Kirk with some news that is clearly appropriate for this page: the planned expansion of Kumamoto International School.
The image I’ve added to this post is from the following news video:
https://www.tku.co.jp/news/?news_id=20220615-00000003
The news report briefly reviews the history of the school, explaining that it began in 2003 as a preschool and that it established a primary school in 2018. Currently, 76 children attend the school, which is located in Nishibaru (close to where a fork in the road takes drivers on the Higashi [East] Bypass to the Kita [North] Bypass). They are planning to start construction this year on a new, much larger, school in Toshimanishi (or Toshima Nishi?). The new location will be closer to the planned TSMC plant and it is expected that many of the 300 or so employees from Taiwan who come to work at the plant will send their children to the school. The school will also hire teachers from Taiwan, so it seems that Chinese will be part of the curriculum, in addition to instruction in English. The new school will have a junior high school and the eventual addition of a high school is also planned. The report says that they expect about 420 students to be enrolled by the time that all grade levels are up and running.
The following FNN report is similar but, unlike the first report, it features an interview with Matthew Ohm, the principal of the school:
https://www.fnn.jp/articles/-/375959
I think I’d heard him speak Japanese in the past but I’d forgotten just how good his Japanese is. Truly excellent!
Speaking of Japanese, the school has an excellent Japanese-language website but information in English is harder to find. Here’s the address of the Japanese-language website:
I couldn’t find an equivalent site in English, but the Japanese site seems to have some blog entries in English. Here’s an article about KIS officially becoming an IB World School for the Primary Years Program (PYP):
https://kumamotointer.jp/blog/kis-is-now-an-ib-world-school/
Congratulations!
And here’s an external site with some information about the school in English:
https://www.ibo.org/en/school/061056
Perhaps that’s enough for today. I’m getting tired of typing and you’re probably tired of reading. ;)