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Why We're Unique
The RISS takes pride in emphasizing the importance of internationalism not only in the diploma programmes we offer, but also in the day to day lives of our students.
All students learn Dutch and have the opportunity to study French and Spanish during the Foundation years. Once the students are in the IGCSE programme they continue with their Dutch studies and very often sit the IGCSE examination for their own languages!
It is a cornerstone of the RISS' education policy to encourage students to sit their own language examinations and we're extremely proud of our exceptional results in this area.
The IGCSE Programme includes ESL (English as a Second Language) to encourage our EAL students to continue to develop their English language skills and, where viable, sit their own language exam for their certifcate programme. Presently we have students taking ESL and studying their own language in Chinese, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, Korean, Japanaese and Portuguese.
At the IB Diploma level, we have introduced the English 'B' course so EAL students may study their own language as their 'A' language and study English as their 'B' language. This provides the students with an excellent opportunity to not only receive an IB Bilingual Diploma (thus acknowledging their own language skills), but also enables them to maximize their overall results.
This opportunity recognizes that their English language skills may impede them from achieving the results they would have obtained if they had been learning in their own language.
Over the past few years, studying Dutch at RISS has enabled a large proportion of our students to go on to universities and institutions of higher learning in the Netherlands! In other words, we are producing truly international students.
Our students study in English, learn the host nation's language (Dutch), continue to develop their own language skills and ultimately receive bilingual IB Diplomas in English and their own language and/or Dutch as well! This is what we are so proud of at our school … developing a student to meet the rigours of life in the twenty-first century!
In 2005, RISS expanded its portfolio with the start of the Rotterdam International Language Centre (RILC). With 85% of our families speaking a language other than English at home, RISS wanted to facilitate communication between its staff and our students' families.
Today, the centre offers a wide variety of English courses that are not only attended by RISS parents, but by parents from the Wolfert van Borselen Bilingual programme, the international primary school (the Bllijberg International Department) and the community at large. In 2006 the centre began offering lessons in Dutch.
We are proud to say that we not only graduate outstanding RISS students, but we very often graduate their parents and members of the Rotterdam community, as well, through our very own RILC!
Continuing to serve the community, the centre, in 2007, began providing consultancy services to Dutch schools planning to introduce English into their curriculum as part of a new approach to bilingual education in the greater Rotterdam area.
We take pride in the fact that we work with the wider Rotterdam community to promote internationalsim through a variery of activities within the world which is the RISS!
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About RISS
