Musashi International School Tokyo
Musashi International School Tokyo, formerly Little Angels International School and Academy, is an international school, kindergarten, English school, and adult business school with two campuses located in Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan.
It was designed to cater to Japanese children, whereas other Indian international schools in Japan were established mainly for Indian children.
Composition
The school includes Little Angels International School for full-time students and Little Angels English Academy for after-school classes. The Little Angels International School has four divisions: Little Angels International Kindergarten, the Little Angels International Elementary School, Little Angels International Middle School and Little Angels High School . The curriculum follows both Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology guidelines and international English guidelines for education. The Little Angels Middle School and High School have received accreditation from the Cambridge International Examinations.The school also offered special classes for adults, under the name Little Angels Business School.
The Mitaka Main Campus has all levels of education, including the school, kindergarten, English academy, and business school. The Mitaka Station Campus housed the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten.
The school's original kindergarten campus in Mitaka was previously a single family residence. The school previously had a campus in Kichijōji, Musashino.
History
Jeevarani Angelina, a native of Chennai, moved to Japan in 1990 and became a non-resident Indian. Angelina, who is known as "Rani Sanku" due to the ease in pronouncing it in Japanese, established an English-training school, Little Angels English Academy, in 2002. The kindergarten was started in 2004. In the beginning, the school had an enrollment of only 5 students; This, however, increased to 15 students in 2005 and 30 students in 2006. By February 2008, enrollment had reached 85 students. Japanese student enrollment increased along with the general student enrollment. The school was scheduled to add the sixth grade in 2011. Melinda Joe of The Japan Times wrote that Little Angels "even helped pave the way for other Indian international schools in Tokyo, such as the Global Indian International School in Edogawa."Curriculum
Circa 2010 the school had incorporated aspects of Montessori education, with additional group work and a decreased emphasis on memorization. Students begin speaking English in public at ages 2 or 3, and at age 4 they were to only speak in English at school. Mathematics instruction began at age 2 and computer instruction began at age 3; these ages are younger than the respective ages at traditional Japanese schools. Other classes include arts and crafts, dance, and science. The school used Indian textbooks, but the school did not have Indian history classes. Conversation, games, and songs are part of the curriculum., most students at this school and other Indian international schools who intended to study in the system until high school were aiming to enroll in universities outside Japan; the Tokyo Metropolitan Government considered this school and the other two Indian international schools in Tokyo to be "unauthorized schools" or schools which do not count as providing compulsory education under the School Education Law of Japan. A student who only attends "unauthorized schools" is ineligible to attend a university in Japan, unless they complete an accepted international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate, or Cambridge International Examinations.
The school is currently undergoing evaluation by the Council of International Schools to provide opportunities for the graduates to enter Japanese and foreign universities.