The International School - Al Koura was founded in 1985 to cater to the growing population of Lebanese families who wished to place their children in an international based schooling system. The idea of creating an international curriculum (leading to a High School Diploma) stemmed from the need to provide Lebanese students with foreign passports the same quality of education as that of students in the Lebanese program (leading to the Lebanese Baccalaureate Official Government exams). Students are enrolled in Kindergarten (as of age 3). Formal schooling begins in Grade 1 as of six years of age and students graduate from Grade 12 (both programs) by the time they are 18.

I.S. Al Koura is part of the AMSI group of schools in the United Arab Emirates.

MISSION STATEMENT:

At I.S. Al Koura, we collaborate to link learning to life in order to develop in our students a mindset of responsibility, courage, empathy, tolerance, self-control, and integrity.

We guide our students to be independent, self-sufficient, and well-rounded critical thinkers capable of taking initiative and solving real-life problems.

OUR CORE VALUES:

At I.S. Al Koura we want our students to be productive, happy citizens, good friends, good parents, respectful, and honest. To do that, we must focus on teaching not just academics, but also habits of mind that reflect 21st century skills. We will continue to focus on academics, of course, but these constitute the floor rather than the ceiling of anyone’s education. We aim at teaching our students integrity, self-control, courage, responsibility, empathy and tolerance. This is us building character, habits of mind, for what is needed to achieve success in the real world. We need to prepare our children to be adaptable and flexible to meet a future in which the only constant is change. Only people who have the knowledge and skills to negotiate constant change and to reinvent themselves in new situations will succeed.

Personal intelligence (which constitutes confidence, motivation, problem solving, responsibility, effort and work habits, appreciation of diversity, and teamwork) is the real success skill that makes a candidate employable. It is also what will differentiate a student of I.S. from any other. Our core values, stated below, speak for our commitment to character building and good citizenship.