Applications are open for September 2026! 🚀
Applications are open for September 2026! 🚀
Really? You are actually taking your child out of school? But what about their social life? And what about their high school diploma? What if they don’t like learning online?
Such are the questions and looks of disbelief we have had to face as parents, when making the decision to take our children out of traditional, brick and mortar school and into a new, progressive, online school (ÌÇÐÄAPP). For both my girls, this decision was not taken lightly, and we involved them in every step of the way.
With a British mother, a French father and living in Chile, my children already stand apart from most people we know. Our stories are different, our family meals and traditions are different and our cultural references are, for the most part, different from our Chilean neighbours and friends. Even after spending 16 years in Chile, with our children born and growing up here, we still feel as though we don’t completely fit in. The children are trilingual and have travelled extensively, visiting many countries in Europe where we have family and friends. This in and of itself is unusual, compared with the Chilean community where we live.
Not believing in traditional school systems, wanting something more liberal and learner-oriented, and, very importantly (particularly from the French perspective), not wanting our children to wear uniforms, we initially opted for a Montessori preschool and primary school for our kids. A small community, with an ecological ethos and solid foundation in learner-led learning, albeit with questionable infrastructure. This decision already caused some raised eyebrows and questions from our families. Were they learning what they should be learning at their age? How come they couldn’t read yet when the children of friends in the UK were already sitting exams? And what about their handwriting? How could it be that they could choose what they wanted to work on during their school day? What if they never chose to work with numbers? Surely they were ‘falling behind’ on their educational journey.
As a parent, one always seeks the best option for one’s kids, but sometimes making the ‘right’ decision can be challenging. I often question myself – perhaps we should have put them into one of the top private schools, where they would learn a set curriculum and be evaluated to a set standard. Perhaps they needed to be somewhere where the infrastructure was better, a bigger school, where after-school activities were an integral part of the school day. Perhaps they needed to go to a school more like the one I went to, while growing up in Belgium; a K-12 European School with 2000 pupils on roll.
But when I really explored these thoughts, I started to consider what I had experienced growing up. The impact of being a young person in a big school, where you were measured by your academic achievement and where reputation preceded you. Sure, I learnt well, by international standards, gaining a broad, European Baccalaureate, but was I ever encouraged to explore and find my talents? I followed the path well trodden, unquestioningly applying to University, ticking all the right boxes, but was I really happy? I did what was expected of me and explored some interests, such as drama and a few artistic endeavours, but always struggled socially, with little to no support system. A small fish in a very big pond. Did I really wish that for my kids? The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I did not. I wanted them to feel safe and secure, to explore their interests and discover their talents. I wanted them to take their time and not feel pressured to reach a certain expected standard because their age dictated it. And so the small, local Montessori school seemed like a good option.
Until it wasn’t. At a primary school level, they enjoyed having the liberty to choose what area they wanted to work on each day, in multi-level classes. But as they moved into middle school and then towards high school, they started to want something more. They wanted to be challenged academically, and they were tired of the small community and poor infrastructure. We began to explore our options, and realised that we had few which we felt comfortable with. Either we went down the private school route, with all that that entails – the school uniforms and the standardization and the molding of young people into defined roles in society.
As a sidenote, 50% of graduates from one of the top private schools here go on to study medicine and another 20% goes on to study law – well-respected and arguably successful career choices, to be sure, but statistically speaking, surely there should be a wider variety of career choices and interests? Having 70% of learners choose similar high-achieving further education choices suggests that these young people are being molded into a certain type of socially acceptable and financially-driven citizen. Where are the free-thinkers, the creatives and the problem-solvers? As a society, what sort of professionals will we need in the future? Of course, we’ll always need the medics and the lawyers, but we’ll also need those who can adapt to change, who can innovate and tackle global issues.
The other brick and mortar options open to us were the municipal, state schools. With 45 learners to a class and school infrastructures no better, or even worse, than their existing school, this did not seem like a viable option. It pains me to say it, as someone who believes in equitable learning for all, but, unfortunately, this is just not a reality for us in Chile and many other countries too – but this is a whole other discussion.
And so this leads me on to how we chose ÌÇÐÄAPP for our girls. As the Chief Learning Officer, I clearly have a bias. I joined the school in October 2021, after my eldest daughter participated in the first online summer school. At the time, we were still in lock-down and she was disillusioned with the online schooling she had experienced during the pandemic. And she was withdrawn from her social life.
Joining an international cohort of learners and being challenged to think differently and consider global issues and what she could do to tackle them, brought her out of her darkness and gave her the spark she needed to re-engage with the world. A keen rower from her pre-pandemic years, she had given up on this sporting activity, not seeing the point in maintaining her physical activity from the confines of the home. But as she began to switch on again, thanks to her summer school experience, so she realized that she missed rowing and decided to re-join her club. As we finally came out of lockdown in August 2021, this decision was to be a defining moment in her life, as she has gone on to be selected to row in the Chilean national junior team, representing Chile in international competitions. Not to mention the important role this has played on her social life as she has formed a solid network of friends from her rowing club. Her younger sister soon followed in her footsteps, joining the rowing club and also forming strong friendships with her rowing companions.
It soon transpired that the importance and significance of the social life from rowing was greater than the social bonds formed over years at their Montessori school. In short, if they were to leave that school and opt for online learning, which seemed to be best choice available to us, based on the reasons outlined above, their in-person social life would not be impacted.
And so, as ÌÇÐÄAPP prepared to launch its pioneering high school in September 2022, our eldest daughter signed up. This was the result of much discussion, comparing options, expectations and risks. Yes, it required a certain leap of faith – we were diving into the unknown, but knew that she needed the academic challenge and the global nature of the school spoke to her natural curiosity of engaging with people from around the world. Having already generated a strong network of friends through the summer school, she knew it was possible to connect and bond with people, even through a virtual context.
Our second daughter, inspired by her big sister’s experience and also disillusioned with her in-person schooling, where she faced rowdy class environments which she found difficult to concentrate in, decided to also try out ÌÇÐÄAPP by signing up for the Summer School. This gave her the opportunity to ‘test the waters’ and see if she took to this way of learning. She did. And so, when she graduated from middle school she also joined the ÌÇÐÄAPP High School and has not looked back. In fact, she is thriving.
Let’s unpack that for a moment – why is she thriving? ÌÇÐÄAPP follows a synchronous schedule (around 50% of the schedule) and an asynchronous, self-paced learning component (the other 50% of the schedule). Each term learners choose a challenge to work on, either STEM-oriented or Humanities-oriented. They participate in interactive and engaging workshops where they collaborate with peers from around the world, which are both socially and culturally enriching. In addition, learners follow a quant curriculum, pathway advisory sessions and a flourishing curriculum, where they learn to pursue and value their own flourishing journeys. This helps them to grow and develop as individuals and as global citizens. For their self-paced learning, the learners can choose from a wide range of skill units (independent learning modules aligned with the Human Literacies Framework, the school’s bespoke curriculum), which they work through in their own time, meaning they need to learn to manage their schedules and hold themselves accountable for submitting their assignments in time.
For Gwen (my youngest daughter), this learning journey has not been without its challenges. She sometimes struggles with the open-ended nature of the program, especially when she needs to choose a problem-statement to base her project work on. She can sometimes feel overwhelmed when she has to organize her time, especially as she is a high-performance athlete and trains for 2 hours every day. And yet, she has figured it out. And she is inspired by what she is learning. She has developed skills that she was never pushed to explore before, such as teaching herself how to make a stop-motion movie to illustrate the struggle faced by indigenous environmental activists in Latin America, and exploring how her rowing journey is affected by and has an impact on her emotional wellbeing. She does sometimes question what she is learning at ÌÇÐÄAPP, as she compares herself to her friends in Chile, who attend traditional schools – her concern being that they are not learning the same thing. But at the same time, she recognises that the education she is getting is pushing her to become her own self, capable to critcally evaluating what she reads and sees, to communicate across differences, to collaborate with people from around the world and to develop a wonderfully creative mindset.
As our eldest daughter, Emily, has moved into the advanced program (Grades 11 & 12), so her focus is moving towards her post-graduation pathways. She will graduate from ÌÇÐÄAPP with a transcript from an accredited online international school (ÌÇÐÄAPP is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges). While this may not be recognized in Chile, it is recognized across the US and other countries. She may choose to sit her SAT exams, too, to ensure that she is fully prepared, with all the necessary ‘grades’ for applying to university. As Emily is on the Chilean junior national rowing team, she needs to split her time between her studies and her training. In fact, when training for big competitions, such as the Panamerican Games, she has needed to spend a lot of her time away at training camps. With the personalised and flexible approach at ÌÇÐÄAPP, she has been able to accomodate this by working asynchronously on her project work and skill units, fitting her studies around her training. Her facilitator meets with her regularly to provide 1-1 support and mentorship. This is an opportunity which she would not have had with a traditional school, where she likely would have had to repeat the year.
As learners at ÌÇÐÄAPP, options are open to them, and as I often like to say, there is no golden book of rules which states that you must have chosen your career by the time you are 18. Better to take your time, explore your interests, take the necessary steps to work towards your dreams. Having received an international education, with networks of friends and educators stretching across 32 countries, their horizons have grown and the world is their oyster. We are not sure yet what the future holds for them (or for their little brother, who has recently joined a forest school – again, a whole other story) but feel confident that they are gaining the skills and competencies they’ll need to navigate it to the best of their abilities, with a skill set on point and primed to adapt and cope with whatever life throws at them.
