Looking at Schools

Do you like large schools or small schools? Are you most comfortable in a city, small town or countryside? Are you interested in attending a school that has a religious or military orientation? Would you like to attend a school that is only for boys or girls? These are the questions you must ask yourself before you begin your search for the right school for you.



Single-Sex Schools
Single-sex schools, those for boys only or girls only, are some of the oldest boarding schools in the country. As a student at one of these schools, you will have the chance to study in a less socially distracting atmosphere. For girls, single-sex schools can often provide greater opportunity to pursue leadership roles in both academic and extracurricular life.

RISS - International school in Vietnam
 
Military Schools
Military secondary schools have the same advantages as other private schools but also instill the values and importance of teamwork, dedication and discipline. Uniforms and drilling are often required.
St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, helps students overcome academic difficulties. Although the majority of students enter the academy as academic underachievers, for over a decade, 100% of the school’s graduates have been accepted to a college or university.

ESL “Bridge” Programs
“Bridge” programs, running from April until June, provide students with intensive English training as preparation for the academic year beginning in September. These classes concentrate on reading, writing and speaking as well as U.S. culture and social expectations. It’s beneficial to attend one of these programs the April or summer before you plan to enter a boarding school.

Postgraduate Programs
Many schools offer a postgraduate program, a one-year course of study for students who have finished their high school program but are not ready to enter a university. The postgraduate curriculum usually concentrates on reading, writing and mathematical skills. Foreign students can especially benefit from this program since the course of study is flexible and you can structure it around your specific academic needs.
Summer Schools & Camps

Students attend summer schools for academic credit and as a supplement to their regular academic program. Summer camps, on the other hand, specialize in outdoor recreational activities, sports, art, music and drama.
There are many summer schools and camps that offer ESL training as well as the opportunity to interact with English-speaking young people. Typically beginning at the end of June, these programs last anywhere from six to ten weeks and will provide you with a wonderful opportunity to spend your summer months learning English, making friends and experiencing U.S. culture.
Academy By The Sea has an oceanfront campus in Southern California, where students have the opportunity to surf, body board, and enjoy other water activities. The school offers a four-week program that is a balance of academics and recreation. The students take supervised, weekend excursions to nearby California area attractions, such as SeaWorld, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios, and much more.

Religious Schools
Some schools have a strong tradition founded in religion and will frequently integrate religious services and classes into their regular curriculum. Most institutions, however, welcome children from all religious backgrounds and respect their differing philosophies.

Travel Programs
Washington Academy in Maine makes use of the local environment for field trips and longer excursions. Students take a week-long ski vacation to a condo at nearby Sugarloaf resort. The school also sponsors whale-watching and sailing trips on the coast of Maine and hiking, cycling and kayaking in Acadia National Park. There are also trips to Boston and New York City.
These trips are chaperoned by faculty members and are combined with educational and recreational experiences.
Ross School near New York offers a Winter Intersession, a three-week intensive program between the winter and spring terms, usually in March. Students and teachers travel and work on group and individual projects in a wide variety of subjects to expose students to in-depth study, new interests, possible academic/career paths, volunteer opportunities and recreational pursuits. Many of these projects occur as part of travel, both abroad and within the U.S.A. For example, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, the school organized a service trip to help residents recover. This past year, Ross Intersession students traveled to Kenya to work with a boys' orphanage and a local Maasai tribe. They produced a multimedia project on the issues these groups face. On the Caribbean island of Dominica, another group planted grasses at a school cricket field to protect against erosion and learned how to carve a calabash, among many activities.

Schools with Homestays
Several schools offer a homestay option as an alternative to living in a dormitory. By living with a U.S. family you gain the comfort of a home-life and may have greater opportunity to participate in activities outside of school and within the community.

Residential Experience
At Darlington School in Georgia, life is centered on a English “house” system unique among U.S. boarding schools. Most teachers live on campus in residential Houses with their students. They form relationships with one another that last a lifetime. All teachers and boarding and day students in the Upper School are members of one of the six Houses.
The heads of each House also serve as the School’s admission officers. Students join Darlington by being admitted to one of the Houses. Student prefects manage the life in the Houses and also sit with the heads of house on the House Senate where they help to shape the rules by which everyone at the school lives.
Foxcroft Academy recently opened their new $7million student and faculty residence complex which houses 26 boys and 26 girls in spacious student rooms, the residence hall also provides quiet study rooms, passive solar energy, recreations rooms, wireless internet and a lounge with fireplace for social gatherings. The new complex also contains six faculty apartments where faculty members and their families create an atmosphere being a part of a large family.

Outdoor Opportunities
Outdoor opportunities for students at Nawa Academy in California include rockclimbing, hiking, backpacking, and river rafting. Students also visit San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Ashland, Oregon and other points of interest.
Making the most of Maine’s natural resources, Washington Academy offers a course in coastal ecology. Students explore tidal zones, wetlands, and the open Atlantic Ocean while learning about ecosystems, salmon restoration, alternative energies and forest management.
Fountain Valley School's location in the state of Colorado offers opportunities to study the unique landscape of the American West. The School's Western Immersion Program (WIP) was established to bring an interdisciplinary, experiential program to the tenth grade (ages 15-16.) the three-day program attempts to inspire students to create a "poetry of place" by becoming more intimately acquainted with the landscape of the Arkansas River Valley and Collegiate Peaks wilderness. Students utilize the outdoors as their classroom
The landscape of the school's Mountain Campus, located in the Rocky Mountains about two hours from the main campus in Colorado Springs, offers a place to explore the connections between land and people.
Classes include ecology and nature writing, environmental sculpture, and the history of Colorado's silver-mining era. Teachers and students are out in the field all day writing poetry, learning mountain ecology, seeing the human history of Leadville and creating art from natural materials. In the evenings, students and faculty gather around the fire for special presentations that relate to different aspects of the program. One evening, someone from the Pueblo Raptor Center brings in birds of prey and gives a presentation on the biology of these animals.

Work Experience
In addition its boat building program, Washington Academy offers a course in marine engines to develop working knowledge and experience in operating and repairing diesel engines with marine applications.
Service Learning and Life Experience

At several boarding schools, students perform community service as part of all aspects of school life.
The Senior Project at Ross School is the culmination of a graduating student’s learning experience. The student documents the experience of creating the project, usually in the form of an online blog, and makes a presentation. A faculty mentor works individually with each student.
Recent projects have included "Radical Flash Cards" - designing and producing a set of flash cards with photographs to aid children in learning Chinese, "East Harlem Investment Opportunity" - creating a prospectus for a property in a depressed area of New York City using the tools of investment reasoning, comparing the local real estate market with other nearby areas and choosing a local apartment building to renovate and eventually sell at a profit, and "Global Change in Water Chemistry" - research on the levels of dissolved oxygen and pH in the water as indicators of changing climate's effect on local water chemistry and its impact on global ocean health.
At The White Mountain School in New Hampshire, students volunteer at varied nonprofit agencies, retirement centers, grade schools and recycling centers. Students run clothing and toiletry drives for several homeless shelters in the state, traveling to them to deliver items and volunteer. One of the greatest successes so far has been the revival of a local soup kitchen.
For one or two days each May the school moves off campus to maintain trails, stock streams, paint walls of buildings in the community, rake campsites and clean litter.
Community Service Odysseys are intense, week-long experiences. Students spend a week working for Habitat for Humanity in Mississippi, assisting with an art exchange program in Haiti, or building chicken coops and fixing up buildings through rural community development in Central America.
Nawa Academy students often volunteer to help the local elementary school and the local park service with trail maintenance, habitat rehabilitation, watershed projects and much more.

You are finding the International school for primary education in Vietnam?
RISS - Renaissance International School Saigon. Offers from pre-school to secondary curriculum under the structure of the British system. Located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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