1st International School of Ostrava: Unique in Czech Education

STYL 1st International School of Ostrava – Unique in Czech Education For sixteen years in Northern Moravia, there has been a unique international school for the 21st century which provides education not only for Czechs but also for foreigners. The specifics of this education we discussed with its director, Mgr. Ivo Helebrant What is the fundamental difference between your school and others? What makes you unique? Our mission is to prepare students for real life so that they act responsibly and are successful in today’s world. The road to this goal is long, full of pitfalls, challenges, new experiences, where the student develops personally, socially and professionally and gradually acquires a portfolio of essential competencies and skills. We consider these aspects to be the meaningful content of modern education, where the student is given space, opportunities and incentives for learning and development. Our uniqueness certainly lies in the international environment, because we have students and teachers from more than fifteen countries and also teach most subjects directly in English. The influences of different cultures, ideas, attitudes, values ​​ and communication in a foreign language, as well as in the humanities and sciences, bring students opportunities to apply around the world in all fields. We constantly lead students to active citizenship. What do we mean by active citizenship? Active citizenship leads pupils through their own teaching, special workshops, school clubs or other non-formal education programmes (e.g. the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award) to realize their role in society, their civic responsibilities and opportunities to influence events and the environment around them and the development and support of the local community. The student develops his or her soft skills in real situations or projects—communication, creativity, cooperation, critical thinking. The latter is very typical for our school—we intensively lead students to develop critical thinking and understanding of the context. Your school is also accredited in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB DP). What makes this program stand out? IB DP is a highly academically demanding two-year program for high school students. For both years, the student studies six selected subjects across the curriculum (mother tongue, one required foreign language (English), mathematics, one humanities, one science subject and one elective which our students are required to select as 92 ǀ POSITIV 4/2021 an addition foreign language), in addition to three areas that are formally non-existent in Czech education—writes a professional essay on a selected topic, discusses and defends the subject Theory of Knowledge and performs extracurricular activities and develops informally in an area called Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS). The study takes place only in English, including final exams, and the student will receive a second high school diploma in addition to the Czech Matura exam. Both are beneficial for admission to universities in the Czech Republic and abroad. Who provides this certainly challenging lesson? What is the composition of your teaching staff? Our school consists mainly of Czech teachers with excellent knowledge of English, which we support in their professional development, especially in the field of critical thinking, support for creativity and experiential learning, the use of information technology in teaching and planning, the use of project teaching. It should be noted that many of them have worked abroad for several years or are continuing their education there, offering high quality teaching together with teachers from other countries. Your school has been providing education for sixteen years. What do you consider the greatest success? It is a certain specificity in the Czech Republic and some other countries that private schools have a derogatory label and for years we have had to prove that you can learn differently and that our graduates are often more successful in their professional lives than graduates of public Czech schools. Few people doubt that today. We receive the recognition of the professional public—the University of Ostrava, People in Need, the International Program of the Duke of Edinburgh, Erasmus +, and the Czech School Inspectorate. Many of our teachers are trainers and mentors for other organizations. And we also appreciate that we have been able to break through the fact that we are not just a language grammar school, but that a foreign language is a tool for learning about the world and more and more graduates are heading to science or technology, where they become English professors. They control it perfectly. Dear headmaster, thank you for the interview.