The International School Awards 2020 took place in London on Monday 20th January, with over 225 senior leaders from international schools and education organisations attending the awards ceremony. We find out more about the winning schools and the innovative, award-winning projects for which they were nominated.
These annual Awards, hosted by ISC Research, recognise outstanding initiatives being delivered in English-medium international schools around the world. Award categories include school wellbeing and safeguarding, supporting students as future-thinking innovators, inclusion, supporting students’ pathways to higher education, digital technology in learning, and ethical values education. Pearson were proud sponsors of the Initiative to Support Students as Future-thinking Innovators category.
The International School Awards 2020 winners at this year’s ceremony
This year, the Awards attracted 255 nominations from international schools in 40 different countries including Guatemala, Colombia, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and South Korea. The most popular category for nominations was the environmental initiative award. An independent judging panel of 11 highly experienced international educators selected the winners.
International School of the Year 2020
The International School of the Year 2020 was awarded to St Andrews International School Bangkok (Primary School), Thailand for its exceptionally powerful environmental initiative. The school’s ‘Eco beasts’ initiative is bringing about collective and sustainable change through action plans led by students that address a range of environmental challenges. Based on the success of the early initiative, the school now employs two environmental sustainability coordinators who, along with a dedicated website which provides downloadable resources, and a community action day, have supported the growth of this initiative beyond the school to now include 17 local schools and 14 local sustainability organisations.
The 12 category winners
As well as the overall winner, there were 12 individual category winners:
- ACS International Schools Surrey, UK won the digital technology in learning award for a tech equipment sharing project with local schools, which includes student to teacher learning
- British Embassy School Ankara, Turkey won the ethical values education award for an initiative that links ethical conduct with critical thinking and global citizenship
- The British International School Abu Dhabi, UAE received the community award for a collaboration between students and Abu Dhabi University to redesign a local superblock with sustainable and community benefits
- International Community School Amman, Jordan won the inclusion award for the development of a specialist-led inclusion team that provides modelling and mentoring to staff, and shares best practice in local centres
- Qatar Academy for Science and Technology won the teaching and learning award for a project-based learning framework supported by external partnerships in order to create and present solutions to real-life local and global issues
- Atlanta International School, USA received the international award for establishing the student-led #MyFreedomDay campaign which has been embraced by other schools and students to create a global movement that is challenging and raising awareness of human trafficking
- New Cairo British International School, Egypt was presented with the pastoral award for a daily emoji check-in system for all children which includes an App that is accessible for other schools
- Branksome Hall Asia in South Korea won the award to support students as future-thinking innovators. Its initiative involves remote collaboration between students in South Korea and its sister school in Canada to solve problems related to the environment and its social and economic impact
- Nanjing International School, China won the strategic leadership award for an initiative to transform learning and develop talent by focusing on strategy and embedding it around inclusion, creative thinking, and personal excellence
- Raha International School, UAE was presented with the award for the best initiative to support students’ pathways to higher education for a night school programme accessible for all secondary students and their parents, which provides information and resources on universities and their application procedures from over 40 countries
- Dubai College, UAE won the school wellbeing and safeguarding award for a research-led initiative which drew on best practice and expert advice to create a programme of positive psychology interventions for its students
- St Andrews International School Bangkok (Primary School) won the category award for the best environmental initiative, which was also selected as the overall International School of the Year 2020.
Watch this short video of the Awards Ceremony
See photographs from the Ceremony
Huge congratulations to all of this year’s winners. We’re excited to share more information on our category winner Branksome Hall Asia’s winning initiative in a blog post coming soon. Watch this space!
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