Astoria International School

This week, Astoria International School kindly welcomed us in to have a look around and find out how the interns are spending their time there. Located in Lisbon, Astoria is a private school specialising in bilingual education for pupils up to the ninth grade. Speaking to Head of the International Department, Joana Braga Reis, she explained to us Astoria’s central missions and values. Most essentially, she focused on their mission of creating an innovative learning environment which nurtures each child toward success. As well as gaining an insight in to daily life at Astoria from our four interns; Alex, Lauren, Isla, and Emily, we had the unique opportunity to hear from intern turned full-time kindergarten teacher, Bambi.

Here’s what they all had to say…

What is Astoria?

We offer a cutting edge curriculum based on multipleintelligences. Our children are immersed in a multilingual setting here andlearn a lot of languages (Portuguese, English, German, and French) from daycare to ninth grade.

What can internsexpect from their time at the school?

Joana: We’re very pleased to have interns here with us andwe try to receive them in the best way we can, incorporating them in our staffand our way of teaching. They play a very important part because they help usto integrate different cultural backgrounds.

Alex: A typical day for me at Astoria starts at 9am andfinishes at 4pm. The majority of my time is spent shadowing teachers andpreparing lesson materials.

Lauren: I work in the kindergarten shadowing Bambi, the mainteacher for this age group. I help prepare materials and support her indelivering lessons. I also spend a lot of time just playing with the childrenin the playground and getting to know them each individually.

Emily: There’s no such thing as a set day here. I work inthe primary school so I get to help with a range of ages in different classes.

Isla: I’m in the secondary school so I work with ages up tofourteen. I spend a lot of time delivering cultural lessons.

Bambi, who began asan intern at Astoria, was offered a full time position as kindergarten teacher.Could you tell us about this transition?

Bambi: I started here at Astoria on an internship whichultimately got me a job as the kindergarten teacher, which I thoroughly enjoy.During my internship, I was really pleased with the experience of meeting awide range of ages of children and ultimately getting the chance to choose mymost preferred age range.

To the currentinterns…what has been your highlight so far?

Alex: For me, it has to be culture week. Every day wefocused on a different country and got the chance to create activities for thekids based on those.

Lauren: I’d have to agree. Friday was a great day as we hadfestival day and there were performances from the kids which was great.

Emily: I’ve just really enjoyed getting to know all the kidsand doing different activities with them.

Isla: I agree, every day has been a highlight!