International schools

[LucyHannah1983]

Hi I have a bit of a niche question re. how international schools are run.
We live abroad and send our daughter to an international school that has recently opened. We have a few issues with the school, however there is no governing body. As a teacher from the UK I find this strange what are other people’s experiences with their international schools?

Thanks

That does sound odd. My children are at a NFP international school in Asia and it has a board of governors comprising parents of children at the school. As far as I'm aware, all international schools here have them. Possibly not if they're a for profit school though.

If it is an IB school there may be certain requirements associated with the curriculum but many countries may not regulate locally, especially in non compulsory age groups.

There are different types of international school. Firstly the language of instruction and curriculum. Secondly what country that cirrocumulus comes from.

You can have schools that run the English curriculum (specifically English, rare to be any other U.K. nation) and are inspected by English inspectors. But you can have other schools that are English schools, running the curriculum, but not registered so no inspections made.

The latter tend to be cheaper than the former. The latter tend to have owners and principals who are focussed on income over quality, from what I've seen. Obviously schools need money to run, but this sort of school rarely appears to have governors.

From what I've seen, it takes about 5 years for a brand new school to really be established and judgments made on how good it is, although obviously it can be either great or terrible in the interim too.

It depends. Is it a not for profit, a big name school, or owned by a local? All very different set ups, and there's good and bad things about all of them. It also depends on where it is in the world and who it's inspected or acreditted by. If there's any more information you can share I could be more helpful.

You give very little away in your post, so hard to comment.
What tier is the school? All tier 1 schools will have aboard of governors and are normally a part of a family of school (or course there is exceptions like Alice Smith).
Is the school a member of FOBISIA (or tour continent version)?

Does sound a bit odd from what you are saying, are they a full accredited school; what exam board do they use?

The not for profit my kids attend does not have a governing body. It has a board - they are mostly parents. Looking at the school and how it functions from a high level.
If you have an issue you would go to the director of the school - of course that isn’t so straightforward as they may not agree with the issue you raise.
They are accredited by various organizations- and have to go through an accreditation proceeds ever so often