For the first time in IC's long and proud history, the school's Ras Beirut JJV boys basketball team have been crowned Beirut Champions! Mabrouk boys! 

L’IC AU CONCOURS AMBASSADEURS EN HERBE ORGANISE PAR L’AEFE

L’IC a participé, avec 15 autres établissements scolaires, à la finale nationale du concours « Ambassadeurs en herbes » qui s’est tenue à l’ESA le 23 février 2018.. Cette compétition, organisée par l’AEFE, réunit dans une même équipe des élèves âgés de 10 à 15 ans. L’équipe de l’IC était composée de Samir Homsi (CM2/ AA), Shirine Khalaf (5^e/ AA), Lana Younes (3^e/ RB), Leen Chanouha (3^e/ RB) et Tiffany Saadé (Seconde RB).

Le débat portait cette année sur les arts, l’éducation et la culture. Les élèves participants, comme l’équipe de professeurs qui les encadraient, garderont de cette expérience des souvenirs précieux: des moments faits de rires, de surprises et d’émotions fortes grâce à cette belle expérience autour du plaisir d’apprendre et de cultiver l’art de la parole.

Founder’s Day

The fifth Founder’s Day reunion - otherwise known as the “cousins” reunion - was held in Tarsus on March 1-3 and brought together, once again, administrators and students from six different schools from Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and Bulgaria.

Eight students from IC travelled with IC President, Dr. Don Bergman, and Newsletter writer, Reem Haddad, to the Tarsus American College. Students from the schools participated in various workshops and community service projects. More importantly, students made lifelong friends.

The founding father of the schools was the American Board Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Protestant missionaries who established schools and universities throughout the region in the 1800s.

But the Ottoman Empire’s demise led for a struggle for Turkish self-determination and schools were subjected to heavy restrictions. The role of ABCFM and its missionaries dwindled considerably. With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and the US depression in 1929, some of the Board’s schools eventually either shut down permanently or relocated to other countries. Some, however, remained. As the years passed and as they adapted to their new environments, the schools lost touch with one another. It took 76 years for IC’s sister school, the American Collegiate Institute, to locate IC. In 2012, IC received a surprise letter asking for a reunion in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey – IC’s original birthplace. IC and its sister schools had apparently had many joint activities together. But, out of the 15 schools that were originally established by the Board, only seven schools survive today: International College (Beirut), American Collegiate Institute (Izmir), Anatolia College (Greece), Pierce (The American College of Greece), Tarsus American College, Uskudar American Academy (Turkey) and the American College of Sofia.

It was six of those schools which met at Tarsus this year. The reunion was held in Beirut last May but didn’t include students because of security reasons.

Ateliers d’écriture créative au Musée National de Beyrouth: Quand l’Histoire fourmille de petites histoires qui font écrire…

Les classes de 5^e de IC Ain Aar ont redécouvert le Musée National de Beyrouth en écoutant les petites histoires des grands chefs-d’œuvre : mythes et légendes de Phénicie, symboles divers, stèles funéraires, talismans et amulettes ont pris vie grâce à la voix du guide conteur qui a suscité l’intérêt des jeunes et les a invités à écrire et inventer leurs propres histoires à partir des récits écoutés. 

Recent Sport News Success from Ras Beirut

The first weekend in March saw three of IC’s teams crowned champions in their respective tournaments. For the first time in IC's long and proud history, the school's JJV boys’ basketball team won the Beirut Championship. In the Beirut Futsal Championship, the JV girls won in the final against Rawda High School with a score of 4-2. Then, to top all this off, the Varsity girls beat College Sacré Coeur 6-1 in the final of their Beirut Futsal Championship. Mabrouk to all the players and coaches!

The school has also organized and enjoyed another fine edition of the Alton Reynolds football tournament, hosted on IC’s Ras Beirut campus. A high level of sportsmanship was upheld throughout the games, the competition was fierce and most importantly, our athletes had fun. The finals are set for Friday, March 16. Good luck to all!

The annual Remy Rebeiz Memorial Football game was scheduled for Thursday, 8^th March at Ras Beirut. IC Varsity vs AUB JV teams ended tied at one-all. The match saw some great action and the atmosphere was a real pleasure.

Finally, Saturday, 10^th March saw two more IC teams winning their respective championships! The JJV and Midgets girls’ football team won the Beirut Schools’ Championship for mini-football at Bir Hassan, Jnah. This was followed by the Varsity boys basketball team winning the Beirut Championship for the third year in a row, after a tough game vs Collège Louise Wegmann, winning 55-53 at Wehdie Riyadiyeh.

An Ain Aar School Emergency Team briefing session was held yesterday (Tuesday, 13th March) on the campus. Mr Imad Raad, IC’s Chief Security Officer, led the briefing. 

This school year IC has taken the initiative to add another support system for the school's learners. Nichole Swink has been appointed to establish and lead the writing center in which she is available for ninth-grade students Mondays and Fridays during lunch, as well as after school on Monday afternoons. While the school is piloting it with only this Grade 9 cohort for now, it is hoped to expand it next year. Students come to ask questions, seek advice and work through the writing process with the help of a qualified writing teacher. The writing center has been a success in helping students with assignments, revising essays and even practicing writing activities to enhance pupil’s understanding of structure, content and vocabulary.

In addition to seven USA dinner events organized by Katherine Murphy McClintic In Aid of Scholarships, three IC Alumni and Friends’ Dinners were held in the Gulf, March 2018

March: Three dinners took place, with the IC Advancement team reconnecting with Alumni and friends in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jeddah.  The Bahrain event on 12^th March, kindly hosted by Mr Akram Miknas ’63 at his Camelot restaurant, saw 20 people join the school’s Interim Director of Advancement, Katherine Murphy McClintic, and Richard Bampfylde, IC’s Communications and Sustainability Coordinator.  Discussed were IC facility upgrades underway, the plan in Ain Aar, scholarship needs and the impact of the new Lebanese Teachers’ Salary Law and the urgent need to update the database. Explained was the shortfall in the budget due to IC having absorbed $1m of the cost.

Don Selinger, Chairman of IC Board of Trustees, joined Katherine Murphy McClintic and Moufid Beydoun ’64 for a dinner held in Kuwait on 13^th March.

The Teachers’ Salary Law was discussed as well as the necessary tuition fee rise of 11.5%.  The fact that IC absorbed $1 million of the 15% cost was explained and the need for alumni support to the Annual Fund.

Katherine Murphy McClintic attended a third dinner held in Jeddah on 20^th March, organized and generously hosted by Mohamed ’81 and Dina Zameli. Katherine Murphy McClintic updated the Alumni on IC facility upgrade plans, scholarship needs, deficit in the operating budget and the impact of the Teachers’ Salary Law.  Alumni attending included Fadi Abbas’81 visiting from Riyadh, and Karim Ghandour ’89, visiting from Dubai.

This year, the Grade 4 in the Ras Beirut Elementary have been incorporating time during the week to work on developing their skills by connecting with their passions. This initiative started in Grade 4C then found its way to include all sections of Grade 4. We now have a collaborative team of teachers and parents who join 'passion hour' to support students in their groups. Through this initiative, we are giving students more opportunities to be able to apply the 4C's while being involved in activities or engagements that connect with their passion/s. The 4C's are

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving 

2. Communication 

3. Collaboration 

4. Creativity and Innovation

The Self-Study: Getting Ready for the Visit                                                       Feb 28, 2018

Since the CIS/NEASC Preliminary Visit in November of 2016, IC has undergone a year-long, comprehensive self-study, looking at all aspects of the school – our educational beliefs; how we view and deliver teaching and learning; all the services provided for the health, safety, wellbeing, and security of the school community; the governing and financing of the school; and the physical campus in all its aspects. Guided by the ERC, the Self-Study has been led by committee chairpersons with the help of administrators, staff and teachers from every area of the school. During In-Service days last year and then in September and October as well as working days designated by individual school directors this year, the committees have looked critically at the school and its practices, answering probing questions, and gathering evidence to support those answers. Long hours have been spent in the discussion of key elements and areas of the self-study questionnaire and in writing the various components of the report. Our self-evaluation has led to a number of changes, additions and plans for improvement that will continue to make IC an educational leader. The journey has been intense, frustrating at times, yet informative, culminating in a total of 23 separate reports with accompanying evidence and action plans all combined into the final Self-Study document. At the beginning of February, the report was sent to CIS and NEASC accrediting agencies as well as to the members of the Visiting Team.

Now the school is preparing for the Team Visit which will take place the week of March 18, 2018. We will be welcoming 14 Visiting Team members from all over the world. The members will visit both campuses, looking thoroughly at our school and our practices, comparing what they see to what is in our report. They will be talking, both formally and informally, to administrators, teachers, students, parents and staff throughout the school. It will be an exciting week, giving us the opportunity to show the quality of our programs, the professionalism of our faculty and staff, and our continuous commitment to quality education. The visit will culminate in a set of recommendations from the team. Yet the school’s journey will not end there; the cycle will begin again.

The Accreditation Visit                                                                                        March 26, 2018

From March 18 to 23, IC hosted the NEASC / CIS Visiting Team for Accreditation. The team consisted of fourteen professional educators and administrators who came to us from the Middle East, London, Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands, Beijing, China, the United States and the Congo in Africa. Our guests spent five intense days looking into all aspects of the school. The visitors delved into school documentation and observed daily school life as they explored the campuses of both Ras Beirut and Ain Aar. They visited classrooms, talked to teachers, administrators, students, staff, parents and members of the Board of Trustees. Our visitors commented on the welcoming atmosphere created by the students, faculty and administration stating that they felt the “IC Spirit” and came to understand what it means.

Although the visit was intense for the team, we still managed to show them a bit of Lebanon. Some of our visitors took the time to see the National Museum, the Jeita Caves, and Byblos, others visited Baalbec. Everyone stated how much they enjoyed visiting IC and Lebanon.

A joint initiative by IC's Athletics Department and IC Alumni Association’s (ICAA) sports committee is bringing alumni back to school every Sunday. As of March 18, 2018, IC’s doors are open from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for members of the ICAA along with parents, faculty, and staff to enjoy the sports facilities of the Ras Beirut campus.

Participants are able to use the athletic department facilities available and bring their children to enjoy the outdoor playground and the beautiful campus. This initiative brings graduates back to their roots and allows children to be involved in their parents’ fruitful memories. Several sports activities will be organized such as basketball and football games, ping pong tournaments, and fitness sessions led by IC Alumni trainers. As IC wants everyone to be involved, the games will be between parents and alumni, alumni and students, and between Ras Beirut parents and Ain Aar parents.

You are more than welcome to get the IC experience outside each Sunday. Learn what it means to be an IC student again and be an active part of the ICAA community.

With the support of the IC Alumni Association, International College hosted a career fair for middle and secondary students on the Ras Beirut campus.  As students continue their exploration and work towards finding their passion, the career fair was another opportunity to meet with industry leaders from a variety of domains.  Students engaged, connected and networked with companies to continue their research on a variety of career pathways.

IC proudly hosted the following organizations:

BCI Holding S.A.

The Diet Center

Gustov

Elsa

Bank of Beirut

FDC

EBCO Bitar

Gazzaoui

Sarvam

The Commery

Nada Ghazal

Rana Salam

Midis Group

Gezairi Transportation

BankMed

Blom Bank

IMPACT BDDO

Kareem Audi

Tinol Paints

The Activities Office in collaboration with the Grade 12 Secondary School Student Representative Council organized the 11th annual Fun Day on Friday, April 13, 2018. This event started with a lunch at the school’s cafeteria followed by a variety of water games such as soap soccer, water slides, bungee basketball and other fun competitions such as sprint races, shotput, endurance competitions, potato sac race and tug of war. It was a fun, safe and memorable event. Many thanks to all who made this event a success!

On Saturday 14th April, Ras Beirut Middle School students took part in a achieved great success in the American University of Beirut's Math Fair. 

1st Prize in Math - Model or Demonstration, Secondary 

Project: Carrousel et Projectile 

Students: Ahmad Tabbara, Jad Haidar, Hassan El Hor and Mounir Khatib

2nd Prize in Math - Model or Demonstration, Intermediate

Project: Robotics 

Students: Adriana Abi Fares, Habib Khoury, Karim Azhary, Ramzi Doughan and Mira Agha

The first edition of a series of discussion sessions between a group of parents and the Administration took place this morning. IC President, Dr Don Bergman, and VP for Academic Affairs, Mrs Paula Moufarrij, joined the session. This first session was designed to share with parents the steps taken by the school to improve the curriculum and strengthen the French and Arabic programs, shed light on the upgrades that have been happening at the Ain Aar existing facility and share the ‘what, how and when’ details for the new facility up on the Ain Aar campus. The sessions serve as a stage for parents to share ideas, concerns and questions they might have for the Administration.

NEASC: ACE Training Workshop at IC

Saturday, April 14, IC’s Educational Resources Center organized a day-long ACE Learning Training Workshop presented by CIE Accreditation Leader Trillium Hibbeln and sponsored by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges. Thirty IC teachers and administrators were joined by another 27 teachers, administrators and school consultants from other schools around Lebanon and from Jordan. The workshop trained participants in the new NEASC standards and principles for accreditation (ACE) and prepared them to become members of future NEASC visiting teams for Accreditation. These new standards and principles represent the interdependent relationships among the three pillars of ACE Learning – Architecture (what, why and how learners learn), Culture (the school’s beliefs about the conditions for effective learning) and Ecology (the physical and social/emotional “space” in which learning occurs). They indicate the conditions, premises, norms and values that enable effective learning to occur. Participants found the workshop well-presented, informative, and engaging.

This workshop represented Part 1 of the preparation for becoming a NEASC ACE Learning Visiting Team member. Participants will be invited by NEASC to complete Part 2 in the near future. Whether the participants go on to become members of future NEASC Visiting Teams or use what they learned to guide their schools towards their next accreditation cycle, the information was timely, interesting and challenging.

A fantastic day was had by so many Alumni, Parents, Students, Faculty, Administrators and Staff on Sunday 15th April. Sports on the Ras Beirut campus included:

- Faculty & Staff vs Alumni & Parents basketball game

- Sports classes with IC Alumni trainers Rania Hashim ('94) and Lina Itani ('91)

- Inter-mural football game

- Parents & students football game

Thank you to the IC Alumni Association for arranging such a wonderful day of events. Please take a look through the photos to see the fun!