Legal Personality
Founded in 2003 as a private educational institution, Academia de Sophia International first gained its recognition, “the permanent and continuing authorization to operate (Sarmiento, 2002, p.125),” from the Department of Education in 2005 with its pre-school department, and then came succeeding recognitions for its other offerings namely Elementary (2006), High School (2007), and Intermediate (2008). In 2016, it has been given the permission to offer academic tracks in Senior High School specifically GAS, STEM and ABM, based on its professional capability and its physical structures. It is currently seeking recognition for its Senior High School academic strands. Moreover, the school is accredited by the Bureau of Immigration to accept foreign students since 2003. Because of this, the school gives one-on-one special remedial classes in all subjects, to foreign students who are yet unable to cope with the requirements and demands of the regular classes. They are then mainstreamed to the regular classes once they pass required levels of proficiency in the learning areas.
The school is supervised by Filipino Board of Trustees and consultants who ensure that educational goals remain the priority of business. It is managed by professional administrators and teachers who possess similar commitment towards the school’s educational goals. It is supported by a legal consultant and a certified public accountant to ensure that its legal status remains and its financial status healthy.
Classified as small school in DepEd’s typology (2016), Academia de Sophia International is currently home to 170 students across the twelve grade levels. It offers one section per grade level, with a maximum number of 16 students, given the small size of its facility. Mathematics, Science and Technology, English, and Social Studies are the school’s core subjects, envisioning producing innovators, scientists, social engineers through these; with Filipino, Music, Arts, PE and Health and other learning areas as important and creative supplements to a holistic learning. This arrangement has enabled the school to allow its graduates, through continuous and persistent academic training, to enter prestigious local universities yearly. Although small in its population size, the academic achievements the school has accumulated over the years prove the strength of its curriculum and its sound organizational management.
Education Model
Academia de Sophia International is greatly inspired by Phillips Exeter Academy’s Harkness method. This method centers on collaboration as a technique, strategy, and pedagogy in drawing out the optimum capability of a learner. It targets the learner’s ability to express thoughts, interact with different viewpoints, and create a solution to a problem. Thus, the learner grows into a knowledgeable, inquiring, communicative, strategic, self-determined, empathetic, and principled citizen of the country. Adapting an ideal class size of 18 to 20 learners, ADSI aims to allow every learner to reach self-actualization through serving others while also dignifying oneself.
Overarching Mission: Academic Excellence, Leadership and Service, and Internationalism
The school has a hedgehog’s razor-sharp focus in finishing its task; likewise, eliminating all distractions from the main goals, ADSI, as should be educational institutions, strives to remain a bastion of academic excellence, leadership and service, and internationalism. This is the school’s mission – to transform how students learn and think – to focus on what matters for societal transformation. Mandated in the Manual for Private Schools in the Philippines is a consistent focus on relevant education, by relevance, meaning “relevant to the needs of the people and society, responding to the aspirations of the nation (Sarmiento, 2002, p. 29).”
A persistent focus on these thrusts – academic excellence, leadership and service, and internationalism – in turn promotes positive student values of critical thinking, empathy, collaboration, and creativity, all necessary instrumental values in today’s increasingly complex society. The development of timely instrumental values among students increases their success rate to deal with the myriad demands of academic, work life, and citizenship later on. Also, corollary to these student values is the development of life-long values of integrity, humility, perseverance, and responsibility among students and school stakeholders.
With academic excellence, a student possesses the ability to learn how to think, and to excel in a way that proposes solutions and solves problems. By leadership and service, a student possesses the ability to initiate, create changes, and give back to the community, which by example, the student becomes a beacon for others to emulate in transforming the larger society into servant leadership. Towards internationalism, a student accommodates other perspectives, and is tolerant to diverse ethnicities and cultures; this in turn become keys to international understanding and global citizenship.
With an educational philosophy believing that a good future depends on the harmonious coexistence of its three foci of academic excellence, leadership and service, and internationalism, ADSI believes that servant leadership and innovation emanate from a student’s deeper understanding of knowledge and how the sensible application of knowledge can make the current society a better version of itself. ADSI trusts that critical, empathic, collaborative, and creative thinkers can successfully transform the world.
Academic Achievements
- Since 2007, until today, ADSI has been qualifying 50% and above of its graduates to prestigious universities in the country; and
- Since 2009, after seven years of academic focus in class, ADSI gained a high reputation in the fields of Mathematics, Science, and English in Baguio City because since then, it has consistently placed on top positions in fairly held competitions.
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