As there is no standard international school system, parents seeking the best education for their children can be faced with a confusing range of variables. Author and cross-cultural consultant Dr Richard Pearce presents his tips on asking the right questions and understanding exactly what is on offer.
I
n a school prospectus, just as in a Microsoft contract, there are small print and big print. My advice to those choosing schools for expatriates is never to ignore the
big print.
In my 16 years as admissions officer at an international school, I frequently met parents who told me they ‘just wanted a good school’, but that’s where the questions begin. The first thing to know about a school is what national system it follows. There is no ‘international school system’; school systems are the product of national values and traditions, shared by the people who work in them, and built into the institutions that they set up. How can we make those implicit values explicit?
