In photo are CIS’ graduates, (from the left) Nicholas Hennessy, Julie Park, Marielle Montenegro, Flora Kwon, and Phil June Choi.
Since Cebu has increasingly become a center for international business, its schools – as in the rest of the Philippines – have retooled themselves for more globally-ready graduates, thus the K-12 program now in place.
The Cebu International School (formerly the American School) is turning 90 and has produced graduates that are dispersed all over the world.
According to the Cebu International School (CIS), the institution of learning “follows a curriculum that is informed by the principles of the International Baccalaureate with students exemplifying attributes of the IB Learner Profile. It prepares students for the IB Diploma at grades 11 and 12. It exposes students to a range of regional, national and global contexts and provides opportunities for students to use higher order thinking. Each subject taught provides students with knowledge, skills and understandings. It is a broad, rich and balanced curriculum”.
The IB Diploma core includes The Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge, and CAS (Creativity, action, service).
Nicolas Michael Hennessy, one of the graduates, describes his experience in Mandarin class : “Passing my second semester Mandarin Ab-Initio Exam was a great accomplishment for me. It allowed me to realize that if I tried then I can pull through even if the task that I would like to pull through is something that is hard…. But after seeing that I had managed to pass I was able to see that if I placed my mind to it then I can do it. Studying hard is the only way to succeed in something you aren’t good at and never giving up is another way to improve yourself. “
These year’s graduates (graduation set on June 6) are either going abroad or staying on. In Hennessy’s case, he has acceptances to Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, and to Bangor, Coventry, and Oxford Brookes Universities in the United Kingdom.