Early Years and Elementary Schol (KG - Grade 6)

Students aged from 3 to 11 years at RIS follow the Primary Years Program (PYP) of the International Baccalaureate Organization. The PYP is a high quality international programme of education that offers a rich, engaging and stimulating curriculum. It helps students develop the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes that will allow them to be lifelong learners and to take action in order to help create a better and more peaceful world.  The heart of the mission of a Primary Years Program school is to develop students who demonstrate the attributes of the IB Learner Profile. The ten qualities of the Learner Profile are central to what it means to be an internationally minded person. In the PYP, the approach to learning is transdisciplinary in nature . Six areas of shared human experience- the transdisciplinary themes: Sharing the planet, Who we are, Where we are in time and place, How we express ourselves, How the world works, How we organize ourselves- are inquired into while incorporating perspectives from the traditional subject areas: the arts, language, science, mathematics, social studies and personal, social and physical education.

For more information on the PYP please go to http://www.ibo.org/pyp/index.cfm

Middle School (Grade 7 – 9)
Although we firmly consider ourselves to be an international school, we never forget the language and culture of our host country and appreciate that many of our families still require the guarantee of an excellent preparation for the Italian state exam at the end of Grade 9 (Terza media). For this reason, students receive ample time for Italian lessons in Language, Literature, History and Geography throughout the Middle School years, with additional hours in Grade 9 and the implementation of maths, science and technical education, for the preparation of the Italian Licenza Media exam. The school takes responsibility for entering its students for this exam with a collaborating local Italian school. Non-Italian students will study and learn to appreciate the Italian language and culture through a parallel course of instruction with our IAL teacher.


High School - The GCSE Programme at RIS (Grade 10 – 11)
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is the curriculum studied in most British and many international schools from age 14 to 16, which we consider to be an excellent preparation for the academic challenges of the IB Diploma Programme. RIS is authorized to offer the GCSE programme in the first two years of our High School and in the summer of 2009 our first GCSE cohort sat their exams, with pass rates well above the average and many students achieving a number of top A* grades.
A GCSE qualification is awarded for each subject and students at RIS are expected to gain around 11 GCSEs. Grades are awarded from A* to G, and require a combination of coursework, undertaken throughout the two years, and final examinations at the end of Grade 11, all of which are externally assessed by the British examination board AQA.