As an international school, we are committed to processes that help us to improve and develop in accordance with both national and international standards.
Exupery International School’s program and premises have been nationally accredited to the fullest extent possible (six years) by the Latvian Ministry of Education. This means that our students are assured an education that is, first and foremost, formally recognized by both national and international institutions. Local recognition of the program’s efficacy is only one component of the larger picture, however. We believe that with every accreditation our program receives, the school’s diploma will become more universally valid and prestigious for our graduating students.
Exupery International School has been granted membership of the Council of International Schools (CIS), which embodies our commitment to global citizenship and intercultural dialogue. The CIS is renowned for providing cutting-edge guidance for teacher training, offering continual assistance with improving its member schools, and validating all new staff members to ensure that they are properly qualified for their position. These outside accreditation processes guarantee that EIS — as a team, a school, and a vision — is always evolving in the framework of well-vetted, rigorous systems for the benefit of the students.
Exupery International School is a fully authorised International Baccalaureate (IB) school currently offering the Primary Years Programme (PYP) as of June 2019. The PYP nurtures and develops students as caring, active participants in a lifelong journey of learning. The PYP challenges students to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own learning. The PYP appreciates the inquisitiveness of young people and through student led inquiry allows students to explore local and global issues in real life contexts.
For students who will be in Grades 10, 11 and 12 we have also been authorized by Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) to offer both the United Kingdom IGCSEs and Advanced Levels. Finally, we have been granted candidate status* for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP).
* Only schools authorized by the IB Organization can offer any of its four academic programs.
Strong academic basis combined with subject specific skills. We implement with all our passion and perfection Project Based Learning (PBL) in order to develop interdisciplinary skills - communication, leadership, metacognitive and analytic skills as well as strong character traits.
PBL is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.
To implement this approach at EIS we incorporate PBL within the PYP and Middle School curriculum planning process and have two full project immersion weeks in June. In these weeks, the usual subject centered learning merge into a real-life oriented, student-initiated projects, which will evolve into the products of students' creativity, research and analysis. Students share their learning experience with schoolmates, parents, teachers, and the local community. We also participate in international interscholastic projects when available.
We are very proud today to officially announce that two of our students participated in the National Round of the French Olympiad and achieved high overall results. Following their participation at the local and regional level, Aylar S.(Gr. 9) and Kristina M.(Gr. 6) took part in the National Olympiad on 8 February 2020, which was hosted by the University of Latvia’s Faculty of Humanitarian Sciences. Our young francophones took part in the category "French - second foreign language". In total there were about 250 participants from grades 5 to 12, and 90 of them passed to the National level. Aylar came in 3rd place in her age group, and Kristina received the incentive prize (4th place) among the students from her age group.
On December 4th 2019 the French Olympiad took place in Riga French Lycée already for the 50th time. This anniversary became a festive debut for us. It was the first time when a team of participants from grades 6, 8, and 9 tried their forces at this prestigious competition. Jelena Jesajana, our French teacher has been inspiring and training a team for two months and convinced the students to believe in themselves. We performed in the category French as a second foreign language. And we are happy and extremely proud to announce that the debut was successful: a 9th-grade student won the 3rd place, and an 8th-grade student received the incentive prize.
At the end of February, the Semarah Hotel Lielupe held an international children's and junior chess tournament, Rudaga-Kaissa 2019, in the lovely city of Jurmala. In the group for beginners (which had 26 participants), a 6th grade student, Andrei Ugolev, represented Exupery International School. Over the course of 7 games Andrei managed to score 6 points and take first place. Andrei's coach at EIS, Nikolai Kovshun, is a candidate master chess master and FIDE Instructor. Andrei also advanced to the fourth class in chess. Congratulations!
Our students recently won first place in the 2018 Hip-Hop Daugavpils Open Contest! The Exupery team, led by the fantastic choreographer and teacher Linda Paulauska, has received first place among beginners from 15 teams!
Exupery’s Grade 5 team has received the prestigious award of 2nd Place in this year’s Science Day competition! The team members competed against fellow students from all across Latvia. Their tasks included constructing an ecosystem’s food chain, working with buoyancy, producing chemical reactions, and solving a computer-based logic puzzle.
1. Primary and Preschool
Effective partnerships with parents
We strongly believe it is essential to establish an effective working relationship with families. Children will achieve more at school if parents have confidence in the staff and curriculum of their child’s school. If parents understand and support what our school aims to achieve, this will encourage their children to benefit fully from the learning experience the school offers. We appreciate parents who share their feedback.
Communication between home and the school
In order to keep parents fully informed and engaged in their child’s learning, we have regular communication between home and school.
We use the online platform Toddle to provide parents with an overview of their child’s learning across all areas of the curriculum, and home learning assignments in the event of school closure. We also organise regular ‘Parent Academies’, which are designed to inform you of important developments in education which are directly relevant to your child’s learning.
A report (generated by Toddle, and available in electronic form) on student progress, is provided at the end of each semester for students. Parent teacher conferences, end-of unit sharing afternoons and student-led conferences are held throughout the year.
Parents are also welcome, by appointment, to meet with their child’s teachers individually throughout the year.
2.Learning through Play
From birth, children are ‘hands-on’ natural inquirers and learn through playful interactions with people and their environment. Play is an essential aspect of a child’s healthy development. Through play-based learning, children develop and nurture fundamental knowledge and skills. Learning in the Primary Years Programme (PYP) is based on ‘approaches to learning’ skills (ATLs). These skills aim to support children of all ages to become learners who know how to ask good questions, set effective goals and pursue their aspirations with the determination to achieve them.
In addition to developing such skills, play is important for social, emotional, physical and mental wellbeing of children. As our world is constantly changing, play is significant for children to have a joyful channel to reduce their anxiety that comes with such change.
Children are curious and capable learners with a sense of agency, rich in potential, bringing valid skills, preferences and understandings of learning. Through play, children actively create meaning from their interactions with people and their environments. These meanings are revisited and revised in light of new experiences and further learning.
3.Languages in the Pre-school
Our school’s core learning outcomes promote an environment in which language acquisition permeates the curriculum. As an international school, we strive to provide a multicultural and multilingual educational environment to our students.
Our Preschool program follows the IB Primary Years Programme which promotes play, discovery and exploration. We believe that this type of learning, together with highly individualised teacher-learner relationships, is the best way to acquire languages. Our comprehensive language programme is designed to help our students acquire both English and French while supporting the mother tongue.
Learning activities are designed and supported with an abundance of teaching resources and support in all languages. Opportunities to use language for purpose are carefully constructed and implemented as part of the learning activities. Children respond with great enthusiasm to the bilingual classroom approach and are quick to adapt to using a second language to respond to prompts or to conduct their learning inquiry.
The languages of instruction in the Preschool are English and French. This moves to English only as the language of instruction in the Primary School (P1) as learners will need time to develop strong academic English language proficiency to be successful in the secondary school. French is still maintained through lessons, outdoor experiences and after-school activities. In this way, children have learned basic knowledge of French in the Preschool, giving them the best foundation to build on, and to remain fluent, throughout their schooling.
THE PYP (PRIMARY YEARS PROGRAMME)
From Preschool to Year Six (P6) in the Primary, students follow the Primary Years Programme (PYP), which is the official curriculum framework and teaching methodology of the International Baccalaureate (IB). It is an international programme of education designed to foster the development of the whole child, by teaching and learning across multiple academic subjects. It emphasises learning through active inquiry and aims to develop internationally minded students who exhibit the attributes of the IB learner profile.
Languages, Social Studies, Mathematics, Arts, Science and Personal, Social and Physical Education, provide the framework for the exploration of concepts and knowledge.
The Curriculum Framework consists of five essential elements:
1. Concepts
2. Knowledge
3. Skills (Approaches to Learning)
4. Attitudes
5. Action
The knowledge component is developed through inquiries into the six transdisciplinary themes. These themes are globally significant and support the acquisition of knowledge, concepts and skills of the traditional subjects. They are revisited throughout the students’ time in the PYP.
Who We Are
An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; and what it means to be human.
Where We Are In Place & Time
An inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind; and the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.
How We Express Ourselves
An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; and what it means to be human.
How the World Works
An inquiry into the natural world and its laws; the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; and the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment.
How We Organise Ourselves
An inquiry into the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; the structure and function of organisations; societal decision-making; economic activities and their impact on humankind and the environment.
Sharing the Planet
An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
In the Preschool and Primary at EIS, we view learning as a partnership between student, parent and our school. You can help your child by:
EIS believes that the PYP curriculum framework fits the mission, philosophy and goals of our Primary and Pre-school. The curriculum is based on research and understanding about how children best learn and how their brains work. It allows us to have considerable flexibility in the choice of content and topics that our students will study. It connects our school to a wider international school network and an internationally respected educational organisation, thus requiring us to work towards continuous school improvement.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) learner profile describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success. They imply a commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.
Each of the IB’s programmes is committed to the development of students according to the IB learner profile. The profile aims to develop learners who are:
The goals of the PYP are essentially the same as our school’s goals, as reflected in our mission statement. However, the PYP allows us to achieve them more effectively. It demands a true partnership between students, teachers and parents in the school community and the global community.
Children are actively engaged in learning about issues and themes of universal significance. These are designed to allow students to become reflective and internationally minded; qualities that allow them to participate more fully in the world they will enter as adults. The PYP classroom is student-centred, they are encouraged and supported to be independent learners and critical thinkers, and learn to take appropriate socially responsible action.
Each year, classes work through a cycle of units of inquiry, the number completed in one year varies according to grade level. In the Preschool and and P1 it is four and from P2, six units of inquiry. The units may have a science, social studies, language, PSPE or arts focus. In addition, many subject areas of the curriculum can be linked to a unit of inquiry and single subject teachers often work with homeroom teachers to create a transdisciplinary approach to learning. This means that different subject areas are used to further the students’ understanding of the unit’s central idea. Every unit has a central idea which is a statement that encapsulates the desired learning, within the broad themes of Who We Are, How We Organise Ourselves, How We Express Ourselves, Sharing the Planet, Where We are Place and Time, How the World Works.
The IB offers a curriculum framework that transcends any one country’s national curriculum. Each IB school then develops their own curriculum based on the IB framework. The framework has rigour and is about supporting and guiding students so they develop enduring understandings. At EIS we have developed and continue to refine our curriculum using both the IB framework, and a variety of other international curriculum standards.
EIS has its own written curriculum in all academic subjects with specific learning targets and outcomes that students are expected to achieve. Student progress is tracked at several points throughout the year in each grade level using a variety of tools: Language Continuums, a Developmental Reading Assessment, end of semester mathematics assessment, ongoing assessment in units of inquiry with checklists, rubrics and regular anecdotal records.
The exhibition is an extended, in-depth project celebrating the culmination of a child’s learning experience in the PYP before they move on to the next stage in their education.Young learners conduct an in-depth inquiry into real life issues or challenges, and present their research, investigation and resulting action to the whole school community. Recent research into the impact of the PYP exhibition found it to be a “valuable and pivotal experience in the life of the schools, families and students who were involved.
The PYP has an action component, whereby students use their own initiative to demonstrate their commitment to what they have learned. Action often comes as the result of deep inquiry that becomes personal and is meaningful. At its most authentic, action occurs outside of the classroom – at home, or within the larger school or local community and can occur at any time.
Student-led conferences allow your child to discuss with you their progress and their understanding of new knowledge, concepts or skills. It is a powerful assessment strategy that uses self reflection as the tool to measure progress. Throughout the course of the school year, a child develops their ePortfolio (the online platform Toddle). This portfolio contains samples of work that show growth and learning in all areas of our curriculum, and is used to help structure the student-led conference.
Drone Flight
Walking into one of the classrooms of Exupery preschool, we can find various educational and digital tools, in addition to the black board and chalk. Children discover and use the newest technologies of the 21st century, such as tablets, programming systems, 3D architecture, 3D printing, and drone controlling.
Learning about the history and about the first steps of aviation is interesting, but children also have the possibility to try and control a real flying machine. We are on a mission to raise interest and curiosity in our children. Teachers in Exupery preschool recognize the importance of developing technological skills in students so they will be prepared to create tomorrow`s world once they complete their studies.
We believe that technology has the power to transform how people learn. For the last step of our project, children are working on their own flying machine.
Solar System
The children from Exupéry preschool and school worked together on a common project of the Solar System.
Children were empowered and encouraged to ask their own questions, to help them to be independent thinkers and self-motivated learners. The children`s skills were combined in creativity, logical thinking, problem solving activities, social and fine motor skills.
They used imagination, promoted leadership skills and teamwork abillities in creating the planets of the Solar System with the guidance of the 4th grade students.
Primary school program (P2 - P6)
The Primary School curriculum is constructed according to the framework of the IB Primary Years Program (PYP). It focuses on the holistic development of the child as an inquirer, both in the classroom and in the world at large. It is defined by six transdisciplinary themes of global significance, which are engaged through the knowledge and skills derived from six subject areas: Math, English, Arts, Physical and Social Education, Science, and Social Studies.
Learning process
We maintain small class sizes to ensure quality learning for every student, and each class is led by a pair of experienced teachers. All classes are conducted in English. From Grade 3 onwards, the students are also offered an Intensive English Course.
As a part of the educational process, we offer strong mother tongue support and local language acquisition. Vocabulary expansion, organic language usage, and literacy are all considered priorities. In the afternoon, we provide a variety of activities to round out the students’ development and increase their interaction with English, which is the language of instruction.
| P2 | P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English (EIS Language of Instruction) | |||||
| Latvian/Russian/French as a Foreign Language | |||||
| Russian/English/Latvian | |||||
| Craft and Design | IT Strategies | |||||
| Science | Math | |||||
| Sport and Health | Social Studies | |||||
| Music | Art | |||||
| PYP Time | Ethics | Advisory | |||||
| Dance |
Middle years program (M1 - M4)
In the upper grades, EIS blends the finest of local and international curricula, covering a deep and diverse curriculum whilst meeting the requirements of locally accredited programs and international standards. Our curriculum and pastoral care is structured around learning that stimulates and inspires students to find their passions, and wrap around support enabling them to become the best version of themselves. Students develop a range of cognitive strategies to enhance their comprehension and use of Language, and our additional activity program is an intrinsic and interwoven part of life in the senior school, where students are entrusted with values of independence, scholarship, and leadership.
EIS provides highly engaging, rich, and varied lessons that allow opportunity for students to develop their skills and abilities to their maximum potential that prepares them for the challenges of the 21st century. Teachers are masters of their craft who inspire and challenge students to push their thinking, make interdisciplinary connections, and develop metacognition. With experienced teachers and small class sizes, we ensure that the strengths and goals of our students are known and supported.
Learning process
In the Middle School, we offer an International based curriculum, with the main language of instruction being English, except in language lessons. Students cultivate different modes of thinking, are innovative, learn to think critically and deeply, are reflective and analytical, and have a growth mindset. Students are provided with opportunity to take part in cooperative and independent learning, research, and presentations. Some programs are in-depth, intensive explorations of subject disciplines, while others are project based that rely on a fusion of subjects and understanding to create tangible products.
| M1 | M2 | M3 | M4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English (EIS Language of Instruction) | ||||
| Russian/English/Latvian | ||||
| Latvian/Russian/French as a Foreign Language | ||||
| Mathematics | ||||
| Art | Craft and Design | ||||
| IT Strategies | Film | ||||
| Science | Biology | ||||
| Physics | Chemistry | ||||
| Latvian and World History | Geography | ||||
| Global Perspectives | ||||
| Physical Education | PSHE |
| M5 | S1 | S2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| English First Language and Literature | |||
| Latvian First Language and Literature | |||
| Latvian | Russian as a Foreign Language | |||
| French as a Foreign Language | |||
| Russian First Language and Literature | |||
| Mathematics | |||
| Art and Design | Design and Technology | |||
| Drama and Performance | Film | |||
| IT Strategies | Computer Science | |||
| Biology | |||
| Physics | |||
| Chemistry | |||
| Global Perspectives | Global Politics | |||
| Physical Education | |||
| Online courses Psycology, Philosophy, Business, Accounting |