Pennsylvania American School System (PennSchool)

It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.

What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.

The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.

What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.

Programmes of the University of Cambridge: the school teaches to Cambridge syllabuses and enters its pupils for exams that Cambridge marks itself. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.

What this means for this school. The papers are marked by Cambridge, not by the school, so a leaver's grade does not depend on how strict their own teachers are with them. To enter pupils for these exams a school has to be registered as a Cambridge exam centre; registration as a centre is permission to run exams rather than accreditation of the school, and it says nothing about the quality of teaching. IGCSE is taken at around Year 10 or 11 and A-Level in the final years, and it is the A-Level results that carry a pupil into British and many other universities.

RT Holdings is a Vietnamese education group in Ho Chi Minh City which describes itself as an ecosystem of educational institutions, language centres, vocational institutes and online programmes and calls the organisations within it member units. The site nowhere separates ownership, management and franchise and does not explain the legal form of its connection with the schools. The former name is confirmed by its own page carrying the address of the board of directors: in 2023 the system was officially transformed from Indochina Education & Development Group into RT Holdings. The origin of the organisation is traced to the Institute of Accounting and Business Management, and the length of its work is given as more than 23 years, with no specific year of foundation named. The counters on the home page give more than 20 units, more than 8 educational sites in Ho Chi Minh City, more than 900 teachers and employees, more than 500,000 students and graduates and a presence in four countries: Vietnam, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The site gives no separate figure for schools as such. Among the members named are the Western Australian School System, PennSchool, the Sydney schools, Penn Academy, Talents Development Academy and others. The owner of the holding company is not named on the site.

What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.