The German International School Sydney (GISS) is located on the Northern Beaches and provides a complete bilingual school education from Preschool to the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma in Year 12. This year, GISS has been ranked in the top 100 schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia according to an independent academic analysis by Better Education.
GISS Primary School placed #17 on the Northern Beaches and #275 in NSW, while GISS Secondary School placed #3 on the Northern Beaches and #16 in NSW.
While the school is so much more than ranking and awards, it’s evident their philosophy translates into measurable outcomes that open up many opportunities for their students.
In addition to this news, GISS will have three beautifully unique classrooms blending passivhaus standards with biophilic design ready in 2022.
In keeping with the school’s global outlook and philosophy, the construction of three new classrooms will have sustainability and student wellbeing central to its build.
GISS approached an architect known for energy efficient sustainable buildings to respond to the brief. Knut Menden is an award-winning architect whose work focuses on minimising a building’s impact on the natural environment, with very low energy use as a pathway to creating sustainable and healthy living environments.
To achieve a very low energy consumption and thus a CO2 emission saving over the lifetime of the classrooms, they will be built to the Passivhaus (Passive House) standard. This high-performance ‘fabric-first’ approach in building design creates a climate-responsive, comfortable, sustainable, and energy efficient dwelling.
People-centred learning
The interior and location of the three classrooms aims to immerse students in the rich experiences and connection they feel when they are actually in nature through maximising natural light and ventilation, having openable windows with views of the sky and trees, and using natural internal textures for increased sensory experience.
This approach is called ‘Biophilic design’ and is a concept used within the building industry to increase occupant connectivity to the natural environment because of benefits to wellbeing and productivity. It’s about the innate human need to connect with other living things, with nature.
It’s been proven that spaces which are open and connected to the outdoors increases mental stimuli, energy and physical comfort levels and this, in turn, increases cognitive ability, attention and memory levels.
Connection with VW
To keep the beautiful GISS bushland campus in order amongst other things, the school has generously received support from Volkswagen with their contribution in the form of a Ute. The Volkswagen Amarok is being used to maintain facilities at GISS. Moreover, the support from Volkswagen throughout the years has helped bring to life the very popular traditional German Christmas Market held annually at GISS.
It has been a year like no other for schools in NSW. GISS is proud of the hard work of teachers and students reflected in the school’s top 100 ranking and to be leading the way with sustainable, people centred learning environments that are the first of its kind in Australia.