The Primary Program at BASIS International School Bangkok offers an unmatched learning experience for students as they begin to fully embrace a variety of subjects and their inter-connectivity. This program is uniquely defined by the emphasis on connections between subjects as well as the teaching partnership present in grades 1–4.* Students have different Subject Expert Teachers (SETs) for every core class paired with a Learning Expert Teacher (LET) shepherding the learning environment as they move from each SET’s classroom to another with their LET.

Grades 1 through 4 Curriculum

Starting in Grade 1, BASIS Curriculum students are no longer in a self-contained classroom for a full-day. In every subject, students work with a Subject Expert and Learning Expert teacher. Our Primary School curriculum (Grades 1 through 4) was developed through collaborative work within the BASIS Curriculum Schools Network by teachers with deep subject knowledge, and elementary education experts with diverse teaching experiences.

Subject Expert and Learning Expert Teacher Model

The BASIS Primary School Program has a unique educational model that enables students to rapidly master content knowledge. Two teachers work in tandem to introduce and reinforce skills and knowledge that accelerates the learning process.

The Subject Expert Teacher (SET) is a teacher who specializes in the subject that they are teaching, many of whom have advanced degrees in the field they teach. These teachers bring the depth of content knowledge and passion for their subject material that ignites student’s interests.

The Learning Expert Teacher (LET) is a teacher who specializes in educational pedagogy. The role of the LET is to ensure that students understand what they are being taught and that each individual student is working to the best of his or her ability. The LET travels with the students throughout the school day as they move between subjects.

The synergy of the SET and LET facilitates a rapid transition from instruction of foundational skills and knowledge to independent thinking and active learning.

Spiraling Curriculum and Connections

The BASIS Curriculum has been designed to link subject matter across content areas and grade levels. This approach teaches students that the ability to combine information and methods among various content areas is a powerful tool necessary to understand and change the world. To help reinforce concepts and master subject material, our curriculum is designed to revisit core concepts as students progress through the school year. This spiraling curriculum ensures a thorough understanding of the content within each subject.

Emphasis is placed on making connections between subjects by reiterating key concepts throughout the curriculum fostering the move from acquisition to application of knowledge. A key element of this is the Connections Class (Grades 1-3) taught by the LET in which students synthesize the information they have been learning throughout their various subjects in a project based group setting.

The BASIS International Middle School curriculum (Grades 5 through 8) is designed to help students develop academic and organizational skills that will prepare them for the demanding BASIS High School curriculum. Whereas the Primary School program is taught in integrated 85-minute blocks, Middle School students move classes and subjects every 50 minutes, which presents an exciting challenge for students.

Organizational skills, time management and self-control are not innate which is why the Middle School curriculum has been designed in such a way to enable students to build and refine these skills. Our curriculum in these grades is one of the most advanced Middle School programs available in the world, fully integrating the sciences, arts, math, language, reading and critical thinking. By the end of Middle School, students have the ability to synthesize information across subject matter and are prepared for the rigor of the High School curriculum.

The Curriculum

Rooted in the liberal arts and sciences, the BASIS Curriculum is one of the most robust programs available at the middle school level.

With coursework in classics, physical geography, math, English, performing arts, and more, grade 5 bridges the concrete thinking and material in the younger grades with the abstract thinking that will be expected of students in grades 6–8. For example, students’ course in Intro to Science helps them become fluent in the scientific method and units of scientific measure, preparing them to excel in disciplinary sciences.

In grades 6–8, students complete a rigorous schedule in all core disciplines, including three separate, concurrent science classes (biology, chemistry, and physics), economics, foreign language, and a course in logic. Students can select an elective beginning in grade 6 and foreign language option in grades 7 and above. The spiral of the curriculum is essential and highly apparent in these grades, particularly regarding the revisiting of concepts in the sciences in greater depth with each passing year, as students prepare for entry into Honors or Advanced Placement® (AP) level coursework starting in grade 9. For instance, the concept of homeostasis is introduced in grade 6 biology with a focus on the organ systems of the human body. In grade 7 biology, homeostasis is further studied in diverse systems of life on earth. By grade 8 biology, students expand their knowledge as they focus on how genetic mutations and cancers affect homeostasis at the cellular level.

Exciting Extracurricular Programs

We offer a wide range of engaging extracurricular programs, which give students the opportunity to pursue their passions while engaging with their peers and the wider community.

There are many sports, clubs and activities available, which addresses the diverse interest of our students. Our students have the opportunity to particulate in activities including language, technology, sports, drama, arts, music, dance, robotics, and other innovative programs.

We encourage all of our students to take an active role in our extracurricular clubs. As a result, many of the extracurricular programs are developed in collaboration with, and often led by, proactive and enterprising young students.

The BASIS Diploma

The BASIS Diploma prepares students to fully participate in the dynamic, exciting and unpredictable world of the 21st Century. Students who earn this diploma grow in our classrooms to love learning and the pursuit of deeper understanding. They experience the delight of mastering fields of complex knowledge and of developing the habits of disciplined, critical enquiry. Above all they have the best possible educational foundation to be independent and resourceful problem solvers and to face future challenges. It is their choice what career opportunities they pursue and intellectual decisions they make in the future. It is our job to fully prepare them to succeed in those choices.

The scope and sequence of the BASIS Diploma is determined by these practices.

We define opportunity for our students in GLOBAL terms. In the 21st Century we can no longer conceive of opportunity for the next generation as confined to a city, a state or even a nation. Hence, we commit to teaching our students to the highest global standards so that they can win admission to the best universities in the world and compete in a global professional marketplace.

Founded by two economists, from our earliest days our schools have been committed to the smart, network-wide use of student performance data. We hold ourselves ACCOUNTABLE to use the insights this data provides to sustain and improve learning outcomes for our students.

We teach our students to achieve MASTERY of the foundational academic disciplines and competencies, for it is that mastery which will empower their future lives and careers. In our classrooms they face extraordinary challenges, and they grow accustomed to the unwavering support of the faculty. We have a course of study that is CONNECTED from the student’s academic start in Preschool to its finish with Senior Projects. Our curriculum is carefully calibrated so that in every discipline and at every grade level, students are appropriately challenged and excited by their learning, and each year builds as a preparation for the challenges to come.

Our approach to the use of in education is highly focused: we use technology to help us solve problems of scale, to help create the connective tissue that joins a network of schools into an integrated system with data-driven quality control and the sharing of best practices, and to ensure that curricular decisions and innovations are driven by our master teachers, not a top-down centralized bureaucracy.

In terms of the integration of technology in the classroom itself, we believe that technology is one of many tools available to teachers to engage and inspire students to take ownership of their learning experience. However, devices cannot replace the dynamic, classroom interaction between teacher and student. We have developed our own tablet-based electronic learning platform to enhance, not replace the role of the teacher. Our belief is that technological competency with industry-standard hardware and software is a key skill necessary to thrive in our modern academic, professional and personal lives.

We create a learning culture in which diverse PERSPECTIVES are challenged and tested in an environment of informed thought and collegiality. Our students must be prepared to productively and decently navigate the uncertainty of the 21st Century landscape with a profound humility. By engaging with a variety of global perspectives, our students are empowered to make their own decisions about how they will navigate their world. As a learning community, we do not hide from the conflict and struggle that ensues. We revel in it as a vital component in the maturation of our students and the evolution of their most deeply held convictions.

Read more about the BASIS Diploma in our Curriculum Overview.

The Teacher in the Classroom: Autonomy and Accountability

BASIS does not write curriculum; we manage it. What does that mean? It means that we choose the subjects to be taught and set the standards for the scope and sequence of instruction in that subject. Teachers who are new to BASIS Curriculum Schools quickly discover that ours is a system that balances the accountability of common high standards across the network with the pedagogic autonomy to develop innovative ways to meet these standards. BASIS International School Bangkok will never hand a teacher a fully written curriculum for a course, but we will provide structured guidance in the form of common standards, common exams based on those standards, and a network of “Subject Advisors” – mentor teachers sprinkled throughout our schools – to assist and support.

The creative tension between the autonomy that our expert teachers value so highly, and the common aspects of shared accountability that enables BASIS Curriculum Schools to maintain academic quality control across the network, is the nexus at the heart of our classroom learning culture. We are able to preserve this level of autonomy for our teachers by agreeing upon these common principles.

We believe:

  • Children can achieve more than we have commonly been told. With hard work, dedication and the support of teachers and parents, 3rd graders can think critically, 6th graders can learn Physics, and High School students can read Critical Theory and Philosophy.
  • Instructional time is precious. Every minute of every class should be filled.
  • Mastering the basics is the precondition for going beyond them. Students learn to listen for the music of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter and to decipher the crucial details in an historical primary source, but they must also be able to parse the grammar of a sentence and craft concise and persuasive prose.
  • Homework, as long as it is an extension of what is being learned in the classroom, is valuable. Practice helps students achieve mastery.
  • High-stakes, summative tests that assess content mastery and learning skills (BASIS Curriculum Schools Comprehensive Exams and the College Board Advanced Placement Exams for example) are foundational for learning.
  • The evaluation of teacher performance must be based both on classroom instruction and on student learning results on high-stakes assessments.