The winners of the International School Awards 2023 were announced during a live online event on Tuesday 24th of January. 291 applications were received this year from international schools in 61 countries including schools in Poland, the United States of America, Thailand, Belgium and China.
2023 marks the fifth year that ISC Research has hosted these awards which recognise outstanding initiatives being implemented in English-medium international schools around the world. There were ten award categories, each focusing on a fundamental aspect of international school life, including innovation and creativity in learning, ethical values in education, community partnership and the future pathways of students.
This year, the International School Awards received almost 300 nominations, the most popular category being the Innovation and Creativity in Learning Award with almost 50 nominees. An independent judging panel of 13 international education experts selected the winners.
Embedding DEIJ in a school’s strategic journey and as a continuum within all school life is an important conversation of today, and the commitment to DEIJ demonstrated within this year’s shortlisted initiatives is wholly aligned and integral to this objective. Rooting DEIJ within all international school improvement is something that ISC Research supports and for this reason, in the 2024 International School Awards and beyond, how diversity, equity, inclusion and justice is embraced within any school initiative will be a criterion in the judging of all categories. As a result, the 2023 International School Awards was the final year of including DEIJ as a stand-alone category.
Category Winners
Let’s get to it! The ten category winners this year were:
- The American School of Warsaw in Poland won the Community Partnership Award for its initiative providing support for the Ukraine community established in response to the war in Ukraine.
- British School of Bahrain won the Wellbeing Award for providing an accessible environment to improve student and staff wellbeing through the creation of a support and management programme.
- The British School of Brussels in Belgium won the Future Pathways Award for offering students the opportunity to experience a wide variety of subject choices that can lead to future success, including one-to-one mentoring, non-traditional workplace experiences and talks from school alumni and professionals.
- British International School of Houston, USA, won the DEIJ Award for its initiative which involves a school-wide auditing of curriculum offerings to ensure the representation of all stakeholders.
- International College Hong Kong (ICHK) Hong Lok Yuen won the Sustainability Award for an initiative helping children from kindergarten and primary years to take ownership for the natural world and develop an understanding of the role they play in sustainability.
- Marymount school in Barranquilla, Colombia, won the Digital Technology in Learning Award for its creation of a webtoon series, using technology to create student-friendly content for studying and to improve peer interaction and collaboration.
- North London Collegiate School Jeju in South Korea won the Safeguarding Award for its initiative to confront suicidal ideation, involving training to develop skilled intervention of school community members.
- Rugby School Thailand won the Innovation and Creativity in Learning Award for an augmented reality (AR) initiative that has developed the use of AR in extensive ways.
- Tanglin Trust School in Singapore won the Ethical Values Education Award for embedding the rights of children into the school’s ethos and culture as part of an initiative that has also achieved the Gold UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA).
- Western Academy of Beijing in China won the Strategic Leadership Award for an initiative focusing on student agency to shape the future of learning at the school, developed in collaboration with students and alumni.
Winner of the International School of the Year Award 2023
The culmination of the ceremony saw Tanglin Trust School in Singapore announced as the International School of the Year 2023. The school was selected by the judging panel for this prestigious education award for implementing two outstanding and inspiring initiatives
Clair Harrington-Wilcox, Head of Junior School and Craig Considine, CEO, attended the virtual event to accept the International School of the Year 2023 award on behalf of the school.
Sponsors for the 2023 International School Awards
The International School Awards are only possible with the support of sponsors to ensure that the awards event and platform is completely free and accessible to everybody. The category awards were sponsored by [Yellow Car], Britannica Education, Center for Responsive Schools, ClassLink, Cognia, Komodo, Royal Holloway University of London, The Safeguarding Company, Trutex and TTS Group, and the International School of the Year Award was sponsored by Pearson. We would like to say thanks to all of our sponsors of the 2023 International School Awards.
You can view a recording of the awards ceremony and learn more about the award-winning and shortlisted initiatives on the ISC Research website.
