Frequently Asked Questions

A family moving to another location and choosing a school, especially an international school,  for the children probably has the following questions:

• what is the percentage of expatriate students at the school?
• what is the curriculum?
• how will my child’s progress be assessed?
• what diplomas does the school offer?
• to what extent are parents encouraged to be involved with the school?

Here is how Neil McWilliam, our director, answers these and other crucial questions: 

How to choose the right international school

For expatriate parents, the choice of an international school is a critical One. We believe that international parents new to Düsseldorf should investigate all educational offerings for their children before making a final decision. To aid with this process, we have compiled a list of frequently asked questions.

1. Who accredits the school?
For new parents, accreditation is an important reassurance of quality. New parents need to ask which organizations do the accreditation, what form the inspections take, and how often they occur.

ISD is the only school in Düsseldorf that carries full accreditation by the Council of International Schools. The Council of International Schools (www.cois.org) is a worldwide organization responsible for some 500 international schools. Of these, only 170 carry full accreditation. CIS accreditation compels a school to commit to a program of continuous improvement. The accreditation process works through a ten-year cycle involving three inspections by trained external evaluators and extensive documentation of all school processes, from curriculum to safety to finances, which is externally assessed against CIS standards. ISD has successfully completed three accreditation cycles (one of only 16 such schools worldwide).

Because of the large American population, ISD also maintains an American accreditation. The school is fully accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

ISD’s Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma programmes are authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization (www.ibo.org). This involves the initial authorization process (similar to the accreditation process) in each program, and regular (five year) reviews.

2. What curriculum is offered?
New parents need to ask where the school’s curriculum comes from, how regularly it is reviewed, and how transferable it will be to the child’s next school or university.

ISD is authorized to offer all three of the International Baccalaureate Programmes (Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme). The IB Programmes are the most widely used programs in international schools worldwide and their use is growing rapidly in many independent and state schools in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. The IB Diploma is very highly regarded by universities around the world.

3. Is the school set up as a not-for-profit organization?
If the school is set up as a not-for-profit organization, then parents can be assured that all of their tuition money goes to the students - none is used for company profit.

ISD is the only not-for-profit international school in Düsseldorf.

4. What is the ratio of teachers to students?
There is extensive research evidence to show that the size of the class in which your child is learning has a significant bearing on the effectiveness of that learning. New parents should ask about the student:
Teacher ratio (but be careful – some schools include administrators, teacher aides, etc), and the class size policy.

At ISD, the student: teacher ratio is 8.38 to 1. “Teacher” means fully trained and qualified teachers, who are employed to teach students in the classroom – it does not include teacher aides, principals, admission manager, etc. Our class size policy stipulates a maximum of 20 students per class, but authorizes the Director to extend this to 24 if an urgent need arises. Our average class size is 15.9. Over 95% of classes have between 12 and 20 children.

5. How are the faculty selected?
Teacher quality and training is another critical predictor of learning effectiveness. In an international school, it is important to maintain a high quality teaching team with a range of ages, genders and nationalities.

Administrators at ISD travel to international school recruitment fairs in Europe, the United States, Australia, Middle and Far East to recruit the best possible teachers. Almost all ISD teachers have qualifications at Masters level or higher. ISD teachers come from 19 different countries, with the majority from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

6. Where do the students come from?
An international school can better reflect international ideals and perspectives if a wide range of nationalities is represented among the students.

ISD students come from over 50 different nationalities. Our five largest groups are Germany (29%), USA (15%), Japan (11%), United Kingdom (10%) and Korea (5%).

7. To what extent does the school welcome parent input?
For effective learning to take place, teachers, students, and parents must be active participants. Parents must be able (and welcome) to speak directly to their children’s teachers whenever they need to.

At ISD, frequent communication between parents and teachers, parents and administrators, parents and Board Members is actively encouraged.

8. Will my children be safe at the school?
All parents need to feel their children are safe and secure, particularly in these troubled times.

ISD employs two full-time security guards. Both men have extensive security training and experience. ISD facilities are monitored with cctv coverage. All Elementary School parents and staff are issued with photo ID badges.

ISD employs a qualified doctor and a registered nurse. Both are English-speaking, and both have extensive experience in the Düsseldorf area. Our doctor is the person new parents go to with questions like “Where can i find a good orthodontist who speaks English and won’t cost a fortune?”

9. Does the school provide counseling and guidance services?
An overseas posting can provide a stressful environment for children and for families. Adequate counseling resources are essential. Entry into university is a difficult process made even more so by the fact that international students will be seeking entry into one or more of a large number of possible university systems. College guidance resources need to be more extensive than those you would find in a national school.

ISD employs full-time personal counselors in the Elementary and Middle Schools, and a half-time personal counselor for the High School. In addition, ISD employs two full-time college guidance counselors for European, American, UK, Canadian and Australian universities. ISD also has experienced guidance counselors to assist students with applications to German and Japanese universities.

10. Where do the graduates go?
A school with a good track record for university applications has a better chance of guiding your child successfully towards university.

Last year, ISD students were offered places at Cambridge University, University of St Andrews, University of Bath, University of Bristol, University of Edinburgh and 30 other UK universities, Tufts University, Northwestern University Chicago, Vassar College, Bucknell University and 25 other universities in the USA, University of British Columbia, McGill University, Queens University and 8 others in Canada, as well as many major European and Japanese universities.

11. Is there provision for children with special educational Needs?
This question is particularly important for parents whose children have learning difficulties, but parents of children without particular special needs should also ask because special needs children can have a negative impact on the learning of others if the resources are inadequate. New parents should ask about special needs resources, procedures, and admission policy.

At ISD we have Learning Support  teachers in Elementary and Senior School. We do not have the capacity to deal with severe special needs, and our policy precludes admitting students for whom we cannot offer a program. We do not admit children to ISD unless they will benefit from the ISD program.

12. What about sports and after-school activities?
For children, the most difficult part of adjusting to an overseas posting is often the after-school hours. Away from their old friends and activities, afternoons and weekends can be long and lonely at the start. Parents should ask about sports and activities, but be sure to also ask about safety and supervision during these activities.

At ISD, we participate locally and internationally in most sports, with soccer, volleyball and basketball being the major sports. We take part in tournaments at other international schools in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Sports teams range from under eight years to Varsity. Our Speech and Debate teams compete throughout Europe. Model United Nations takes place annually. After school activities cover everything from Flag Football to Judo to Hip Hop Dance. All activities are supervised.
Chaperones accompany all sports trips. Medical facilities are present at all sports Tournaments.

13. How does the curriculum respond to modern educational Research?
98% of what we now know about how children learn has been discovered in the past two years. Our children will graduate into a world totally different from the present one, and absolutely nothing like the world their parents graduated into – they will be applying for jobs that have not yet been invented. We cannot educate in the same way their parents were educated.

Regular curriculum review is a feature of all IB curricula. At ISD, we follow a curriculum review cycle to ensure that all curricula are thoroughly reviewed and updated every four years.
All ISD teachers are required to attend IB training workshops in their subject areas every three years as a minimum requirement. Most ISD teachers experience significant training every year. Some twenty ISD teachers are presently studying for their first or second masters degree – two are presently writing PhD’s. At ISD, we are a learning community.