Research Outline

International K-12 Schools

Goals

To understand how international K-12 schools are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, to provide 3-5 examples of top K-12 international schools from across the world and how they are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. For each school, provide information on how they have adapted their teaching methods (e.g. switched to virtual classrooms, self study courses, etc) and how they are communicating with parents/students regarding curriculum and school updates regarding the pandemic. For the purposes of this research, an international school should be defined as "An international school is a school that promotes international education, in an international environment, either by adopting a curriculum such as that of the International Baccalaureate, Edexcel, Cambridge Assessment International Education or International Primary Curriculum, or by following a national curriculum different from that of the school's country of residence."


Early Findings

COVID-19 Educational Impacts Globally

  • Australia has closed its boarders, preventing international students from entering the country. China is Australia's main source of international students. As such, many schools are making arrangements for students to study remotely.
  • In Canada, K-12 school closings in British Columbia have lead officials to start looking into electronic learning.
  • Additional insights on how Covid-19 is impacting the education industry globally can be found here.

Global Indian International School

  • The Global Indian International School won 37 international and national awards over the course of 5 years.
  • This school does not appear to make any mention of COVID-19 on their homepage.
  • The school has made posts about the pandemic on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
  • Global Indian International School has adapted to the COVID pandemic in the following ways: moved textbook purchasing to online channel, holding parent-teacher meetings via video conferencing, allowing parents to submit travel declarations online, putting on live streams of activities that parents would have otherwise come to the school to attend, launching e-consent and e-payment options for parents to use for various transactions.
  • The school has also "created large-scale virtual classrooms that allow students to log in remotely and take lessons from home." The lessons are recorded and can be accessed by the student at any time.
  • The school has established exam centers for students who are international and unable to travel between countries. This way, students can take exams in their own countries.
  • The school uses the myGIIS app (the schools internal communication app for parent-school comms) to allow parents to update the school on their child's health. The school has been encouraging parents to take their children's temperature twice a day.