By Katherine Deutsch & Will Kirkwood, Zurich International School, Switzerland 

 

Around the world, schools are rethinking what it truly means to prepare young people for the future—one shaped by rapid technological change, shifting workplaces, and complex global challenges.

Zurich International School (ZIS) is no exception. 

In response to the current reality, we refreshed our school's Mission and strategic direction to deepen our focus on purposeful, future-ready learning. 

The New Metrics for International Schools Program, a partnership between the University of Melbourne Faculty of Education and CIS, offers a timely opportunity: a way for us to explore with greater clarity how the competencies we value can be cultivated and understood across the learning journey. 

At ZIS, a key initiative in our new strategic framework has been to define our "Portrait of a ZIS Learner". 

The Portrait is a shared vision of the traits we want our graduates to embody: Curious Thinkers, Resilient Learners, Collaborative Leaders, Purpose-driven Citizens, and Global Navigators.

It was crafted through input from students, parents, faculty, and leadership, informed by our NEASC accreditation process, and reflects not just the direction of our school but also the qualities we believe are essential for our students as they step into the world. 

While competency learning has always mattered to us at ZIS, there is now a wider global understanding that competencies are essential foundations for students’ long-term success.

As students prepare for their future, how they learn and think is becoming just as important as what they learn.

The New Metrics for International Schools (NMIS) initiative addresses this need by bridging our aspirational Portrait and the day-to-day experience of learners, enabling us to purposefully develop, notice, and nurture these traits over time. 

 

 

When we think about the Portrait of a ZIS Learner, we envision the kind of person we want our students to become by the time they graduate. The NMIS initiative provides the tools to bring the Portrait to life.

The complex competencies are the skills and tools that help us turn this vision into reality. They break down into clear, observable elements, offering students a continuum on which they can see their own growth. The true success of this work won’t just be measured by assessments, but by our students’ ability to articulate how they’ve developed these skills and how that growth makes the Portrait a lived experience. 

We are at the very beginning of our NMIS journey, and it couldn’t have come at a better moment.

Supporting the rollout of the Portrait of a ZIS Learner has been the central focus of our Teaching and Learning Lab—our cross-divisional hub for innovation and inquiry.

This year, the Lab has worked to make the Portrait visible and actionable across the school: developing clear communication for faculty and students, guiding a faculty meeting in which teachers documented where their curriculum already cultivates Portrait traits, and visiting classrooms to capture the Portrait in action.

Our current work explores how NMIS can strengthen this next step—by giving students structured ways to reflect on their growth as Curious Thinkers, Resilient Learners, Collaborative Leaders, Purpose-Driven Citizens, and Global Navigators, and by giving teachers meaningful ways to notice and document that growth over time.

Through this collaboration, the Portrait is beginning to shift from a shared vision to an integrated component of learning across ZIS. 

In the end, the New Metrics work offers ZIS a pathway to bring coherence to many of our curriculum and strategic initiatives. It positions us within an international movement of schools embracing competency learning.

We hope to transform the Portrait of a ZIS Learner from a static vision into a truly lived experience for every child—one that each student can recognise in themselves as they grow. 

 

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Related content:

Read about the New Metrics for International Schools Program, register for our next webinar on 10 February 2026 to hear more, and register to join the next cohort by 28 February 2026.

• Rethinking student assessment: Early adopter insights
• Key takeaways from the New Metrics for International Schools Launch Seminar
• How we shaped the future of international education in 2025

 

Key questions this post addresses:

• How can schools define and implement a future-ready vision for their learners?
• How can schools measure and document the development of student competencies over time?
• How can schools make aspirational learner traits observable and actionable in daily practice?