Below are the excerpts of a conversation between The Knowledge Review and USA International School. Throughout the interaction, the institute describes how it has focused on continued growth and prosperity of their country and beyond while adopting a prestigious curriculum to prepare a generation of thinking and committed citizens.
Please brief us about the USA International School and its history, infrastructure, mission & vision, goals, values, and motto.
USA International School (USAIS) was founded by a group of Cambodian educators in 2001 in Battambang Province. USAIS opened its doors welcoming students in Phnom Penh for the first time in 2011.
Our Vision: USAIS aims to transform the students into passionate, creative, and responsible citizens that are empowered to actively engage in challenging and meaningful work in the world around them.
Our mission: The mission of USAIS is to work in partnership with students, family, and community in order to unleash students’ full potential by giving them the tools to pursue their personal goals and to enrich their community.
Our Core Values: Respectful, Responsible, Resourceful (3Rs)
Kindly tell us about the key personality that the institution attributes its success to.
The success of our school is attributed to the collective effort of our board of directors and the parents. Our board directors comprise of passionate individuals who believe in the power of the education, and more importantly they all believe that parents’ involvements is crucial to a child’s success in school. As a result, we have regular parent-teacher meeting in which parents are invited to school to discuss their child’s academic progress with the teachers. Besides this, we are open for constructive feedback from parents on a daily basis for the betterment of the quality of educational services provided.
Talk to us about your School’s uniqueness.
USA International School’s uniqueness stems from the care and love that we offer to our students and parents. We believe that everyone needs care and love, and we offer our care and love to everyone, despite their social and economic background; because at USA International School, everyone is treated fairly and equally. Not only do we give care and love, we also educate our students to do the same. At USAIS, we build cultures of respect, responsibility, courage, and kindness. Students are supported to do better work and become better people than they thought possible. They are encouraged to be independent and accountable for their own choices. Restorative discipline procedures are adopted to discipline students who have inappropriate behavior. Restorative discipline is a program designed to teach students that their negative actions must always be compensated with positive, it teaches them to “restore” a wrong they have done. In this program, they will be asked to make a plan on how they will contribute to the culture we are building at USA. They will put into writing their plans for future actions. Our unique value is that “we do not kill our students’ age”. In other words, students’ needs and learning progress are important to us. We are working to ensure that our students learn something useful each day they come to school.
Which curriculum is followed by your institution? Also, do mention your academic programs.
USA International School offer a bilingual program for students from pre-school to primary level. USAIS follows the Cambodian National Curriculum and Cambridge International Curriculum for our pre-school and primary level programs. We adopt a STEM-based curriculum of New Generation Schools, new reform inaugurated by the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport of Cambodia, for our secondary program. Our students are encouraged take part in academic and non-academic program within and outside the school such as Spelling Bees, Public Speaking Competition, Art Exhibition, Students Talent Shows, the National STEM Festival, and also exchange program with school partner abroad.
Why should students choose USA International School as their primary institution? What do you have as an upper hand over other institutes?
USA International School emphasizes not only academic excellence but more importantly character building. Our academic and non-academic teams always hold our students accountable for their own behavior and choices by consistently implementing our rigorous disciplinary procedures. Academically, students are taught by our enthusiastic and experienced teachers who are continuously trained to be well informed about new teaching strategies and technique. Our up-to-date curriculum and teaching methodologies ensure that our students are well equipped with necessary knowledge and 21st century skills to become successful adults. Last but not least, students’ safety is our priority. We are working to ensure that each and every student is physically and mentally safe. There is always at least one adult to supervise our students in the common areas including but not limited to school lobby, library, playground, hallway and stairway. Furthermore, our healthy food program is another example of our effort to be keep our students physically strong and at the same time build our students healthy living style. Students at USAIS are equipped with an ability that meets an international standard without neglecting Cambodian cultures and traditions. If parents are looking for a school where their children are multi-culturally competent, USA International School is the primary choice.
What are the exposure programs conducted by the School in order to enhance practical knowledge of the students?
Our project-based instruction, assessments, and opportunities that we offer for our students to expose themselves to the real world such as public exhibition, study tours, outdoor activities, as well as exchange programs abroad ensure our goal of ensuring the knowledge taught at school is practical and relevant. Our student club also serves as a platform for our students to practice the knowledge and skills learned in the class come in the real world. Furthermore, we have our community exposure program in which guest speakers are invited to come to school to give lectures as well as demonstrations to our students on various practical topics. This program gives students an opportunity to speak to experts from different fields. Last but not the least, our international exchange program enable our students to interact and connect with their peers from other cultural backgrounds, and at the same time to learn about new practical knowledge and skills such as; cross-cultural communities, conflict resolution skills, and so on. More importantly, this program opens a door for our students to showcase their own capacity and creative minds to the world.
Kindly highlight the future prospects of the School.
USA International School aims to become a go-to inclusive international school operated by local educators. Currently, we are supporting our students with special needs to the best of our abilities and skills. In the future, we are expecting to be capable in accommodating more and more special needs children. We are building leadership and responsibility within our students at all levels. In short, we are committed to becoming a school where future leaders come from.
