31st August 2010
ISSL Graduates hit the Big Wide World

The International School St. Lucia is preparing for its fifth academic year which starts on September 6th, having achieved a milestone with its Graduating Class of 2010 in June. Twenty-six ISSL students received their New Brunswick Secondary School Diploma, many of them with a subject average in excess of 90% and with a combined total of more than EC$420,000 in scholarships to worldwide universities and colleges. ISSL’s first graduates include Miles Agbanrin, winner of the Canada-based Emera Award, who graciously declined the scholarship to accept a place studying International Business at Edinburgh University, Scotland; Filomena Day, whose grace, humour and intelligence won her the first runner up crown in the St. Lucia Carnival Queen pageant in July, will study Medicine in Cuba, and Aiasha Gustave showed that ISSL girls mean business by accepting a place at Southampton University to study Law, winning Miss St. Lucia World and releasing her first single ‘I only have eyes for you’ during the summer vacation. Ross Tang Him graduated with academic excellence in science, technology and maths, and was awarded a full scholarship at the prestigious Boston University, where he has a number of degree options to choose from. Former teen newspaper columnist Sarah Munn will be attending Sheridan Institute of Technology Oakville, Ontario in September to study print journalism for two years and thus fulfill her dream, and Anna Vlugman, ISSL’s first graduate in 2009, has completed her first year of Equine Science at the University of Limerick in Ireland, after ISSL secured her a place in the only university she ever dreamed of. Quite a roll call, and there are many more success stories to list.
In its short existence, ISSL has welcomed students from all school locations, backgrounds and curricula, from GCSEs in the UK and SATs in the USA, to International Baccalaureat, and many of the graduates this year transitioned to the New Brunswick Diploma programme after completing CXCs. The online courses offered by the International School in Grades 11 & 12 cover a broad base of subjects, utilize a student-centred, independent work style along with in-class guidance from a program director, and complete oversight by the New Brunswick Ministry of Education to ensure students’ performances are benchmarked against their peers in Canada.