Welcome to ISPP Secondary
The ISPP secondary campus is a hub of activity both inside and outside the classroom. The combination of the rigorous IB Middle Years and Diploma Programmes, along with well-designed extracurricular offerings, enables us to pursue our mission of empowering students to achieve their potential for personal growth and academic excellence. The secondary campus provides a rich multicultural environment for learning and interaction among students, teachers, parents and administration.
Holistic Education – Fostering Personal Growth
The ISPP Mission reflects our understanding that education encompasses much more than filling students’ minds with academic knowledge. In order to facilitate genuine personal growth, ISPP provides many channels through which students engage in issues of significance to themselves and their world. In so doing, the quest for responsible global citizenship takes meaningful shape. A few of the aspects of the holistic education offered at ISPP:
- Community Service: Throughout their Grade 6-12 experience, students progress in their understanding of what it means to be a responsible contributor to society. Cambodia offers ample opportunity for involvement with real problems facing real people. Every year ISPP students are expected to take part in service activities. Initially these are coordinated through home group, Wednesday activities and our Week Without Walls excursions; by the time the students reach Grade 11 and 12, they are planning and supervising activities of their own. Service among Cambodia’s orphans, disabled, and rural poor brings with it new awareness of both the privileges the students enjoy and the difference they can make.
- Leadership: Leadership opportunities abound for ISPP secondary students. From taking responsibility for enhancing school life through the Student Council to addressing global issues through participation in Model United Nations, students learn how to think through challenging problems and design viable solutions. In addition to these organized leadership programs, ISPP fosters an environment in which students are encouraged to propose their own initiatives for positive change.
- Balanced and Healthy Lifestyle: “Action” is a word with multiple meanings for an ISPP secondary student. Action involves doing something in response to what one has learned in the classroom; it also refers to physical activity. Through Week Without Walls, Wednesday activities and the CAS program, ISPP encourages all students to be involved in action beyond the regular curriculum. In addition, interscholastic athletics are offered for students across Grades 6-12 through our participation in the MRISA, an association of eight regional international schools. Sports exchanges occur three times a year.
The IB Curriculum
As an IB World School, ISPP follows the Middle Years Programme (MYP) in Grades 6-10 and the IB Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12. Each unit of study is developed around a significant concept and essential questions that students use as a basis for inquiry into the heart of the topic.
The MYP is a unique curriculum model that affirms the importance of contextual learning. This is accomplished through the Areas of Interaction, which are broad themes that connect ideas across subject areas. This leads to an interdisciplinary approach to learning as students pursue links between the different individual subjects. Communication and reflection are also fundamental concepts in the MYP curriculum. Through the study of English and a second language, students form deeper appreciation of the different ways of thinking and communicating embedded in the variety of cultures represented at ISPP. Continuous reflection on learning, both on one’s approaches to learning and on the implications of what one is learning, contributes to deeper inquiry and self-understanding.
The Diploma Programme divides the curriculum into six subject groups: Languages (2 groups), Humanities, Experimental Sciences, Mathematics, and The Arts. Students select one course from each group. Each course is taught over two years, with a culminating assessment—a set of external exams in most subjects—taking place in May of the students’ Grade 12 year. Throughout each course, students complete a variety of internal assessment tasks to develop not only mastery of content but also the ability to apply learning to contemporary situations.
The Student at the Centre
ISPP strongly endorses student-centered, inquiry-based learning. The structure of both the MYP and Diploma Programme supports this approach. A central focus of the final year of the MYP is the personal project, a culminating project in which the student works over an extended period on a product of their own initiative. The personal project is designed to encourage individual creativity and to provide students the opportunity to demonstrate skills—including communication and reflection—that they have developed during the course of the Programme.
Similarly, the Diploma Programme puts the inquiring student at the centre. The core requirements of the Diploma Programme are CAS (Creativity, Action and Service), the Theory of Knowledge class, and the Extended Essay. The CAS Programme fosters student initiative outside the classroom through involvement in creative, physical and service activities. The Theory of Knowledge course is a unique course designed to engage the students in critical thinking about learning on a broader scale; the culminating essay requires the students to apply multiple perspectives to contemporary issues of their choice. Similar to the MYP personal project, the extended essay grants the student the flexibility to pursue a topic of interest well beyond the curriculum, requiring extensive research and analysis similar to that expected at the university level.