Indonesia’s journey toward educational excellence is a story of determination, progress, and potential. Through strategic investments, inclusive policies, and curriculum reforms, the country has made remarkable strides in expanding access to education, improving teaching methods, and fostering a generation of well-rounded learners.

As Indonesia continues to address challenges and build upon its successes, it is poised to cultivate a highly educated and skilled workforce capable of driving the nation’s growth and development. By sustaining its commitment to education and embracing innovation, Indonesia can realize its vision of a prosperous future where every citizen has the opportunity to thrive and contribute to the nation’s success.

Nord Anglia School Jakarta is one of the frontrunners of this educational excellence in Indonesia.

NAS Jakarta is a member of the Nord Anglia Education family of schools, the world’s leading premium school organization, with 82 schools located across over 32 countries in the Americas, Europe, China, Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East. Together, its schools educate over 74,000 students from early childhood through to the end of secondary school.

Fostering an International Learning Environment

NAS Jakarta specializes in Early Years and Primary education for a diverse community, mainly expatriate in nature. With no particular nationality groups dominating the school community, NAS Jakarta is proud of its diversity, and of the truly international experience it can provide students.

NAS believes its job as an educational institution is to ensure its students will leave the school with everything they need for success – whatever they choose to be or do in life. NAS shapes its students to be creative and resilient global citizens. Being curious, respectful, and able to collaborate with others effectively is what learning at NAS is all about. Its pledge is supported by the six values of creativity, curiosity, respect, collaboration, resilience, and global citizenship.

Fulfilling Individual Educational Needs

The Early Years at NAS Jakarta is a holistic, child-centered programme inspired by the educational philosophies of Reggio Emilia. It recognizes every child’s individual strength and unique nature and draws on these to create a learning environment and inquiry-based projects driven by the child’s interests and respect.

Communication and connection are key driving factors in its practice. It values and embraces all families in its diverse setting and ensures that everyone feels connected. Connected within the community; connected with the educational journey; connected with the staff; and connected globally with their own culture and others. Through these values, NAS promotes the learning of the whole child – personally, socially, emotionally, physically, and academically.

Building Open, Honest, and Collaborative Relationships

Parents are involved in their child’s learning journey at the Nord Anglia School Jakarta from the very beginning. Starting with a family ‘Meet and Greet’ experience before the school year even begins, teachers build an open, honest, and collaborative relationship with each child’s parents. NAS believes that if a child feels happy and safe, and has a great relationship with their teacher, then they will flourish at school.

Parents are welcomed on campus for drop off and pick up times, as well as a wide range of learning-related events such as Book Week, assemblies, or ‘Learning Showcases’.

NAS has an active and enthusiastic team of parent helpers who support the school, for example, in the library.

It also has a group of Parent Ambassadors who work closely with school leaders to welcome new families, provide feedback, and facilitate events. These Parent Ambassadors represent different nationalities in the community and can share their experience of living in Jakarta with newcomers as well as support the smooth running of the school.

A Lively After-School Environment

After school, parents may select from a wide range of enrichment activities such as ‘Bricks for Kids,’ weaving, French language learning, photography, taekwondo, ballet, cheer pom, and rock band.

NAS facilitates day trips throughout the school year for all ages. Even its youngest students, from 18 months of age, are able to participate in a learning experience off-campus with their teachers and parents.

Older students visit a variety of locations in or near Jakarta linked to their units of learning. For example, bringing their learning about cacao and the production of chocolate to life, Year 3 recently visited a chocolate factory in Jakarta where the students impressed the owner with their understanding of the history of, and issues around, sustainable cacao farming.

A sleepover at school for Year 3 and Year 4 students brings great excitement to the second half of the school year. A valuable opportunity for the development of personal and social skills, the sleepover includes a ‘pool party,’ a scavenger hunt following clues around campus, and a campfire in the school grounds before sleeping overnight in the sports hall with classmates and teachers. Breakfast the next morning is an invitation for parents to participate too and enjoy hearing all about the fun and challenges involved in the sleepover.

Older NAS students travel away from Jakarta for their residential trip. Taking responsibility, caring for their classmates, exploring a new environment, learning new skills, and building resilience are important elements that ensure that the students return with greater maturity, confidence, and independence, as well as vivid memories of their experiences away from home and school.

Enhancing Growth through Incorporating Technology

Technology is incorporated into the learning environment with interactive whiteboards or panels in classrooms and a ‘Bring Your Own Device’ programme. Sensitive to the fact that during the pandemic students experienced a prolonged online learning programme due to lengthy country-wide restrictions, students aged six and above bring their tablets to school for specific tasks or projects, not necessarily every day.

As a member of the Nord Anglia family of schools, NAS students in Jakarta learn how to access, upload their learning and respond to the ‘Global Campus’ platform alongside their peers in other Nord Anglia schools around the world.

The MakerSpace is an exciting area for NAS teachers to take their classes to engage in STEAM learning. In a safe and easily accessible environment, students can select tools and materials, make use of the green screen, engage in teamwork, pose questions, and problem-solve as part of the design cycle.

Wellbeing was, of course, a particular focus during the pandemic and the school continues to give time and attention to this. In its Early Years department, Personal, Social, and Emotional Development (PSED) is one of the most important areas of learning. Likewise, in its Primary Years classes, Personal, Social, Health, and Economic education (PSHE) is a timetabled element of every student’s weekly programme.

Daily circle times are valuable sessions for children to share their thoughts and ideas through discussion, stories, or songs. Time is given to learning how to express their emotions in a safe environment, how to manage their feelings, and how to care for and respect others.

Parents and teachers use both informal and formal methods of communication, online and face-to-face, to ensure that information about learning and progress is shared throughout the school year. Methods of communication include celebrations of learning during class assemblies attended by all of the parents, blog posts to highlight learning during a specific session or series of lessons, insightful conversations at drop-off time in the morning, parent-teacher conferences and written reports. Every NAS student is supported and encouraged in their development through effective relationships and communication between home and school.

Empowering the Teaching Process

As a member of the Nord Anglia Education group, all staff at the school have access to an online platform called Nord Anglia University which provides a large number of courses, an extensive online library, and forums for professional collaboration. All employees (teaching and non-teaching) are required to regularly participate in training for safeguarding, health, safety, and first aid. The staff also attend professional development conferences provided regionally by Nord Anglia Education on a variety of topics.

Training days and weekly staff meetings are provided throughout the school year and, as NAS believes that everyone is a learner, ongoing professional development forms part of every employee’s annual performance review.

Ongoing teacher assessment of learning is based on observations, marking, and feedback.

Summative assessments in the older year groups allow the school to measure itself against other schools.

Maintaining Close Collaborations

Nord Anglia Education School has collaborations and partnerships with:

• Juilliard for the Music curriculum
• MIT for the STEAM programme of learning and teaching
• UNICEF for work on the Sustainable Development Goals and other projects

The measures to ensure the safety and security of students on the NAS campus include:

• A trained Designated Safeguarding Leader assisted by two Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leaders. All members of staff undertake regular safeguarding training. Parent helpers and extra-curricular providers also participate in safeguarding training.
• 24/7 security staff
• Regular health and safety training for all staff appropriate to their role
• Regular drills with staff and students to practise for emergencies (fire, earthquake, lockdown)
• Outer gated perimeter walls and inner perimeter security gates and doors
• Security cameras around campus
• All visitors on campus must sign in and wear visitor badges
• Families are issued with ID badges to wear on campus
• Staff are all issued and required to wear identification badges

The school’s student leadership programme (‘Student Voice’) is actively and enthusiastically involved in various projects. These young, elected leaders have been recently working on engine idling (a common issue in Jakarta when cars are parked with their engines idling); eco bricks reusing plastics to create bricks that can be used for making furniture or structures; gardening to grow vegetables or herbs for the local community.

Student Voice representatives carry out research, problem-solve, and encourage the whole student body to participate in projects and develop their understanding of environmental issues.

NAS is currently a school offering high-quality education for Early Years and Primary Years from 18 months to the age of 11 or 12, and it is looking to open a Secondary school in the near future to extend its provision for students up to 18 years of age.

NAS maintains a close relationship with the local ‘kampungs’ located over the road from its school. The school provides a place of safety to local families during times of flooding. It collaborates with the local community in recycling schemes and supports specific local schools.