Overview of an int’l school #5 – Rainbow international School in Seoul

How great that each international school is unique!

In this overview of an international school, by the Asian, we would like to highlight Rainbow International School (Seoul).

“Eshraf Saglam, Founder of Rainbow school

Rainbow school is an international school established by Mr. Eshraf Saglam, a Turkish educationist in Seoul promoting multiculturalism and international diversity. With 260 students from 29 countries and 42 teachers from 6 countries the school is truly international and a role model for other schools to emulate. (www.rischool.co).

The School’s logo has 4 colours signifying the four major principles the management believes in.
1. Tolerance (green colour) : With a truly international student body and teachers from various countries, tolerance is one of the corner stones of School’s philosophy.
2. Integrity (Blue) : The blue colour in the school’s logo signifies integrity which they promote through various means.
3. Diversity (Red) :  The school promotes and upholds diversity.
4. Success (orange) : With all the above mentioned qualities , the school leads students on the path of success.

School Facilities

The school has an amazing learning management system which is entirely online.  Every student, teacher and parent is provided a login into the system.  In the system they have everything from attendance of the student, to homework assigned to them, grades, reading assignments, quizzes and so on. Also teachers give grades to students on every assignment along with remarks.

Every teacher maintains a blog where they upload everyday’s activity along with the homework which students can simply download from the blog.

The management system is quite extensive as it allows parents to see what grades their child has and why is he getting those grades. It allows teachers to gauge the grasping capability of the students, it also allows the teachers to check if parents are logging into the system and keeping a tab on their kid or not.

They have a comprehensive online library where books have been categorized for children of every grade. Also, parents can buy textbooks as well from the online library. The computer rooms have been equipped with latest high speed computers with latest software programs.

Each classroom has an active board, wireless active slate for teachers and individual remote controls for children so that they can answer questions sitting in their seats. Text books are provided as E-books so that children can access then anytime, anywhere at home for in-depth understanding and option of flexible learning. In addition to learning management system, online library the management has various other additional tools.

Students from grade 5 to grade 8 are provided with Ipad2 to introduce them to a variety of online programs and software purchased by the school. Widescreen monitors have been installed in each hallway for announcements and photo display.

School Programs

With just 1:5 student, teacher ratio which is lower than most international schools around the World the school aims to provide personal attention to each and every student.
With the learning management system they can dynamically gauge the performance of the students, and with the monthly PTA meetings communicate to the parents about the progress of their child.
Rainbow has a D.E.A.R – Drop Everything And Read Program where everyone from teachers, administrators to students leave everything and just read for 20 minutes during the day.
Also, they have home visits to check if children have a congenial atmosphere at home.

Various activities are planned by the school for every week and for every quarter. The School participates in various International Olympiads happening across the World from US to Istanbul, Korea etc.  The students have won accolades for their projects and at times have been the youngest to participate in such events.
In addition, the school boasts of a small indoor gym and a play area for kids on the terrace.

Future Plans

With accreditations like WASC already under its belt the School has started developing its own curriculum that lays emphasis on not just building fundamentals of science, technology and language but also inculcate basic human moral and ethical values that are universal which will eventually make them conscientious global citizens of the World.  The school plans to extend classes till high school as the children don’t want to shift to any other school after grade 8.

Overall, a school for the future.”

Currently there are 12 international schools listed in Seoul on International School Community. Some schools that have had comments and information submitted on them are:

• Asia Pacific International School (8 Comments)
• Seoul Foreign School (12 Comments)
• Seoul International School (32 Comments)
• Dulwich College Seoul (10 Comments)
• Branksome Hall Asia (8 Comments)

Schools around the world get chance to sing in global recording

An exciting global singing project has been announced. The project is called Voices around the World and the aim is for young people all over the world to learn and participate in a global recording of a song called Building Our Own Future. The song has been written by UK singer/songwriter Howard Jones.

Schools and youth choirs are being encouraged to create their own recording of the song so that it can then be included in a mass world-wide recording which will be released as a single in December.

Vocals, choir parts and backing music is all available free of charge and easily accessible to schools and groups on the Voices Around the World website page at www.wave7music.co.uk . Details of how to submit a recording, simply by uploading it to the website, are also available. The single, which will be released in December, will include the voices of hundreds if not thousands of children from schools and groups all over the world

Grazebrook Primary School in Hackney, London is one school already in rehearsal. “We love a good sing song,” says Headteacher, Michelle Thomas. “And being part of a global recording is incredibly exciting for us all. It’s a thrilling collaboration and we can’t wait to hear the mass recording knowing that we’re a part of it.”

Howard Jones explains the song: “This song is about the potential within all of us to create our own unique future, and taking on the responsibility for the happiness of ourselves and our fellow human beings.” He’s sent a message to the schools already participating in the project saying: “It is amazing to hear that you have been learning to sing Building Our Own Future in many countries around the world. I hope you are enjoying singing the song and I can’t wait to hear you all.”

The International Primary Curriculum and the British Council are two organisations already involved and are encouraging the schools around the world that they work with to participate. Organiser Laurie Lewin says “It’s a collaborative project on a global scale aimed at linking the voices of young people everywhere.”

Recordings of Building Our Own Future by schools and choirs need to be submitted by 18th July. You can listen to a version of the song and find out more information on the Voices Around the World website page at http://www.wave7music.co.uk  or at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWnnHj8OgPY

Common Myths and Misconceptions about Bilingual Children #2: Bilinguals start out school behind monolinguals and they never catch up.

As teachers working in international schools, we are most likely teaching and working with bilingual children (or even more likely multilingual children).  Many international school educators also find themselves starting a family with potentially bilingual children.  We all know colleagues that have ended up finding a partner from the host country while living there, getting married to them, and then starting a family.  None of us are truly prepared to raise a multilingual family and for sure there are many questions and concerns that we have.

What is the best way then to teach and/or raise bilingual children?  What does the research say are the truths about growing up bilingual and how bilinguals acquire both languages?

On the Multilingual Living website, they have highlighted the 12 myths and misconceptions about bilingual children.

Myth #2: Bilinguals start out school behind monolinguals and they never catch up.

Reality: In fact, bilinguals tend to have faster growth curves than monolingual children.

When a student starts to learn a new (second) language, it is true that they are behind in terms of their ability in the second language.  But because of this large gap in knowledge and vocabulary when compared to their first language, that means that they have much more to learn.  When a monolingual makes a typical gain of one grade level each year, a bilingual child will typically make a 1.5 grade-level growth in one year.

Why is it then that most people think that bilingual children are not able to catch up?  I’m not for sure what the statistics are on this, but growing up bilingual is probably not common situation in households around the world.  There are still quite a few families that are growing up monolingual and stay that way throughout their lives.  The lives of international school teacher families are definitely in the minority.

Another reason people think this way might be because the language growth result isn’t immediately apparent, for it will take awhile until the bilingual children is proficient and at the same language-ability level in their second language as their first language (a few years for example).

Not always though is one of the two languages the dominant one.  Sometimes, if the child is learning two languages at their home since birth, he/she will show a relatively equal growth pattern in both languages.  However, it is not uncommon to find that bilingual children choose one of the two languages to be more dominant (especially when the child is learning mostly in one of the two languages at their school).

It is difficult to get the right balance when thinking about providing a child with the perfect language-learning environment for both languages.

If you are a parent of a bilingual child, share what you know about finding the perfect language-learning environment for the two languages of your bilingual child.  Have you found that your child has made significant faster growth curves at school because of their proficiency levels in their two languages?

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