St. Gilgen International School (StGIS) co-educational boarding and day school between the ages of 9 and 18. The school offers a primary and middle school curriculum leading to the highly regarded International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme qualification in the final two years. The language of instruction is English.
StGIS is a member of the Council of International Schools, European Council of International Schools and Swiss Group of International Schools and is a registered Cambridge International Centre.
History
St. Gilgen International School - What makes it so unique? - This is a video that was produced and edited by Kami Krista (a student at StGIS), however a number of people contributed greatly to it during its creation. The aim of it is to display the very...
St. Gilgen International School was founded in 2008 by the Austrian architect and entrepreneur Alexander Serda and since then has grown steadily to the current enrolment of 155. The current capacity is 250. In 2013 the school was taken over by the British-American investment firm HIG Capital who also acquired the Italian International Schools of Europe Group. After a short period of self managed administration proceedings in April 2016, and brief negotiations with the nearby energy drinks company Red Bull, the school was taken over by the newly founded St. Gilgen International School Privatstiftung on May 15, 2016, a non profit foundation that is run by parents.
Since April 2017 the school maintains a cooperation with the pre-college programme of the Mozarteum University of Salzburg.
The school was built on a site beside Lake Wolfgang which previously contained green fields and some derelict villas. The villas were renovated to a high standard and five ‘state of the art’ teaching buildings were constructed over 12 months during 2007 and 2008.
Location
The school is located in St. Gilgen on Lake Wolfgang 30 minutes' drive from Salzburg, Austria
Campus
The school's campus is in a spacious lakefront park with carefully renovated historic and newly built academic and boarding facilities, in the centre of the village of St. Gilgen. Students walk or bicycle to other school facilities in the village such as its own theatre, an “art garageâ€, the nearby rowing and sailing clubs, tennis and basketball courts, or to swim in the lake. Given the relative safety and security of the village of St. Gilgen, the students are given the freedom to consider its boundaries as the boundaries of the school campus.
There are three boarding houses for students situated in different locations around the village. The boarding houses were all originally hotels which have been converted to provide high quality, en-suite accommodation for St. Gilgen students.
Academics
Academic courses are taught in English. StGIS offers a Primary School programme which spans Grades 4-6 and a Middle School programme which includes Grades 7-10. Grade 10 students study the Pre-IB curriculum. The International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) programme is taught in Grades 11 and 12.
Primary School and Middle School students study a range of courses including English language and literature, German, World Studies, Sciences, Mathematics, the Arts, Music, and Movement & Wellbeing. Middle School students also study an additional modern language.
Currently, St. Gilgen International School offers the following IB Subjects:
- Languages: English A, B (HL and SL); German A,B (HL and SL); German Ab Initio (SL); Spanish B (Hl and SL); Spanish Ab Initio; French (HL and SL); French Ab Initio
- Humanities: History (HL and SL); Geography (HL and SL); Economics (HL and SL)
- Sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Physics (all available in HL and SL); Sport Science SL
- Mathematics: IB Mathematics HL; IB Mathematics SL; IB Mathematics Studies SL
- Arts: Music, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts (all available in HL and SL)
- Theory of Knowledge (TOK)
For the class of 2014, the IB average points score was 33 points, compared to a World average of less than 30 points. The pass rate was 96% compared to a World average pass rate of less than 80%. The class of 2014 had 28 students who took the prestigious International Baccalaureate Diploma. This was the school's third set of results and the previous two year groups have also performed well: an average of 33 points in 2013 and an average of 34 points in 2012.
Co-curricular activities
In addition to the academic programme, StGIS has a wide variety of outdoor and cultural activities as a part of the curriculum. Outdoor activities include skiing, water sports (swimming and rowing), soccer, basketball, hiking, volleyball, tennis, golf, horse riding and yoga. In addition, the extensive Outdoor Education programme includes kayaking, Nordic skiing, sailing, mountaineering, rockclimbing, hillwalking, waterskiing, mountain biking, and avalanche awareness training. Cultural activities such as musical theatre, drama, art & design, music instruction, and stage production are all available to students. Throughout the academic year, the Arts Faculty take students on educational trips with a creative focus to museums and galleries in cities across Europe.
St. Gilgen International School also runs an ambitious and challenging programme of expeditions. These have included trekking the Silk Road in China, climbing Mont Blanc to the summit, working at an orphanage in Tanzania, kayaking in the Croatian islands and climbing volcanoes in Nicaragua. Although these opportunities are optional, students are encouraged to participate in order to develop a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, gain confidence by exploring their limits, and be educated in assessing risks.
International Community
The student body consists of about 150 students (2017/18), coming from more than 20 different nations around the world. About 50% of the student body originates from Austria and Germany. The other largest groups of students are from the UK, USA and Eastern Europe. Additionally, there are smaller numbers of students from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Faculty and staff are also international and mostly native speakers of the English language.
References
External links
- School Website
