Curriculum
From our youngest children to Grade 12 students preparing to move onto the next stage of their lives, our curriculum is designed to meet the academic, social, cultural, physical, mental and spiritual needs of our international student body.
Running like a thread for all our students, from age 3 to age 18, is our vision of combining intellectual rigour and high academic standards with the ideals of international understanding and responsible citizenship.
As a fully-authorised International Baccalaureate (IB) school, we offer the IB Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma programmes.
At ISL Qatar, we teach in English, while supporting mother tongue literacy from an early age.
Starting at age four, five lessons of mother tongue are provided each week. Current mother tongue languages include:
Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Serbian, German, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Turkish, Malay and Indonesian. We are constantly adding more languages depending on need and availability. As necessary, English as an additional language is also provided.
We take pride in promoting environmental awareness, encouraging students to be responsible citizens and caretakers of our limited natural resources.
There’s a similar focus on health and social education topics, including our ISL Qatar community service programmes, devised to help students develop a sense of social justice, service and compassion.
Primary Years Programme (IB PYP)
We believe in inspiring children to love learning. Our primary children, aged 3 - 10, learn through a structured programme designed to pique their natural curiosity and give them a sense of identity.
Students explore ‘big ideas’ with global significance and work on engaging, relevant, challenging and significant learning experiences.
They make sense of the world around them by asking questions, exploring and interactive with the environment.
Each child learns according to their own abilities and learning style and is encouraged to take responsibility for their learning.
Throughout the school, we promote international mindedness and strive to develop students who are active inquirers and lifelong learners.
Within the PYP, we offer an Early Childhood Programme for children aged 3 - 5, as follows:
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - 7:40 am to 2:15 pm
Tuesday - 7:40 am to 12:20 pm
With plenty of time to explore, investigate and play with a variety of materials, children learn about themselves, other people and the world around them.
Learning is done indoors and outside, with spaces for pre-reading, pre-writing, art, construction, maths and imaginative play. Our teachers introduce the children to science and technology, as well as putting strong emphasis on social and emotional development.
Middle Years Programme (IB MYP)
Moving through the school, our 11-16 year olds are ready for a broad, balanced and challenging framework of academic study and life-skills. The programme is designed specifically for early adolescents, encouraging them to make practical connections between their studies and the world beyond the classroom. It builds upon the skills and learning developed in the PYP and prepares students well to undertake the DP.
Our approach encourages all children to explore their learning by questioning deeply and sharing their thinking with each other. Throughout the school, we focus on developing creative, critical and reflective thinking skills, giving students opportunities to develop a growing awareness of themselves and others as they face a rapidly changing world.
The programme connects classroom pedagogical practices and content to the wider world through six Global Contexts and the Learner Profile.
The International Baccalaureate Diploma
Our parent school, the International School of London, was an early pioneer in offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma and has more than 40 years of success with the programme.
Here at ISL Qatar, we benefited from the London model and in only five years, we’ve produced outstanding results, above world average, making us a leader in the region.
This internationally-recognized, pre-university course is accepted by almost every country in the world for university entrance.
The two-year programme has earned a reputation for rigorous assessment and equipping students with the skills and attitudes they’ll need to succeed in higher education and employment.
ISL schools have a proud record of launching students into their higher education at universities around the world.
