May 7, 2018 - Arcadia Academy, the private international school in Kotor, founded 2011, by having all necessary accreditations, functions within the most prestigious global educational system of the University of Cambridge. No less important - this school provides the mobility of students in both directions with the public school system in Montenegro.
"An international school is not a priori school for foreigners, as it is often understood. Arcadia Academy is the first and only British international school in Montenegro, open to preschool, elementary and high school children. It is private school open to all children, and the complete curriculum is realized in English," explains Milija Božović, the Academic Director of Arcadia Academy. Arcadia is accredited for the realization of the educational system of the University of Cambridge for five years now, and children attending this school are in the future competition for the best quality education in all meridians.
"It is well known that children from the Balkans do not pass well on the PISA test. The reason is that the knowledge they adopt is not functional. Children in our school gain great knowledge, but besides adopting it, it is equally important for us as educators to apply it. In that sense, we care for a different system. The knowledge that a student can apply in real life is not subject to forgetting factor. Precisely because of this kind of work, the Cambridge system has become the standard in the world, and it is used in over 170 countries in more than 10,000 schools. Pupils who receive the Cambridge qualification receive a ticket to the world of various possibilities. They have opened their way to many prestigious universities in this world," explains Božović.
Through the school program, history and geography are handled from the local point of view. During history lessons, pupils get to see the famous places and monuments of Montenegro. "The plan and program allow us to subject national history and geography. The Cambridge schools are located everywhere in the world, and it would not make sense for a child at school in Indonesia for five months to learn about Queen Elizabeth. Children of our school learn about Njegoš, about the family Petrović, they go to Our Lady of the Rocks, and visit the Maritime Museum in Kotor, and so on. We see all this knowledge locally applicable and useful in society."
The individual approach and tracking of each student's progress is, of course, an essential factor in the success of this educational program. "The Cambridge program is progressive, precisely defining the goals the child should meet from the first to the ninth grade of elementary school. It is progressive because these goals are mostly similar, only at different levels depending on the class. We also track it with the help of the internal technology that we have developed ourselves, and at any moment we can know the degree to which a particular student is and how we can help him," proudly insists Milija Božović. The benefits of individual access are numerous - children are self-confident, responsive, innovative, and ready for everything waiting for them in real life. "A lot of people, when it comes to the individual approach, observe it in the wrong way. It is not a situation in which a 45-minute teacher is sitting with one child and paying attention only to him. Differentiation in the classroom is such that the teacher introduces the subject, and through this, what the child needs. Everyone is different, each learns differently. Thus, the teacher introduces the subject in fifteen minutes, and the remaining half an hour is conceived so that the class is divided into three or four groups per level, and each group has a certain activity that best suits their needs," explains Božović, pointing out that in this way, they encourage thinking and making conclusions about a particular topic instead of being served as such. These are the main features of the Cambridge program and what we call functional knowledge.
A special challenge is to provide an adequate teaching staff for the implementation of such a program. Although there is a Pedagogical Faculty in Montenegro, a small number of teachers speak English at the required level. For this reason, explains Božović, the school needed another international accreditation: "In providing the staff, we have great help from the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). Through their portal, we publish a list of vacancies and the staff we need for the next year. We do it pretty early for the next school year - already in February or March. Through COBIS, teachers from all over the world apply for open positions, among others at our school. Interested teachers are filtered through COBIS, which assures us that we get the best quality associates. "Only one-third of the current teaching staff in Arcadia Academy is from Montenegro, and other teachers come from different parts of the world, mostly from an English speaking area."
The accreditation of the Montenegrin Ministry of Education allows students of Arcadia Academy to, at any time, attend an educational program in one of the public schools in Montenegro, just as children attending public schools can become students of Arcadia. With the intention of opening up to the local community, Arcadia intends to offer some Scholarships for Montenegrin students from the next school year, whose parents are not able to compensate for Montenegrin standard of high school costs. "In our public, private schools are perceived as a matter of prestige. Let's be real, private education is expensive, but what gets this kind of education does not cost. If you put costs and potential profit on paper, much better investment is to educate a child than to buy a car. Just from private schools, there are most of those who get full scholarships for the Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, which for decades have produced generations of young people, full of knowledge and abilities. The results show that over 90 percent of graduates from these universities earn an average of $ 15,000 more on an annual basis than those who have gained a degree elsewhere. However, the problem remains that our standard of tuition fees in Arcadia is quite expensive. We are not in a position to lower the tuition fee because all accreditations and tests that are evaluated are paid externally just as much as we are in Germany or Austria. In that sense, there is no understanding of local standards and needs. However, what we are trying to organize is scholarships for good English-speaking Montenegrin students who show good results at school and whose parents are interested in such education and know what this education means," announced Božović, explaining that they are trying to provide support of some of the local banks for this project.
Typical school days in this educational institution are significantly different from those in Montenegrin schools. School buses bring children to school around 8.15 am. The first class starts at 8.30 am. Already at 10:00, the children have a deserved rest and a snack, and after the second block of classes at 12:00, they have a healthy lunch. The afternoon block of the classes runs from 1 pm to 2 pm, usually with less difficult subjects. From 2.30 pm to 3.30 pm all students have the opportunity to engage in some of the non-compulsory activities. "We at school have adopted a different kind of culture. Students love to stay longer; they like to participate in extracurricular activities. Or, if something is not in the domain of their interests that day, they stay longer to complete their homework. As for the activities available to them, we have, for example, robotic classes, where children are making robots controlled by smartphones with the help of applications that they develop. There were even some aspirations to have a football match between robots, where robots would move body parts and kick the ball remote controlled. We are not sure if we will succeed, but we are trying. Also, we have hours of debate, athletics, various foreign languages, heritage, and social games. We have various clubs - for nature lovers, those interested in art history, chess, public performance, choir, theater, playing instruments. What we recently started with is the Football Academy, where our English teacher, Chris, a licensed football coach, teaches the children the first football steps."
For students coming from the Montenegrin education system, or children coming from Russia and other countries where they have not attended English classes, the school has developed the English fast learning system that facilitates children to adapt, no matter what level they are. When it comes to Montenegrin language learning, two programs - the one for foreigners and an advanced program for children from Montenegro - are being implemented in the school. Exceptional value is the multicultural environment, where, in cooperation with parents, they often organize activities to promote diversity - cultural, culinary and others.
The students of Arcadia Academy are well integrated into the local community. In addition to participation in various events, they are invited to numerous activities organized by the school itself. Also, there is good cooperation with local schools, for which Arcadia hopes to be more diversified and intensive in the future. The new school building in Lješevići, in the area of about five thousand square meters, is built according to all standards. The school is full of light; the classrooms are well-equipped, the area around the facility is adapted to regular classes, as well as numerous extracurricular activities. Children attending this school do not like weekends. School days bring them, with challenges, many joys. First of all, they discover the joy of learning and personal progress. "At school, the most popular are those students who have the most knowledge. In such a general atmosphere, it is knowledge and effort that is most appreciated," says Milija Božović, Academic Director of Arcadia Academy.
All photos by Arcadia Academy Website
