Established in the early 1980s, the Sports Council for International Schools (SCIS) was designed to unite students and their schools from across Europe through sport in a sustainable and authentic way. Some forty years later, in June 2023, the organisation underwent a reformation to capture the changing landscape of sport in a post-pandemic world.
At the heart of SCIS lies the fundamental belief that through sport, students can immerse themselves in cultures vastly different from their own, experience life in cities far different from that which they know, and make friendships that last a lifetime. We are excited to bring back the Homestay Programmes, those that have, over the past decades, added richly to the experience of all participants and allowed for a true intercultural connection. This provides families with a cost-effective way of supporting their child in participating in each tournament.
Proudly representing vast corners of the Continent, the Group of 7 founding schools of the reformed SCIS are ardent in their belief that our young people, now more than ever before, need opportunities to connect, grow, and compete against each other. From Romania to Hungary, Switzerland to the Czech Republic, our schools share the common goal, not of creating champion sportspeople, but of creating champion people through sport.
Watch the introduction video below.
The Schools that will form the foundation of this new tournament are committed and are aligned, determined to give our young people the opportunity to grow together through sport.
The founding Group of Seven are:
- American International School of Bucharest (Romania)
- American International School of Budapest (Hungary)
- American School of Warsaw (Poland)
- British School of Brussels (Belgium)
- International School Basel (Switzerland)
- ICS Inter-Community School Zurich (Switzerland)
- International School of Prague (Czech Republic)
Importantly, each of the seven schools is committed to participating in the full range of tournaments offered and will honour this each and every year.
The philosophy that formerly underpinned the Group remains unchanged. We have, however, reinvigorated the interconnectedness between the SCIS member schools and abide by five key principles that underpin our purpose.
Community - built through the shared belief that sport is a unifying force for good.
Culture - shared through authentic experiences within a safe environment.
Connectedness - experienced through friendships made through friendly sport.
Competition - developed through each school's commitment to high-level competition.
Character - built through the opportunity to learn resilience, teamwork, grit and determination.
As international schools, we are representatives of hundreds of nationalities from all around the world, and so we believe our students should experience competitive sport through cultural immersion that enhances their understanding and experiences and, most importantly of all, builds on the notion of a truly international community connected through one of the most powerful pursuits on earth: sport.
We want to provide our young people the opportunity to gather as a community at each tournament, through tournament dinners and social networking opportunities. We want to offer the possibility to tour the city they are in, to learn of its past and its present, and we want to authentically enable life-long connections by engaging our communities in the Homestay Programmes that build friendships through shared experiences.