The (Old) School ISPP

Have you ever wondered what ISPP was like before you came? Or maybe what it was like at the old campus? Here I’m going to tell you all about it. I’m going to be interviewing one teacher who’s been at ISPP for a long time. This article will tell you about how ISPP has evolved over the long years. I’ll be interviewing Ms. Anita, the mother of a newspaper crew member, and a long ISPP worker. In the interview, she told me about how ISPP started, to the time this very moment. The interview tells us ISPP started in 1989. They moved campus’s several times, until this very campus. Below is the interview I did.

Ms. Anita: “ISPP started in 1989 by a group of families working for NGO's. The first six student aged three to seven, met part-time in an apartment taught by a parent.

I first started working at ISPP in 1994. The school had moved to the Norodom campus and it went from Pre-kindergarten (Early Years) to grade 6. The principle of the school lived upstairs above the classrooms. There were about 14 teachers and 200 plus students. We didn’t have a swimming pool and all the students ate their lunch together in a covered area called the Sala. There was a swing and some climbing equipment to play on. There was a toilet block in the centre of the playground. At the time there was no air conditioners or computers...we only had electricity for a few hours a day.

In about 1996 Elementary moved to a new campus across the road and secondary stayed on the original campus. The building felt huge when we first moved. At first there were single grade levels but in 1997 the school started multi-age classes so KG/G1, G2/G3, G4/G5. At first the building felt huge but over the years grades went from 1 to 6 classes and extra rooms were created. I remember several times starting the year without a classroom and having to teach in the library or music room!

In 2015 the whole school came together on our current campus and we were really happy to have everyone together again. The biggest changes were the huge field and areas to play. The large classrooms and breakout spaces along with the indoor gym and massive swimming pool. ISPP has a always been a wonderful place to work and my favourite thing about it is the sense of community.”