Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 2 ...

International School (known locally as the International School or WIS) is an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

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 ...

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 an ...

located in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ...

. The school provides education from Early Years 1 through to Grade 12. It offers the

IB 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 ...

and

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 ...

as well as the

International General Certificate of Secondary Education The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) is an English language based examination similar to GCSE and is recognised in the United Kingdom as being equivalent to the GCSE for the purposes of recognising prior attainme ...

. As an IB World School it is the only school in Namibia to offer

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Di ...

programmes and is the one of the first schools worldwide to be authorised to offer these programmes. The school also boasts an international community of students from 45 different countries. Unlike other schools in Namibia, the International School's school year runs from mid-August to mid-June.

History

The Windhoek International School was founded by the Nielsen family in 1990, the same year Namibia achieved independence. The family were working for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

in Windhoek and wanted to establish a school whose ethos was openness, free expression, democratic values and international understanding. At its inception the school had no campus and shared campuses with other schools. The School moved into purpose-built facilities in 1994.

Campus

The Windhoek International School campus is exceptionally large compared to other schools in Windhoek. The unique shape and layout of the structures were designed to resemble that of an African Village. The classrooms, labs and other buildings are arranged in clusters of green-roofed

hexagonal In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' ha ...

buildings. These clusters are distributed over a wide area and connected by bricked paths covered mostly by

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a ...

shading. The campus includes on-site sports facilities including a

football pitch A football pitch (also known as soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is typically made of natural t ...

and a smaller grass field which is used for volleyball and other sports, a PE hall with an indoor basketball court and athletics and gymnastics equipment, an outdoor

half court Half-court is a term used in basketball for the middle of the court. A half court shot taken from the half-court, referred to as a half-court shot, is a shot taken from beyond the 3-pointer line as defined by a semicircular line before the 2-pointe ...

for

streetball Streetball (or street basketball) is a variation of basketball, typically played on outdoor courts and featuring significantly less formal structure and enforcement of the game's rules. As such, its format is more conducive to allowing players ...

and a tennis court which also serves as an outdoor basketball court. It has a library, an IT lab with more than 20 computers and science labs with advanced scientific equipment for students studying experimental sciences at

IGCSE The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) is an English language based examination similar to GCSE and is recognised in the United Kingdom as being equivalent to the GCSE for the purposes of recognising prior attainme ...

or IB level. The school administration building is located in the centre of the campus and a large parking area has been built on the grounds. WIS plc

The school hosts the

Diogo Cão Diogo Cão (; -1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, explori ...

Portuguese Language Centre which contains the classrooms for foreign language subjects, a media centre and an

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...

for the whole school. The Language Centre also provides Portuguese language classes and other activities after school hours. WIS Half Court

Curriculum

The Windhoek International School is an IB World School and is the only school in Namibia to offer

programmes. In contrast with other Namibian schools which offer the Namibian Senior Secondary Certificate, the International School offers a variety of International Curricula that it believes better suit its international community of students. The school offers different curricula for different year groups, as shown in the table below: The Middle School Programme in Grade 6 - 8 transition students from primary school to secondary school and prepare them for the

References

External links

* {{Authority control Schools in Windhoek International Baccalaureate schools Private schools in Namibia Educational institutions established in 1990 International schools in Namibia 1990 establishments in Namibia

History

Campus

Curriculum

See also

References

External links