Southbank International School is a

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

independent school An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...

located in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

and

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

, London, England. It is an

international school An international school is an institution that promotes education in an international environment or framework. Although there is no uniform definition or criteria, international schools are usually characterized by a multinational student body a ...

for 3 to 18-year olds, from

early childhood Early childhood is a stage in human development following infancy and preceding middle childhood. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterward. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood. ...

Key Stage 5 Key Stage 5 is a label used to describe the two years of education for students aged 16–18, or at sixth form, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, aligning with previous Key Stages as labelled for the National Curriculum. Key Stage 5 is also ...

. It has three campuses serving the educational needs of the international community in

central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

and surrounding areas. It is an International Baccalaureate World School, authorised to deliver all three of the IB Programmes. Southbank Hampstead and Southbank Kensington are both

International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) is an educational programme managed by the International Baccalaureate (IB) for students in grades Kindergarten to Fifth grade. While the programme prepares students for the IB Middle Y ...

("IB PYP", from

Early Childhood Early childhood is a stage in human development following infancy and preceding middle childhood. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterward. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood. ...

grade 5 Fifth grade (called Grade 5 in some regions) is a year of education in many nations, and some other regions call it Year 5. In the United States, the fifth grade is the fifth and last year of elementary school in most schools. In other schools, it ...

) schools. Southbank Westminster offers the

IB Middle Years Programme The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) is an educational programme for students between the ages of 11 to 16 around the world as part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum. Middle Year Programme is intended to pr ...

( grade 6 to 10) and the IB Diploma Programme ( grades 11 and 12). The Southbank Westminster campus occupies three sites at

Portland Place Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London. Named after the Third Duke of Portland, the unusually wide street is home to BBC Broadcasting House, the Chinese and Polish embassies, the Royal Institute of British A ...

Conway Street Conway Street is a street in the London Borough of Camden that runs from the Euston Road in the north to Maple Street in the south, being divided in the middle by Fitzroy Square in the south. The northern part of the street is crossed only by Wa ...

and Cleveland Street (by

Fitzroy Square Fitzroy Square is a Georgian square in London. It is the only one in the central London area known as Fitzrovia. The square is one of the area's main features, this once led to the surrounding district to be known as Fitzroy Square or Fitzro ...

). The school's Cleveland Street campus was the most recent to open, in September 2018.

History

Southbank International School was founded on 12 September 1979 as the American International School. It opened in September 1980 in a disused primary school on the south bank of the River Thames near

Waterloo station Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of t ...

with 80 upper school students. In line with its founding principles, the school's name was changed to Southbank American International School, following staff and pupil suggestions. In 1982 the school moved to

Eccleston Square Eccleston Square is a square in Pimlico, London. History The square dates to the 1830s, an integral part of Thomas Cubitt's planned design of "South Belgravia", which is now called Pimlico. Cubitt designed many of the houses on the square and bu ...

near Victoria Station and by 1985 a secondary section was added, and the

IB Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...

was eventually adopted. In 1987 the School's name changed again to Southbank International School. In January 1989 the School moved to the present Kensington campus, and with a growing demand for places the Hampstead campus opened in September 1996. In June 1996

MYP The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) is an educational programme for students between the ages of 11 to 16 around the world as part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum. Middle Year Programme is intended to pr ...

authorisation was achieved and this was followed in June 2000 by PYP authorisation. The Westminster campus opened in September 2003. In December 2006 the

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

based

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

Cognita Cognita is a global private schools group which owns and operates schools throughout the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, India and Chile. Between them, Cognita schools deliver eight different ...

became the major

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

s and Southbank International School became the first in Cognita's international division. Cognita subsequently ran into serious criticism of its management of Southbank International School. Robert Booth of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote that in 2009 the school "was undergoing a period of turmoil" and a vocal parental group being established to seek remedy from the school's owner Cognita in 2011.Booth, Robert.
How did one of the worst paedophiles in history get away with his crimes?
''

''. 14 June 2016. Retrieved on 20 June 2016. The group made complaints that Cognita had "no serious interest in maximising the educational experience of ... children if it impacts on their bottom line". The group were not satisfied with the group's claims that profits were in line with others in the sector. Cognita provided funding to open an IB Diploma Programme Centre on Conway Street for Grades 11 and 12 and this operates as an annexe to the main campus on Portland Place. The Conway Street building opened in August 2007 and students from the Middle School in Hampstead (grades 6, 7 and 8) joined the Westminster campus. Hampstead then became a two class entry Primary School for 3 to 11-year olds. In August 2012 Cognita acquired the Charteris Sports Centre in London as a facility for Southbank International School which is let out to the community in non-school time. In 2013, students from the school performed at the United States Academic Decathlon. Southbank's Grade 10-11 team came in ninth with a national Silver in Interview and two scholarships for academic excellence, whilst the Grade 6-9 team came in fifth and were awarded with ten national medals. In the same year, the school launched an IB Diploma Scholarship that covers 100% of tuition fees over two years. In March 2014,

William Vahey William James Vahey (May 7, 1949 – March 21, 2014) was an American expatriate schoolteacher and convicted child molester. Biography Vahey was born in 1949 at West Point, New York, to a decorated World War II pilot father. He graduated from col ...

, a teacher who had worked at the school for several years, was found dead. He had been jailed for child sex offences in California in 1969 and it is thought he had abused over 50 students at Southbank. Southbank International School was later praised by the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (of which it is a member) for the transformation of safeguarding practices and processes in the school which were deemed as "comprehensive and robust". In 2017, the school announced further expansion plans of their Westminster campus on Cleveland Street. The new campus opened in September 2018 and offers five floors of relatively open plan space. "Brutal reforms" were also put on place which by 2017 saw the replacement of 30 headteachers across Cognita's organisation. The 2018 Diploma Class achieved the highest results in the history of the school. IB Results: 3 students scored the maximum 45 out of 45 points (reached by only approximately 0.39% of the 2018 Diploma candidates); The average diploma score was 37.7; The world average is just over 29.8; 37% of students scored 40 points or higher (reached by only approximately 4.54% of candidates awarded the Diploma worldwide); 35% of students achieved a Bi-lingual diploma; The pass rate for the Diploma was 100% (Worldwide the pass rate in May 2018 was 78.2%). More recent IB Diploma results from the school can be found on here:

Controversy

was an American criminal teacher who drugged many teachers and students at the school and a number of other schools around the world. He later committed suicide.

School demographics

it had in total over 800 students in all of its campuses. As of 2020 it had over 470 students from 70 countries taking classes at the Westminster campus.Weissenstein, Michael and Tami Abdollah (

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

).
‘He ate the cookies, too’: Police search for victims of prolific pedophile who drugged students around the world before abuse
" ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

''. 13 May 2014. Updated 25 January (year unstated). Retrieved on 20 June 2016. Its students come from families that are generally very wealthy. Robert Booth of ''

'' wrote that a parent told him that the school "gave you a different understanding of wealth" and that a lawyer's family would be considered poor there; students included those from families of foreign affairs officials, hedge fund managers, managers of oil companies, and a manager of a football club.

References

External links

Official websiteInternational Baccalaureate Organization's website

The Primary Years Programme

The Middle Years Programme

The Diploma ProgrammeBBC: Southbank International School's performance between 2003 and 2006
{{authority control 1979 establishments in England Cognita Educational institutions established in 1979 Independent co-educational schools in London Independent schools in the City of Westminster Independent schools in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea International Baccalaureate schools in England International schools in London

History

Controversy

School demographics

See also

References

External links