My name is Bryce McBride, and I was one of the six founding teachers when the doors of the Canadian International School (CIS), previously known as Canadian Overseas College (COC), opened in 1990.

I arrived in August 1990, and I remember the school was not yet completed. As another of the founding staff, Rick Butler, put it, as he walked up the long driveway at the Toh Tuck Road campus, he was alarmed to see, as he got nearer, a tree growing out of a second storey window!

When the renovations were complete, students were enrolled in November that year. At first, there were more teachers than students. The ‘original 6’ staff were myself (business and math), Rick Butler (English and social studies), Mary-Rose McIntyre (ESL and counseling), Maureen Cassidy (ESL and English), Keith Chicquen (science and math) and of course Wayne MacInnis (principal). However, with the offering of credit courses in February of 1991, enrolment grew quickly and by the end of the school year there were almost 100 students.

The second year saw more growth, with more teachers and many more students. What I remember very fondly of that time, though, was the warm family atmosphere of the campus. One event that epitomised this was a BBQ hosted by Edward Lee, a student who had joined in the spring of 1991. Before he left, he wanted to say ‘thank you’ to the school for what it had done, and most of the students and staff came to eat together and socialise. A lot is said about schools as communities, but I know I was part of a very authentic school community. With bonds forged by the challenges of starting a new school, and ethos shaped by the values of the principal and the teachers and the kind nature of the students.

Classroom instruction was classroom instruction, but outside the classroom a lot was going on. The annual field days and the school dances were a lot of fun! In the early days, the teachers encouraged the students to dance by first dancing themselves.

Away from school, meanwhile, the annual experiential learning trips taken every spring by students and staff were also excellent learning and community building exercises. Personally, I was blessed to take students to the Northern Territory of Australia in the spring of 1992 and to the South Island of New Zealand in the spring of 1993. On the latter trip, myself, the other supervisor Lisa Cameron, and a number of students all took advantage of the opportunity to bungee jump at the original A.J. Hackett site in Queenstown.

That jump can be said to represent my experience at CIS. As a fresh graduate teacher, taking a position at a brand new school on the other side of the world was a leap of faith. However, it was also an exhilarating experience, and I wouldn’t have wanted my career to have started in any other way.

Thank you Bryce McBride for sharing your memories of CIS with us! It’s amazing to see how much we have grown in 35 years.