high standards of excellence by enhancing student learning for leadership in a global world.

Pursuing the Holistic Development of Students

TAS is on a mission to educate the whole child incorporating mind, body, and spirit. To achieve this, the school provides the tools, opportunities, and human resource to inspire and promote inquiry and development of self-confidence. Every child is educated in a multi-cultural environment aligned with the American educational models. The multicultural setting in Vietnam fabricates a strong partnership among students, faculty & parents, and affirms & challenges each person with dynamic and enriched American educational program. According to the school, this diversity of nationalities and languages generates an opportunity for all to learn about new cultures and new experiences from all around the world. The result can be seen in students becoming leaders with inquiring minds through critical thinking, writing, reasoning, investigating, problem-solving, and collaborative experiences.

At TAS, pupils are transformed into healthy and altruistic global citizens, who understand the importance of academics and the arts. From its Early Childhood Center through the Elementary and Middle & High School, the school teaches a diverse group of students from more than a dozen countries.

A Robust Curriculum

TAS imparts education with an international and global perspective. All of its courses and curriculum follows the same methodologies. The curriculum is designed for increasing awareness of a student’s global responsibilities. TAS’s curriculum follows standards from America including the Common Core, AERO and Next Generation and is designed using the Understanding by Design (UBD) format. UBD is a framework that improves student achievement. This format recognizes the teacher’s role as a designer in student learning and works within the standards-driven curriculum to aid teachers in clarifying goals, devise revealing assessments of student understanding. It also constructs effective and engaging learning activities.

The programs meet the different needs of students in a safe environment and honor student diversity. The students reach out to serve others through various programs, such as students’ involvement with the Global Issues Network (GIN) and Heartbeat Vietnam. Moreover, TAS has a broad range of care with dedicated staff, excellent educators, and supportive parents. Altogether, they work together to create an environment that supports TAS’s mission, vision, and Expected School-wide Learning Results (ESLRs):

Academic:

Each TAS graduate is an Effective Communicator and Critical Thinker who:

• Reads, writes, and speaks effectively and critically.
• Demonstrates a work ethic that reflects dependability, integrity, and honesty.
• Applies complex problem-solving processing and critical thinking to real-life scenarios while cooperating and collaborating with others.
• Sets goals and actualizes these goals.

Aesthetic:

Each TAS graduate will have been exposed to the arts in various forms and thus:

• Appreciates the fine and performing arts as a means of self-expression, creativity, and aesthetic enjoyment.
• Engages in inquiry, experimentation, design, and share their artistic work.
• Values his or her unique identity and realizes his or her full potential through participation in a variety of arts experiences.
• Demonstrates the ability to reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of various forms of artwork – both of their own work and the work of others.

Athletic/Wellness:

Each TAS graduate understands that a healthy body supports a healthy mind, and to that end:

• Understands the benefits of being physically fit.
• Has developed a sense of worthiness and positive self-esteem.
• Practices good nutrition and fitness and avoids high-risk behaviors.
• Identifies the benefits of maintaining good health, good nutrition, good exercise habits, and positive life choices.

Altruistic:

Each TAS graduate is a Socially-Responsive Citizen who:

• Takes responsibility for his/her own actions.
• Exhibits social and civic leadership in fulfilling the duties of citizenship; promoting social justice; and strengthening family, community, and environment.
• Demonstrates that they act honestly, ethically, and responsibly toward themselves and others.
• Respects diverse cultures, lifestyles and ideas.

An environment that Harbors Creativity and Innovation

TAS accomplishes its mission of educating the whole child through comprehensive and diverse academic programs together with extracurricular activities including sports, Drama Club, Student Council, Girl Scouts, Model UN, cooking classes, Kung Fu, dance and exciting events. These events include SISAC sports tournaments, musicals and performing arts productions, Christmas Bazaar and Tet Fair at school.

The school’s environment caters to all the subject related activities. For English proficiency, the school supports it as a Second Language Program. For computer courses in Mac and PC labs, the school prepares students as 21^st-century learners. Its chemistry and biology labs give students experiences that are sure to help them succeed at the college level. The school also offers sports and social-emotional support with a full-time counselor and a program called Week Without Walls. During this program, the students receive the world experience and learn more about things that reside outside of the classrooms through in-day educational field trips or by traveling to other countries.

Drama and performing arts is yet another category for which TAS is known for. It also holds its own Arts festival in the month of May. The festival is a week-long and includes a second musical, a middle school play, concerts, a school-wide art exhibition, busking and introductory classes to some lesser known art forms. In all these activities, the students write and direct the performances. All of these exciting activities secure The American School’s status as a leading international school in Drama and Performing Arts education.

To summarize, the learning environment at TAS can be described as English-only, open and encouraging students to explore all aspects of a subject, forming and voicing their own ideas about it and develop critical thinking while still respecting others’ thinking and opinions.

Students at their Best

Some of the many accomplished students that have shown their excellence in their projects, sports, and academic studies are:

1. Phan Le Ha Long (Peter Phan) of grade 12 won both the Student Prize and Viral Prize in the Luang Prabang Film Festival. His incredible short film “Breath” about rhino conservation won the heart of the competition’s jury as well as those of other viewers, which helped it become the most shared film of the competition.
2. Wild Rhino Competition 2018/2019: This meaningful competition was a valuable opportunity for the youth of Vietnam to communicate their innovative ideas to help with the rhino protection and end the demand for rhino horn.

• Junior winners:
  • Thai Duong Khue (Jasmine) – daughter of Ms. Nguyet, Mandarin teacher of TAS
  • Tran Y Nhi (Bella) – class 1A
• Senior winner: Lieu Ngoc Bao Thanh (Jenny) – class 9G

3. The sports teams of TAS have been:

• Champions of SISAC U19 Girls’ Badminton Championship
• Champions of SISAC U11 Badminton B Pool
• Runners-up of SISAC U14 Boys Basketball
• Runners-up of SISAC U19 Boys Basketball Championship

4. For the class of 2019, as of March 12, they have been accepted at 35 universities, with two students receiving large sums of scholarship:

• Doan Xuan Tra (Suzy Doan), as of November 28th, 2018, has been accepted to Creighton University, University of Iowa, University of Kansas and the University of Kentucky with total merit scholarship awards of over $160,000.
• Quach Gia Minh (Timmy Quach): being accepted into University of San Francisco with a $44,000 USD scholarship.