Szczecin International School (SIS), which provides education to a great number of children of Headquarters Multinational Corps Northeast (HQ MNC NE) personnel, opened its door on Saturday, 14 May 2011, to native and foreign residents of Szczecin and the vicinity.
As the Director of SIS Ms Maria Sawka admitted, the concept of an “open day” is nothing new but, still, a different from a traditional one approach towards a student and an international curriculum vitae make this school very different from the others.
In fact, around 50% of pupils and students of SIS offering education at different levels constitute children of Headquarters’ personnel, who, just like their parents at Baltic Barracks, perform their tour of duty at SIS.
Having English as a lecture language and the international curriculum vitae as the reference for lesson topics, all pupils and students learn how to cooperate and communicate in a multinational environment. They are also given excellent opportunities and conditions to develop individual skills and talents. Edda, whose fabulous exhibition of dresses and other exhibit items were displayed at school, could choose the area of artistic performance for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. “We are allowed in our IB program to do whatever we would like to do”, she said. Having always been interested in fashion and art, she started her project with a number of small dresses made of different materials – fabric, paper or plastic. She used a popular doll as a model and went on with the creation of other dresses and fashion-related items. Even though Edda has not decided about her future yet, she reassured that fashion, and especially art, would always be her hobbies.
Other students of SIS will for sure find something for themselves, too. Just during the Saturday’s “open day”, a laboratory invited guests for some experiments, as well as classes where philosophy, history and languages are being taught. And for sure, one “open day” is not enough to grasp the actual atmosphere of school the international character of which has so much in common with Multinational Corps Northeast. But it is a good start, though.
