Student
I have been in this school for over 9 years now and overall I have very mixed feelings. Although there are some great teachers and I have made lifelong friends I think that the school is very flawed and often doesn´t live up to what it promises and what it should be when comparing it to other similar alternatives for the price. I think that firstly the elephant in the room are the facilities, whilst I can understand that the school is in a limbo in the moving process to a permanent building, it has now been 8 years and at the end of the day it has been at the expense of the student´s experience, the classrooms are often too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer due to a lack of proper heating (I can understand a lack of AC as it is not common for it to be very warm in this country). However, I find it unacceptable to keep delaying it and staying in these clearly subpar and inadequate facilities. Chairs which are small uncomfortable, dirty tables, classes with no ventilation, classes with broken lighting; The list goes on. Furthermore, I think that the way is managed often leaves a lot to be desired, many policies are applied in a inconsistent matter (such as dress code). However, one of the most baffling things is the internet. For a school that is so keen on forcing on laptops (Specifically 2 year old MacBooks whilst making you pay full price), the internet is often too slow or not even working for you to be able to work in class or access essential sites such as ManageBac and outlook, I find this unacceptable considering that without it you essentially cannot work in this school. I have had many situations where wee have spent three quarters of the class waiting for a specific program to download or a document for that matter (Anything over 10mb in size can easily take minutes to download so you can imagine for large programs such as the Adobe Suite it can take an hour or more). I have also encountered situations where teachers have been forced to change the plan they had made for the class due to the internet not working. Even worse, some teachers force students to use their phones (assuming that they have one, if they dont then that's too bad) and use a mobile hotspot. I don´t understand why it is such a big issue especially since the school must be sorely aware as I´ve seen much of the staff suffer from the same issue.
↳ Reply from International School Utrecht 
Dear anonymus, we are moving to a new campus in July of this academic year. This should solve the current lack of space. The fact is though, that we are a state subsidised international School, meaning international students at our school get the same funding as students in local secondary schools. For this reason we can offer the fully authorised International Baccalaureate programmes a relatively low price, compared to private international schools in and outside of the Netherlands. Because we are a state funded school, it is the municipality that is responsible for school housing. The municipality provides all schools in Utrecht with equal school buildings, which are perfectly adequate, but differ from the more luxurious private school campuses you might find abroad. Having said al that, I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with what we are offering at ISU and I am hoping you will reach out to someone in school (your mentor for example) to talk about this.
5 other reviews for International School Utrecht - (Reviews aren't verified )
Showing 4 reviews by parents and students.
Student
Terrible terrible terrible. The building reeks of urine and weed. The 'special education' help there belittles the students and makes it even harder for them. Administrators are disrespectful. There's a shortage of cover teachers all the time. The curriculum doesn't make any sense, and it also doesn't introduce anything new to the students. Half the teachers aren't even properly equipped to teach. Music teacher has a history PHD but teaches music because it’s his hobby. The school calls itself a safe and tolerant space but the amount of hate is astronomical. The canteen food is overpriced to the point where half a litre of cola is 3 euro (3 dollars). Some teachers do not bother to teach and they do not check work. The whole 'early sign in' rule is ridiculous because its an inconvenience to the student's parents and being late once shouldn't be such a bad thing. Honestly, this school needs to pull itself together. I am disgusted.
↳ Reply from International School Utrecht
Dear "Prunella", If you are indeed one of our students, please reach out to your mentor to talk about these issues. What you say about our music teacher is hurtful and not true.
Student
I have been in ISU for over 8 years, and with every year i experienced that the quality of the school was quickly deteriorating. We used to have teachers with a good education, that had a lot of experience working with children between 4-18, but now there are teachers with social studies degrees teaching music to kids. This way of teaching has become a disappointment to IB schools all around the world, since there is a shortage of teachers most of the time, showing that the teachers have little to no care about teaching the students. Most of the time, I would be missing up to 2 teachers per day, and no work would be posted online, meaning that we would have an hour to do nothing (no substitute was present either)
The school itself, has 4 secondary buildings, the annex, the block, the primary building and the pioneer. Instead of the first 3 buildings being actual buildings, they... read full review
↳ Reply from International School Utrecht
Dear M.D.,
We are sorry to hear you are so unhappy at the school. We would love to talk to you about your experiences. Could you please make an appointment to talk to your programme leader?
Parent
This is a fantastic school. Both of my sons are very happy there. The teachers are approachable, the administration staff and school leadership friendly and open. The school has grown very quickly which has led to some logistical problems, but everyone in our family feels priviledged to be able to attend such a fine institution. The facilities are great, it's just got a little cramped.
↳ Reply from International School Utrecht
Thank you Mr Hankins, it's always nice to get a compliment!
Parent
Well, I am aligned with International school since more than 6 years now as my daughters are studying in this school, but since past two years the administration is going at the lowest of all time, no one is responsive enough and ready to take the initiatives.
Infrastructure wise it's the of the lowest standards and I don't have to prove anything there you can see it self, they have gathered few containers and maintaining it since 4 + years now. every time new dates are proposed for new building,
Any suggestions for improvements are taken otherwise and have been fallen prey to myself also. Unfortunately there are no options in Utrecht for International school and hence the school admin staff is enjoying the monopoly.
Due to this Covid time the online methodology was put in practice and distant learning was observed at ISU, but disappointedly will have to state that school is n... read full review
