2024 Graduation Speech – Liz Free

Good afternoon graduates, students, parents, alumni, board members and esteemed guests,

ISR stands not only as a school but as a tight-knit community which radiates joy and care, exemplifying the spirit of education at its best.

This is how the Council of International Schools described our school following our successful re-accreditation in November.

If our school exemplifies the spirit of education at its best, you, our 2024 graduates, exemplify learners at their best.   If our school is a tight-knit community that radiates joy and care, then you, our 2024 graduates, exemplify a tight-knit community that radiates joy and care. You are the pinnacle of all that it is to be an ISR student.

You stand here today, the first time a graduating class has entered these hallowed halls. You, the product of an ISR education, stand tall, stand proud and as a community, we are proud of you.

We talk a lot about community at ISR but what makes a community?

Coretta Scott King, said, “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”  

Compassionate action is what radiates from our graduating community. Having watched graduating classes for 25 years, this is how I uniquely think of you all. 

This Grade 12 spent two-years of their formative years learning online, blended learning with synchronous and asynchronous learning as you faced the interruption and global impact of COVID 19.  As we moved through this unprecedented disruption, you continued to learn.

In February 2022, Europe was awoken to the sound and sights of war. This compassionate community took action. Within just a few weeks, with the support of you, our students, our staff, the parent teacher group, the Hilti Family Foundation Liechtenstein,  the Canton of St Gallen, and partners in the region, we were able to offer a scholarship programme for international education to academic refugee students from Ukraine. 

This enabled academic students aged 15 upwards, for whom there was no accessible academic solution in the region, an extraordinary opportunity; but this was only the beginning of the journey.

It also required our tight-knit community to open our doors; we could very easily have closed these doors and looked only inward.  We could have said that we did not have the capacity to support refugees at this time. But we didn’t.  We opened our doors.  6 ISR families also took Ukrainian families and students into their homes; others provided furniture and helped rearrange homes so we could welcome families fleeing war. 

Our ISR students, educated in international mindedness and with a commitment to global citizenship, took action. They packed the school bags to welcome refugees, they invited them to their homes and they took this opportunity to learn more from each other.

This was not an easy situation for anyone and yet ‘They’ became ‘us’ pretty quickly. No more was this true than when one of your classmates received a cancer diagnosis in Grade 11.    

What was the first thing that you, our graduating class, did?  Work out what he needed to get through treatment; a good IPAD and a netflix subscription!  It worked, along with world-class Swiss medical care, and he is rightly graduating with you today; graduating as one class.

To the families here today, your journey has been a global example of the power of international education and lived purpose that transcends our school. An IB education that works towards global peace, starting with a shared humanity and purpose within our own walls. This community has always been stronger together and this situation led to enrichment for all.

Our vision at ISR is to inspire international-mindedness, academic and personal excellence and responsible engagement. This grade exemplifies this more than any other I have ever seen. Liz Free

From this inclusion of a new group into our community, this Grade has led innovation and has striven for excellence.  They have seen opportunity in adversity and we have all benefited from this growth and development. 

You were all involved in the design, form and function of this campus. None of which would have been possible if we had been inward-looking.  

You have been the grade that took these opportunities now afforded to you to lead initiatives like the Model United Nations, that previously we had always attended elsewhere.  You led and made this yours.  By harnessing the potential of this extraordinary campus, you organised, advertised and delivered a Switzerland-wide MUN event hosted on our site.  

This growth opened the door for sports, for wider DP subject choices,  for more diverse friendships and, of course, for a focus on personal excellence.  And you embraced all of these opportunities!

At this conjecture, we should take a moment to say thank you to the Hilti Family Foundation Liechtenstein for helping us realise this new global standard for community international school environments. They solely funded this campus, supported the Ukrainian scholarship programme and have now supported an academic scholarship programme so local students can also access an ISR education. We are grateful, thank you. 

To our Graduates, as the world waits for you, we want you always to know that we are with you, hold on to the million dreams you have created at ISR and boldly live in a world that you design.  

When we thanked the supporters that made this campus possible in September, I talked about the dreams that would be made here, the world that will be opened up in this corner of the Alpen Rheintal.  

We want you to hold on to your bold aspirations for the future.  You will take ISR with you but you’re not going anywhere quite yet!

I would like you to remain seated for just a moment as I invite some friends to join me. Grades 3-10 can you please join me on the stage as we offer a little gift to G12, we give you “A MIllion Dreams”. 

Grades 3-11 sing ‘A MIllion Dreams’ to Grade 12

Congratulations to the Grade 12 students, families and Supporters.