Greetings from our Principal
“Our Students at MIS get to experience a truly global education, within a supportive, growing, intercultural community, set amongst the backdrop of gorgeous beaches, rugged landscapes and a unique and vibrant Sasak culture.”
Welcome to our official Mandalika Intercultural School (MIS) website, which offers a small but powerful insight into our vibrant and growing MIS community.
Since I arrived in Lombok with my wife and four children, I have been humbled and amazed by the sheer warmth and kindness of those we have met, and as you walk through our new state-of-the-art school campus and peer into our classrooms, you see and feel what the country we are living and learning in represents – Bhinneka Tunggal Ika – unity in diversity.
Our student’s study, learn and play in an intercultural environment, developing the 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. Our parents and families are from all around the world. We respect and celebrate our differences with enthusiasm and interest and are always open minded to innerstand different cultures, nationalities, opinions and beliefs.
Clear communication is paramount to our school’s success and acts as the foundational structure to enhancing and strengthening the “Golden Triangle”, the key student-parent-teacher relationship, which pumps oxygen, blood and energy through our campus, creating positive impact and service that resonates outwards to our local community
In truth, MIS is a very young school. It has indeed come a long way since it was seeded in a make shift garden and guest house in 2016. Securing investment in 2020 and 2021, a new multi-functional, state of the art campus was constructed and opened at the end of 2022. Through the many global and local challenges our MIS family has faced and recovered from, 2023 marks the next exciting phase in our school’s growth and development.
While we live in a world where global news shudders from within our pockets, where uncertainty and anxiety reigns, our world (if we choose to perceive it) still contains many gifts and much certainty. We are still very much the authors of our lives. We live in a wonderful tropical island, we have a beautiful new school campus, we have a plethora of qualified, kind, caring and passionate teachers and we have a growing intercultural community of young families.
Without a doubt we must appreciate this great privilege that now comes before us. Our school, our teachers and our students must grab and take advantage of this first-class opportunity to learn, grow and develop into ultimately a person who can be of service to others in a world that truly needs it. Reaching for a better world and the values that are students will learn through their MIS journey embeds this notion and very much represents our over-riding school philosophy.
My career in educational leadership (much like our school) is young, but with a background in innovation and entrepreneurship I come with fresh perspectives and a passion and willingness to fuse and take advantage of both traditional and non-traditional methods of pedagogy. We may be on a tropical island, but we are in the digital age of the 21st century, and with the imminent immergence of web 3.0 technology, we have no excuse to feel isolated an unable to reach and access cutting edge, international best practices and worldwide accredited qualifications for our students.
“Yes we are a young school, but we are learning and growing fast!”
It is therefore my responsibility, working alongside my senior leadership team to make this all happen. That is why we have created and are now pursuing a rigorous and ambitious school improvement plan that includes attaining international Cambridge accreditation across our whole school by the end of 2023. This will help to strengthen our curriculum and teaching practices and most importantly allow our oldest students to pursue an academic track that will allow them to access higher education, universities and college courses all-over the world.
It is thus an extremely exciting time for the MIS family. Lots of hard work to be completed, many challenges to be faced, but in true MIS spirit we will learn, we will grow and we will do it!
Enjoy exploring the rest of our MIS website, I hope you are inspired and may one day come and visit us!
Bhinneka Tunggal Ika!
Pak Chris, Principal
Mandalika Intercultural School