International school Utrecht celebrates its 10-year anniversary!

On Wednesday 7 September the International School Utrecht celebrated its 10-year anniversary not only with all students, staff, and parents, but also with our alumni, former colleagues, staff, and guests. This special event took place in Zaal 13 (Kinepolis Jaarbeurs), followed by a ‘borrel’ at restaurant Speijs.

It was very special to welcome our former heads of school Rynette de Villiers and Jaap Mos, as they both represent an important part of the school’s history. We further welcomed alderman Eelco Eerenberg, members of the board and supervisory board from NUOVO Scholen, heads of various NUOVO and Dutch International Schools and stakeholders from the municipality, Utrecht Science Park, ROM, and the International Welcome Centre Utrecht Region.

New Logo
Whilst former heads of school Jaap Mos and Rynette de Villiers looked back on the important part they played in the school’s history, current head of school Marieke Folkers looked towards the future of the International School Utrecht while she revealed the new school logo.

Happy Birthday
Alderman Eeco Eerenberg (Education) suggested we all sung ‘happy birthday’ together for our school, which of course, we did! He spoke about the importance of the International School Utrecht for the attractiveness of the Utrecht Region for both international businesses and international talent. Eelco also had some great news: International School Utrecht will move to a semi-permanent school building at Utrecht Papendorp, ensuring the school can keep on growing until the move to our permanent location at Utrecht Science Park.

In 2012 International School Utrecht opened its doors to 63 students. Now ten years later we are a CIS accredited IB World School delivering the Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programme to 1000 students. Over the past 4 years, 175 students graduated from ISUtrecht.

Welcome the world
We were very pleased that theatre maker, actor and spoken word artist Khouloud Zaher accepted our invitation to be our guest speaker for this event. Khouloud, a member of the selection committee for the various Utrecht 900 events, played with the juxtaposition between Utrecht 900 years and International School Utrecht 10 years.

Khouloud encouraged us to go out into the local community and wider world to tell others how we educate children from all backgrounds, cultures, nationalities under one roof. “What you do is so special, go on and welcome the world into your school to let them see for themselves how you work and learn in such a diverse community”.

After the event in Zaal 13 we finished the celebrations in restaurant Speijs where we raised our glasses to the to the future of the International School Utrecht. It was lovely to be able to celebrate the 10-year anniversary with all the people who have been or still are important to the school.

Written by Ingrid Schmoutziguer
Communications advisor