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More informationOur History
The International Curriculum Association (ICA) emerged as an association of teachers and leaders in the 1980s with a relentless aim of improving learning.
1984
Through the day-to-day exposure of learning and teaching contexts within schools, teachers and leaders came together to form a shared belief and vision that identified learning as the primary purpose of schools and that to make schools, leadership and teaching as impactful as possible, they operated best when focusing on improving learning.
In 1984, this association of teachers and leaders started the journey of working with schools around the world through consultancy, to ensure that learning was their focus, and that with schools, leaders and teachers we aimed for improving learning, together.
2000
The association of teachers and leaders was requested to solve the challenges of international education and was presented a particular context where a global network of schools was supporting the learning for overseas families of predominantly two nationalities, rapidly shifting to a more diverse international learning community. Previous learning and teaching in this context offered a hybrid of the two predominant nationalities’ national curricula in the primary years, however the vision was to develop a single curriculum for international use that could be flexible for implementation around the world and applicable to learners with any nationality. After many years of international research and development, the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) was born in the year 2000 and made available to schools around the world, launching at the ECIS conferred in Paris.
2005
From the 20 years’ prior experience of working with schools, leaders and teachers around the world, consistent themes began to emerge as needs for leadership and management. In 2005, the first International Leadership and Management Programme (ILMP) was introduced, supporting senior leaders in their role of driving school improvement forward and ensuring that the focus of schools remained on the learner and improving learning.
2009
As the collective experience grew among the international community of what improving learning with the IPC looks like, the request for external support and validation from schools also grew. The accreditation design and process was carefully developed to support schools on their journey of improving learning, as opposed to presenting them with hurdles and barriers for ‘achieving’ pre-set goals. In 2009, the International School of The Hague, Netherlands, was the first school to be accredited for its implementation of the IPC, with the Head of Primary highlighting "...the most striking element of the process was not the accreditation itself. What happened to the school in the months and years following the accreditation demonstrated just how far we still needed to go before we could finally call ourselves truly learning-focused international school."
2011
Following 10 years’ implementation of the IPC around the world, a repeating theme of feedback was provided: Where do IPC learners progress their learning after the primary years? After significant research of learning for adolescent brains, the International Middle Years Curriculum (IMYC) was introduced to schools to provide them both a progression of learning from the IPC to the middle years and to support standalone middle years schools around the world, striving to improve learning.
2016
The emergence of research into learning, particularly for early years learners, combined with the rapid growth of international schools around the world, resulted in a clear request from the international community – to support early years learners with a learner-focused curriculum, that could be implemented internationally. To complete the full range of the International Curriculum, the International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC) was launched in 2016, underpinned by academic research and the practical understanding of early years learning and teaching that went on to be the fastest growing curriculum around the world, learnt and taught in over 500 schools in less than 5 years.
2021
With over 30 years’ experience of working with schools, leaders, and teachers to improve learning, combined with more than 20 years’ experience of providing the leading International Curriculum to schools around the world, the International Curriculum Association (ICA) was launched in 2021, as the identity that brings the international community together with the International Curriculum, Accreditation, and Professional Development.