The ACS vision
Our founders, Mr. Poularas and Mr. Speed, opened their first school in 1967 with a bold ambition to create a genuinely caring, engaged community with a strong sense of its role in the lives of the local and global families it served.
From those early beginnings, the core principles of community, positive change, excellence, and internationalism continue to guide ACS today.
An ACS education has at its heart the idea of readiness: when they leave ACS, our students face the world as effective, confident, and caring individuals who are ready to act, lead, care, and change the world.
At the highest level, our purpose is to inspire the world’s next global thinkers and doers. As we look to the future, ACS remains as true to its international education roots now as ever.
Our charitable mission
ACS Cobham is part of the ACS International Schools group, a dynamic, people-focused charity that advances education. ACS International Schools became a registered UK charity in 2018.
As a charity, ACS is committed to advancing education by providing a range of means-tested bursary places and working locally and internationally in collaboration with schools and communities to share expertise and resources, enriching the education of our partner communities and ourselves.
Our Core Values
ACS has five values and is committed to living and working by these to ensure we deliver the aims and ambitions we hold for each other and for our students.
Aim High and Make it Happen
We have high standards and expect each other to meet and exceed them.
Imagine better
We look for innovative solutions and explore new ideas.
Act with kindness
We act with kindness, transparency and compassion.
Welcome everyone
We believe every person has unique contributions to make to each other and to the world.
Work together
We collaborate eagerly, with each other, with our partners, and with local and global communities.
Expected Learning Outcomes
By working to achieve the Expected Learning Outcomes, we build the knowledge, understanding, skills and dispositions that prepare our students to be ready for the future. This means that every ACS International Schools student is becoming:
An Effective Learner
A Confident Individual
A Caring Contributor
Education Strategy
ACS’s Education Strategy describes general intentions which reflect the desired position for our schools in 2025.
Its principal objective is to increase the unique quality and value of the ACS educational experience. Through the strategy’s implementation, we will position the group to respond directly and creatively to geopolitical volatility in our markets and uncertainty in the premium independent international school sector.
Over the next five years, the Education Strategy intends to deliver significant change, including:
- a sharper focus on inspirational teaching that continually improves academic results
- demonstrated public benefit and global competence through a greater range of educational experiences
- an expanded and carefully-monitored notion of what it means to belong to a healthy international learning community
- equitable, distinctive, and systematically implemented support for all students to achieve challenging educational goals.
