School - Academics
International Baccalaureate
It’s a simple idea - by educating students we create a better world.-
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.
These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
-IB mission statement
Sarah Smith Elementary is an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme World School.
Click here to learn more.
The Sarah Smith Global Garden
In Spring 2010, with the opening of the Sarah Smith Intermediate Campus, the graduating fifth grade students were honored by the creation of the Sarah Smith Global Garden. The garden is a bricked area at the front of the entrance to the classroom building that was designed to be used as an outdoor classroom for all grades. The central focus of the garden is the Peace Pole that was dedicated on May 14, 2010 during the first International Travelers program. This area will be a place to celebrate our school’s commitment to peace around the world and our International Baccalaureate status as a World School.
Each year, graduating fifth grade students will have an opportunity to commemorate their time at Sarah Smith by the purchase of an inscribed walkway brick that will become a part of the Global Garden - truly a “gift of a lifetime”.
Brick_Form.pdf
About the Peace Pole Project
The Peace Pole Project was started in Japan by Masahisa Goi. He decided in 1955 to dedicate his life to spreading the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” in response to the bombings on Hiroshima. Today, Peace Poles can be found in nearly every country of the world in places where people care about and seek to promote peace. There are more than 200,000 Peace Poles in over 180 countries, including places like the Pyramids of El Giza in Egypt, the Magnetic North Pole in Canada, Gorky Park in Russia, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They are promoting healing of conflict in places like Sarajevo, the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, and the Allenby Bridge on the Israel-Jordan border.
Each Sarah Smith campus features an International Peace Pole with the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in English, French, Spanish, Japanese and Italian (May 2011). As part of the culminating ceremonies of the schools’ International Travelers program, a new language is added to the pole annually to coincide with the country being studied. Ultimately, each pole will include 12 languages.
The poles link us with people all over the world in hope: that each of us can learn to look beyond our differences of race, religion, ethnicity, culture, geography and politics, and, together, we can build a world founded in a culture of peace and non-violence for all people. The Peace Poles visually remind us to keep Peace in our thoughts. They help us remember that each of us has a role to play in weaving a culture of peace for ourselves and for people around the world. May each of us live, think and act in the spirit of May Peace Prevail on Earth.