ISA

The girls transferred from their respective public schools in Portage to the International School of Amsterdam (ISA). ISA has one campus, located in Amstelveen, that educates Pre-K through 12th grade and follows the IB program- so everything taught is taught in an investigative manor- how did we get the answer, why did we get the answer, do we understand where the answer came from and did we find multiple ways to get to the same answer...it is still confusing to me, but I like the idea of connecting the dots, instead of just getting the answer correctly, I personally am struggling with the Math part of it- getting the correct answer is just a "part" of the grade, and how you get there is just as big of a part. They also grade with numbers 1-8, no letters (A,B,C,D). We are all still trying to figure out what a good grade is and how to understand the system. Maya gets VERY mad when she gets the correct answer, but does not get a perfect score because she did not do EVERYTHING she possibly could to figure out why the answer is that way. My biggest concern is that my kids will be behind when we move back Math wise- Maya and several kids are very far ahead in Math, find it boring because they are not learning new concepts...I am afraid what was her favorite subject will become her least favorite subject. Hanna is also breezing through- her grade is definitely NOT hard enough for her. That being said, technology speaking, this school is leaps and bounds above any we have attended in Portage. They are both located in different areas of the school (Hanna is in Lower School, Maya is part of the Upper School), so they do not see each other at all except at the beginning and end of the day. Overall, they have adjusted very well, made a lot of friends, are in extra curriculars and seem to be happy!