“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. 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 students study, learn, and play in an intercultural environment, developing 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 understanding different cultures, nationalities, opinions, and beliefs.
Clear communication is paramount to our school’s success and acts as the foundational structure to enhance and strengthen the “Golden Triangle” – the key student-parent-teacher relationship, which pumps oxygen, blood, and energy through our campus, creating a 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 makeshift 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 and beyond 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 reign, 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 on 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 our students will learn through their MIS journey embed this notion and very much represent our overriding 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 emergence of web 3.0 technology, we have no excuse to feel isolated and 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, which started with MIS becoming officially accredited by Cambridge International Education in October 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
