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Vision & Values

Our founders, Mr Poularis and Mr Speed, opened their first school in 1967 with a bold ambition to create a genuinely caring, engaged community with a strong sense of its role in the lives of the local and global families it served.

From those early beginnings, the core principles of community, positive change, excellence and internationalism continue to guide ACS today.

An ACS education has at its heart the idea of readiness: When they leave ACS, our students face the world as effective, confident and caring individuals who are ready to act, lead, care and change the world.

At the highest level, our purpose is to inspire the world’s next global thinkers and doers. As we look to the future, ACS remains as true to its international education roots now as ever.

Expected School-wide Learning Results (ESLRS)

By working to achieve the ESLRs, we build the knowledge, understanding, skills and dispositions that prepare our students to make a difference. This means that every ACS International Schools student is becoming:

An Effective Learner

Directing their own learning with focus and curiosity
Using a range of languages and media
Working with others for a common purpose
Using creativity and imagination to address big questions
Pursuing individual interests with enthusiasm and determination.

A Confident Individual

Navigating challenges with confidence and courage
Addressing personal physical, emotional and social well-being
Acting ethically and demonstrating personal integrity
Focusing on the positive in thought and action
Learning and growing through experiences and relationships.

A Caring Contributor

Considering the world, their ideas and experiences
Building respectful relationships with people different from oneself
Making positive contributions to individuals and communities
Modelling ethical global citizenship
Sustaining the ecological systems and resources that support life.

Education Strategy

ACS’s Education Strategy describes general intentions which reflect the desired position for our schools in 2025. Its principal objective is to increase the unique quality and value of the ACS educational experience. Through the strategy’s implementation, we will position the group to respond directly and creatively to geopolitical volatility in our markets and uncertainty in the premium independent international school sector.

The strategy aims to deepen an already solid foundation, driving key innovations that set a stage from which we can choose how to extend our impact into the future.

Over the next five years, the Education Strategy intends to deliver significant change, including:

a sharper focus on inspirational teaching that continually improves academic results
demonstrated public benefit and global competence through a greater range of educational experiences
an expanded and carefully-monitored notion of what it means to belong to a healthy international learning community
equitable, distinctive, and systematically implemented support for all students to achieve challenging educational goals.

The strategy and its development are true to our “DNA”: an education hallmarked by quality, community, and internationalism.

Read the full Education Strategy in our Approach to Learning

ACS Core Values

ACS has five values that everyone working at ACS is committed to living and working by, to ensure we deliver the aims and ambitions we hold for each other and for our students.

We have high standards and expect each other to meet and exceed them.

We look for innovative solutions and explore new ideas.

We act with kindness, transparency and compassion.

We believe every person has unique contributions to make to each other and to the world.

We collaborate eagerly, with each other, with our partners, and with local and global communities.