International Sharing School - Taguspark (ISS) Lisbon
Reviews & Information

I wish I had done more due diligence and not just gone off ISS’s great sales pitch. My advice would be to talk to parents at the senior school directly. Most people will only share their honest opinions about any school privately (the expat pages on social media). Having spent over a year at this school as a parent ‘on the inside’, working with other parents to try to effect change that never happened, I can tell you that the vast majority of the parents in my son’s grade (high school) are very unhappy and want to move to another school but can’t because of long waitlists. While the management always met with us parents to discuss our grievances, which we appreciated, nothing much ever came of it, which was intensely frustrating. Be aware that this school does not have a Principal, only a CEO – a setup that they consider “innovative”. Unsurprisingly, not having an educational expert at the helm causes problems. As an example, if you take a tour, ask to see the subterranean classrooms they squeezed into the parking lot, which have no insulation or windows. These were installed over the summer and when the parents all flipped out, the school did pivot – much to their credit - by putting portables on the roof. Adding 3rd-world-level “classrooms” at an expensive private school is the kind of decision that we all feel wouldn’t happen if there was a principal, with a background in education, and an understanding of what constitutes a conducive learning environment. If you can, ask parents in the DP years about how their students did on the exams. The information you get from parents will differ greatly from the official report. The public schools my children attended in the US were superior in terms of the education, resources, extracurriculars, engagement of the leadership. This place has a general feeling of chaos and “amateur hour” that never improved during our time. Some of my son’s teachers were good and clearly cared, though parents who have left ISS and sent their children to other IB schools in the area tell me the application of the IB at ISS is haphazard and inadequate by comparison. (We left for a Cambridge school, so I cannot speak to that, though I can say that my son is very academic and driven and spent most of his time at ISS incredibly frustrated and confused by the sense of chaos.) During our time, the morale amongst the teachers, students, and parents became increasingly low. Teachers became so frustrated by their work environment, that they were sharing this with their senior school students. It’s possible that these are growing pains, and down the road the senior school can improve. If you have a very young child and are willing to take the gamble, knowing you still have plenty of time to try to get into another school for the senior school, then it might be worth it. As the parent of an enthusiastic student who loves school and who is now thriving at another school, I only regret wasting so much time, energy, and money.

(15) (3) Embed

In some classes there are more than 20 pupils. The management cares only about money, but not about the quality. In the kindergarten and foundation there are problems with a hygiene, the majority of the teachers in kindergarten and foundation don’t know English or have very poor knowledge of it, behave totally careless for the small ones as they can’t say anything to the parents. Good teachers are leaving school because of the low salary, also they are hiring the staff without appropriate qualification, experience and English tests. The standards of this school are very poor for this money. Look at the reviews here, most of them are from the management, PYP coordinator and the founders.

(16) (8) Embed