Marymount International School Barranquilla
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| Marymount International School Barranquilla | |
| Image:Marymount logo.gif | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Barranquilla, Colombia | |
| Information | |
| Students | 1323 |
| Faculty | 431 |
| Type | private |
| Motto | Salus, spes, Consolation, nostra (Latin:"Safety, hope, encouragement, ours" |
| Color(s) | Blue and White |
| Established | 1953 |
Marymount International School of Barranquilla [1] (also referred to simply as "Marymount" or "MMI") is a private, co-educational, Catholic school catering to students from Early Childhood to Grade 12 (aged 3-19) located in Barranquilla, Colombia. It operates on the American school system, participating and being an exam center for the region on SAT and PSAT exams.
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[edit] History and Overview
Founded in 1953 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Marymount is a private Catholic school and is located in a beautiful residential section of the city of Barranquilla. Originally a school for girls, Marymount, opened a section for boys in 1981. Boys now form approximately one third to one half of each academic group throughout the school.
Marymount has an average enrollment of 1300 students served by a faculty and staff numbering over 180. The main campus houses the administration and library building, the primary school, the elementary school, junior and senior high school, limited sports facilities, and a modern chapel and auditorium building. The Preschool facilities (Nursery, Pre-Kinder, Kinder and Transition), and a free tuition school ("Escuelita/Little School") are located across the street. Marymount has extended sports facilities on a 44-hectare piece of land approximately 20 minutes from the main campus, called the "Promised Land"; this is where the whole school will move at a future date.
Colegio Marymount is a Colombian school, subject to the directives and frequent supervision of the Colombian Ministry of Education at each level. Since 99% of our students speak Spanish at home, the preschool has adopted a total English immersion program for the first years of school. Approximately 99% of the primary and elementary school curriculum is taught in English using textbooks printed in the States. Each grade level has three to four class divisions with 19 to 27 students per group.
Through extra class hours and intensified college preparation programs, completely bilingual graduates receive the Colombian Bachillerato Diploma, the Marymount High School diploma, the Marymount Principles of Office Management Diploma, the University of Michigan English Proficiency Certificate, and the French Alliance Certificate. Students in the upper grades take standardized tests including the PSAT, SAT, TOEFL, ELPT, and ICFES (Colombia's version of the SAT). 100% Marymount's graduates enter colleges and universities in Colombia, USA, and Europe.
It has been ranked for many years as Barranquilla's top private school. It has for many consecutive years gained the highest results in SAT, TOEFL, and ICFES exams in the City of Barranquilla and the Caribbean Region of Colombia
[edit] Model United Nations
It has become a national leader with Barranquilla's Model United Nations (BAMUN). This program offers students the opportunity to improve their public speaking, their analytical thinking, and their leadership skills. It provides future leaders with the exciting opportunity to assume roles and duties of international policy makers, thus widening the participants’ view of the world and providing them with a deeper understanding of globalization.
[edit] Harvard University Influence
Marymount’s teaching methodologics are coherent with the pedagogical approach of the “Teaching for Understanding” Project Zero of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Project Zero’s mission is to understand and improve learning, thinking, and creativity in both the humanistic and the scientific disciplines, at an individual and institutional level. This pedagogical approach defines “understanding” as “the ability to apply knowledge in new situations”. It consists of teaching by processes that seek to develop critical, creative, and meta-cognitive thinking, and the ability to solve problems. Its prime goal is to have individuals understand the thinking processes so well that they can apply them in different disciplines and/or situations of their professional and personal life.
