Island Pacific School

Teaching Philosophy

At IPS we like to put the “why” before the “how”. As an independent school, Island Pacific School is, first and foremost, a middle school that is explicitly designed to enrich and activate that crucial transition between the innocent curiosity of elementary school and the more mature reflections of advanced learning. Our purpose at Island Pacific School as leading education providers, therefore, is to enable our students to make the best use of these years, that is to equip and inspire them to express the very best of what it is to be a human being. Everything we do at the school — from the way we teach our courses to the extra challenges we give our students — is designed with this end in mind. We operate, as such, on the basis of the following principles: That the middle years are a crucial transition time where we can either lose students, or set them up for the rest of their lives That education encompasses both intellectual inquiry and the development of character That teaching is, in part, a matter of initiating students into the great conversations of human inquiry That schools must not insult the intelligence of the young, but instead must stretch and challenge them on all fronts That students need real and special opportunities to take responsibility for themselves That small schools are powerful sites in which to create an intentional educational community That our essential job, as education providers, is to equip and inspire students to cultivate their humanity