Dear AICS community,

We have all received the email regarding the cancellation of many back to school trips next year, we have taken the “justifications” into consideration, however, we disagree with many.

The need to improve the induction of new students

We strongly believe the back to school trips are an opportunity to socialize with new students and start the year in the right mindset. Contrary to their justification, we believe the back to school trips allow many learning opportunities and allow us to practice all IB Learner attributes.

Ecological footprint

As for the ecological footprint, we don’t think it's fair to use Eco School as an excuse to cancel back to school trips, we believe there are steps we can take to lower our footprint rather than trip cancellation.

Poor timing at the beginning of the year

Though the trips do interfere with the beginning of the year, we believe that this extra week will give more time for students and teachers to prepare themselves and get back into the rhythm of school.

The need to improve the learning value of the trips

During the back to school trips, we develop our learning in many different ways, we learn to socialize with our peers and adapt to our new mentors, we bond with new students and try to make everyone feel welcome. We learn about the places we go, through experiences rather than reading about it online in a classroom.

Closer links to the local community

Throughout the school year we are constantly inside the classroom and barely interact with local community in the Zuid area. From experience with the school trips, the students interact with the communities substantially more than we do here at school, creating memories that last for life. We also believe that as we are an international school, we should keep the Back-To-School trips to increase diversity and global mindedness.

We hope you agree with our criticism and sign this petition so that you can go on your Back-To-School trips next year.