We are in the peak of our admissions season at the moment. As an international school populated by a large proportion of highly mobile families, the months between March and June herald the summer turnover of employees moving in and out of Europe’s global hubs. With multiple families visiting each day, our Admissions team are rushed off their feet and for me, it is a pleasure to meet so many great families.
Having personally experienced the whole relocation challenge last year, I take my hat off to all these families; many of them are seasoned re-locators, moving every four years or so with their jobs to a new part of the world. It is wonderful to be part of their Brussels adventure and a real pleasure to play a part in providing that vital part in the move by finding the ideal school for their children. The fact that we are the only all-through IB continuum school in the Brussels area is proving to be a real attraction to St John’s, particularly to families who are moving from an IB school or who know that they will probably be on the move again before the end of their children’s education. Providing a continuity of curriculum for their children is a real bonus when so many other aspects of life are changing.
The beauty of the IB was very much on show last week at the Grade 5’s PYP Exhibition. The Exhibition is always a very special event in an IB school as it marks and celebrates the culmination of the PYP programme with a showcase of the final unit of inquiry. I was hugely impressed with the St John’s imprint on the exhibition! The opening of the exhibition was an exciting performance in the theatre, full of drama, dance, thought, words and preparation – the students had worked together beautifully to create an excellent introduction to the themes they had explored. Following this, the audience and visitors could then walk around all the booths which the students had prepared, learning about the units of inquiry, asking questions, taking part in custom-made board games, interacting, crouching in a refugee tent, fishing in plastic-infested waters and engaging in a wide variety of creative activities. This really was student-led learning at its best and it was wonderful to see the students so engaged with their learning and talking passionately to the visitors throughout the day.
