There are many things that we like about The Giving Tree.

• Diverse: The Giving Tree has a diverse, international student body. There are some Cambodians in every class but also students from around the world. Many of the girls’ classmates have dual nationalities (e.g. Japanese/German and Cambodian/French).
• Affordable: We wanted our girls to go to a school that our staff could afford to send their children to. The Giving Tree is not only within our staff’s budget, last year we met a tuk tuk driver who had sent his daughter to the school.
• Class Size: Catherine’s Kindergarten class is 10 students with 1 Teacher and 1 Teacher’s Assistant. Charlotte’s Third Grade Class class is a little larger, 14 students, with 1 Teacher and 1 Teacher’s Assistant.
• Language: We originally wanted the girls to attend a dual language international school that was half day Khmer language and half day English language. Unfortunately, when we toured the schools near us that offered this we were far from impressed (closer to horrified). The Giving Tree is not a dual language school but, on the bright, the girls’ required Khmer language class meets the standards of the Cambodian education system (so that the Cambodian students can pass their national exams). So they will come out able to read and write Khmer! The girls are also required to take French – which is fine – but it is important to me that they know the local language.
• Disability Inclusion: The Giving Tree intentionally attempts to include a student with a disability in each class. This isn’t always the case – it depends on who applies each year – but it is still very welcome.
• Accreditation: Basically, this means that some outside agency regularly evaluates and confirms that the school is meeting recognized educational standards. The Giving Tree’s IB accreditation confirms that students at The Giving Tree are receiving the core education in Math, English, and Science that need in order to transfer to a British or American school.
• International Baccalaureate: The Giving Tree follows the IB Primary Years Program educational model. This is an ‘inquiry based’ education model – which we highly recommend – and I’ll explain what that means below.

The Giving Tree is not a Christian school and we are asked – surprisingly frequently – why we don’t send our girls to one of the Christian schools in Phnom Penh. The answer is simple; they are too far away. It would be an hour plus commute each way to take the girls to school and that’s just not an option.

The Giving Tree has six pillars that represent it’s core values and inform it’s policies and codes of conduct.

1. We are a home. A home for our students, a home for our parents, and a home for our community
2. We are all global citizens. Whether you are a family with roots in Cambodia or a part of the community as an expatriate or diplomat, we are all global citizens and all of our children are third culture kids.
3. We provide world-class education through the IP Primary Years Programme. We provide a leading international curriculum to ensure our students are prepared for advanced levels of education anywhere in the world and can easily transfer between leading schools and other countries.
4. We are green. We proactively adopt sustainable environmental practices, create healthy green spaces, and instill love and respect for nature. We recognize our role and the role our students will play in the future to ensuring sustainable growth and a healthy living planet.
5. We believe the highest quality of education should be made accessible to all. The Giving Tree was founded on the idea that our community deserves access to the best curriculum, teachers, and international resources at affordable tuition rates.
6. We believe social responsibility is essential to a healthy society. The health of our school and the health of our community are not separate.

In inquiry based learning, the role of the Student is not to absorb knowledge that’s dispensed by the Teacher but instead to take on an proactive role in learning through asking questions (inquiries), reaching for answers, making connections, reflection on what they’ve learned, and taking action. It’s a model that fosters curiosity, research skills, problem solving, and communication. The students still have to learn Math, English, Science, and so on but it’s all within a broader framework of making inquiries and finding the answers to them. If that doesn’t quite make sense or you want to know more, let me know in the comments and I’ll dedicate a future post to explaining it in-depth.