Green Shoots International School

Vision and Values

GSIS students are passionate, independent, lifelong learners. 

Ours is an inspirational learning community that fosters happy, mindful and creative thinkers committed to the sustainable development of our world.

Green Shoots was established in 2011 by Catherine Mckinley, a self-confessed Education Junky

She graduated from the United World College movement, which was founded in the 1960s by educationalist Kurt Hahn, who believed that education should be a ‘force for change’. This philosophy has guided Green Shoots since its creation. Hahn believed that ‘there is more to us than we know’ and that every child has a ‘grand passion’ that the right kind of school will guide and mould. His pedagogy focused on curiosity, tenacity, spirit, and compassion; character traits that can be seen every day on the faces of Green Shoots students.

Catherine spent over 20 years in Vietnam, establishing Green Shoots to meet the needs of her own children who have now both moved on to further education in Europe. The school has long been known around the dinner table as her ‘third child’, and one of her biggest joys is watching it grow and change as its older siblings have done.

Who We Serve

• Green Shoots educates a community of children from five to 16 years old and will soon launch a high school programme for children up to 18 years old
• Students travel to school by school bus, bicycle, or motorbike, from Hoi An, Danang, and the area in between
• Increasingly, families are moving from Hanoi and HCMC, escaping the pollution and expense for a higher quality of life in Hoi An
• They hail from almost 30 countries in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia
• Around one-fifth of Green Shoots students are Vietnamese