Australian International School Singapore
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The Australian International School Singapore (AISS) is a co-educational international school in Singapore. The school is divided into preschool, primary and secondary sections. Final year students take the New South Wales Board of Studies Higher School Certificate examinations.
The school opened in 1993 with 32 students and 7 teachers. By the end of that year, its enrolment had grown to over 200. Today the school has around 1700 students and around 100 staff. The school is owned and operated by Cognita, an independent schools company based in the UK. The student body comprises over 40 nationalities, with the vast majority coming from Australia and New Zealand. Very few Singaporean students attend the school as the Singapore government's regulations prevent most of its citizens from attending international schools within the country. The student and teacher body change regularly, as is often the case for international schools catering primarily to an expatriate community. Most students and staff stay for around 2-3 years. Few staff members and students have stayed at the school for more than 10 years, and no staff member has been employed by the school since its establishment.
The primary and secondary schools are run virtually independently, as is the pre-school. Each sub-school has its own block of classrooms and its own teachers (except for physical education and music). The pre-school, led by a director, is almost completely separate from the rest of the school. A deputy principal is in charge of each of the sub-schools.
The current principal is Peter Bond, formerly of Balwyn High School, who started his tenure in 2002, following the departure of the founding principal Coral Dixon. Bond's tenure has seen a modernisation of the school, particularly in the realm of Information Technology, as well as the move to the new, purpose-built campus.
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[edit] Campus
The school's original campus was at Mount Sophia, the former campus of the Methodist Girls' School. It rapidly outgrew the facilities available there, and in 1994 it moved to Emerald Hill when Singapore Chinese Girls' School moved out. After three years, space again became tight and in 1997 the school moved to Ulu Pandan, where it took over the larger campus formally occupied by the Singapore American School.
In July 2003, the school moved to a new purpose-built, permanent campus at Lorong Chuan. Facilities at the new campus include a theatre, a special soundproof examination room, a 25-metre swimming pool, three tennis courts, two indoor gymnasiums, one small outdoor basketball court, and the 'School Oval', a multi-purpose sports field.
The campus was officially opened in a ceremony in September 2003, attended by the then-Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, John Anderson, and Singapore's then-Acting Minister for Education, Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
In 2006, the Singapore government granted permission to the Australian International School, for extensive expansion. The new site, adjacent to the existing school at Lorong Chuan, will hold a purpose built Preschool to Year 2 (ages 3-7) school. Current plans include an additional infants library, hall, playground areas, computer labs and clusters of classrooms built around pods. Students will move into this new campus on July 21, 2008, the start of Term 3.
Interviews are currently underway for a new Principal, as the current Head of Primary, Noel Hurley, is due to leave mid-2008.
[edit] System
Primary school: Years 1 - 6
Secondary school: Years 7 - 9
Senior years: Years 11 - 12
As of mid-2008, Year 6 students will be permanently moved to the Secondary School.
[edit] International Baccalaureate
AISS currently runs the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP), and the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP). It has been an IB school since November 2007. A decision is yet to be made on whether the school should apply to offer the IB Diploma Programme at some point in the future.
