Experience

This past year, one of our Concordia Alumni along with 3 of her teammates  earned first place in the prestigious HACK Harvard competition.

From October to December last year, I started Sports for Hope, a service project where I trained deaf and non-verbal kids ages from 8 to 15 about basic soccer skills. I partnered with the Thuy An Rehabilitation center in Bavi to organize these weekly training sessions.

Luna (G10), recently achieved a significant milestone by earning a gold medal in a prestigious international arts competition that spanned several rounds and countries.

This past summer, Concordia’s talented 7th grade student, Avy, distinguished herself at the Young Artist Friendship Festival in Da Nang, earning an impressive total of five awards amidst fierce international competition. 

From the earliest memories, Kara was always drawing or sketching. It wasn’t until eighth grade, during the isolation of COVID, that art became a more intentional pursuit. Anime served as a gateway, motivating the learning of fundamentals such as perspective, form, and character copying. 

For San Luu, the moment art shifted from a hobby to a calling began during a parent-teacher conference her sophomore year. During her first year at Concordia, a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Green marked the first time anyone—teacher or parent—suggested art could be more than a class or pastime. 

For Gomeyongjin Lee, art began as an extracurricular addition to a student résumé, something she treated more as a creative pursuit that rounded out her academic profile. Yet as sophomore year faded into junior year, a subtle but profound transformation occurred. 

For Linh Nguyen, art began as an escape from reality. A vivid, imaginative world she lived in as a child. From the beginning, drawing felt natural to her, it was never something she had to think about. This was the case until her father’s advice propelled her into action: “You cannot just imagine art; you have to do something.” 

Concordia Hanoi’s High School Independent research students are seeking a cure for ALS by testing the efficacy of specific substances on C. elegans, worms which are often used in laboratories as test subjects. Concordia’s science lab equipment allows students to perform complex procedures like DNA testing, giving them valuable experience for university research. 

One group tested omega b, and another tested ginseng, and both tests showed promising results in a cure for ALS!

Andy Nguyen, a Concordia Hanoi alumnus who graduated in 2021, has recently decided to pursue higher education. As of late, Andy has received admission to the PhD program he applied for at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), where he will study inorganic chemistry for the next five years.

Learn about how Concordia Hanoi is leading the way with a novel approach to instructing mathematics that promotes curiosity, deep conceptual understanding, and critical thinking in our Elementary School and Middle School. 

Recently, our Middle School boys’ and girls’ competitive volleyball teams traveled to Ho Chi Minh City to take part in the annual ASAC Junior Volleyball Tournament, hosted by the Australian International School (AIS) from May 8 to 10. Over three days of intense competition, both teams battled hard against a strong lineup of opponents and ultimately finished in fourth place. The tournament featured a total of 10 teams, bringing together schools from across Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia, making for a challenging international event.

Concordia recently hosted its 6th annual Concordia International Research Conference (CIRCH). Aimed at high school and university students, CIRCH was founded in 2019 to provide a platform for researchers to present their findings across various academic disciplines.
 

Pages of Possibility is a student-led project founded in August 2024 at Concordia Hanoi by a Grade 10 student. The project's mission is to raise funds to purchase books and donate them to communities where children lack access to these resources.

Concordia International School Hanoi’s National Honor Society (NHS) chapter successfully organized its 2nd Annual Charity Volleyball Tournament on Saturday, February 8, bringing together students from across Hanoi for a day of spirited competition and philanthropy.

A few weeks ago, our Senior Basketball ASAC teams traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Both the men's and women's teams competed at Canadian International School (CIS). This trip gave our students a chance to play against teams from other countries.

Recently our Junior ASAC boys' and girls' soccer teams traveled to Phnom Penh where they competed at Northbridge International School Cambodia (NISC). This trip provided our young players with the opportunity to test their skills against teams from other countries while strengthening existing bonds with their teammates and forming new friendships.

Concordia Middle School students have carried on our school’s dramatic traditions this year with a performance of the play entitled 15 Reasons Not To Be In A Play.

Concordia International School Hanoi transformed into a vibrant hub of activity and holiday cheer with the successful hosting of the Concordia 2024 Fun Run and Christmas Fair. This event drew an impressive crowd of over 500 attendees, also including over 260 enthusiastic runners and supporters.

Concordia International School Hanoi proudly hosted this year's annual ASAC (Asean Sports and Activities Conference) tournament. Both our girls' and boys' teams secured 5th place in this competition, which featured ten teams from Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand.

This September, EARCOS sponsored Concordia Hanoi to host an elementary mathematics workshop titled Cultivating Joyful Mathematics Experiences through Access for All.

Hai Yen Tran, a member of Concordia Hanoi's class of 2022, is currently pursuing her studies at Yale University on a full academic scholarship, where she is expected to graduate in 2026. She is double majoring in Statistics and Data Science, as well as Ethics, Politics, and Economics. Since her freshman year, she has been an active member of the Glee Club at Yale, which has provided her with numerous opportunities to travel, including trips to Kenya, Washington, Alaska, and Montreal. Next year, she looks forward to embarking on a journey to the Philippines. Discover how Hai Yen's involvement in the Glee Club has profoundly shaped her college experience.

Miles Roberts graduated from Concordia Hanoi in 2021 and is currently studying at the University of Notre Dame, where he will graduate in May 2025. He is pursuing a double major in Chinese and Applied Computational Math and Statistics (ACMS). At Notre Dame, Miles is an active member of the Glee Club and another highly selective group known as the Undertones. Since his freshman year, he has had the incredible opportunity to travel to 20 different states across the U.S. and four countries in Europe. Discover how music has enriched his college experience and fostered a profound sense of connection to Notre Dame.

The Thunder Bolt recently had the privilege of interviewing three distinguished Concordia International School Hanoi alumni from the classes of 2021 and 2022: Victoria You, Miles Roberts, and Hai Yen Tran. Each of these talented individuals discovered a deep passion for music during their time at Concordia, which continues to shape their college experiences. Join us as we explore their stories in a three-part series, and be sure to read to the end of each article to find out what they are doing now!

Concordia International School Hanoi competed in the Middle School boys and girls ASAC volleyball tournament in Jakarta, Indonesia. Out of the 10 teams that competed, our girls' team placed 3rd while our boys' team placed 1st!

The Global Codeathon is an annual event held at Concordia Hanoi International School. This year, 34 Concordia students from grades 3-5 participated on our campus.

Our Concordia Middle School and High School students received the highest score in Vietnam during The Purple Comet Math Meet! Established in 2003, The Purple Comet Math Meet is a free online international math competition where high school and middle school students can compete with others from around the world.

Concordia senior Hyo Lynn personally organized a student art exhibition at Concordia which showcased student artworks from five schools around Hanoi - HIS, RGS, UNIS, SPASH and Concordia. 

Grade 5 students held a science fair, to showcase their experiments. The younger students attended and witnessed their experiments in action. 

Concordia’s Grade 8 science students visited TUV Rheinland’s electronic testing facility outside Hanoi. They told the Bolt what they learned and enjoyed about the trip.

The 8th grade “Mad Birds” led the Middle School student body through Breakout EDU with Mrs. Halpin’s leadership. Breakout EDU is a fun, online “escape room" style of challenge.

In Vietnam, Tet is a beautiful and meaningful holiday people spend with their families. It is when people can reflect on their entire year and enjoy moments with their loved ones. However, the families we visited in the children’s hospital on Tuesday, February 6th were not as lucky as us. In the hospital were children and their parents waiting for their recovery, not being able to enjoy Tet to its fullest.

Concordia high school students built creative displays to represent all 36 chemical elements. Working in groups of three, the students’ models needed to include legends and features that corresponded to each element’s chemical properties.

Five Concordia students started a fundraiser to raise money and awareness for those who have suffered from the earthquake in Noto, Japan. We spoke to them about why they feel compelled to help. 
 

Concordia is well known for our strong math program. Concordia Reception students are well prepared when entering grade one with a strong math foundation, and our teachers personalize each student’s math learning to boost their skills.  

Each year, Concordia Hanoi travels with students for LAUNCH and CAMP trips, school clubs, and athletics. Continue reading to learn about our middle schoolers’ and coaches’ experience in Ho Chi Minh this past month!

High school STEM teacher Seth Carper completed a Masters course on parametric design at the end of last year and over part of the summer.

Concordia’s math and science club recently spent an afternoon testing the capacities of different metals to make batteries. 

Students gave thanks to the same community workers throughout this whole school year, and started doing so at Thanksgiving. The 3rd graders were inspired by our school theme to walk a mile in their shoes and by other service projects happening by members of our Concordia family.

As part of their Week of Code, the industrious Grade 5 students at Concordia embarked on a captivating journey of creativity, crafting interactive info boards that seamlessly blended technology and cultural exploration. 

Concordia’s middle school Environmental Sustainability class hosted Reception students on a scavenger hunt to teach them about the environment. 

Concordia’s elementary school students are enjoying their annual “Week of Code,” which fosters collaboration between students of different grade levels and encourages the fun side of STEM learning.

Concordia’s middle school boys and girls basketball teams recently traveled to Cambodia to compete in the ASAC regional basketball tournament, becoming the first ever Concordia teams to play overseas! 

Concordia high school Applied Physics students are launching ball bearings, using the initial quantities of motion to model the flight path of an object in their study of projectile motion and kinematics. 

“I did real experiments that previously I had only seen in textbooks. It really helped me to deeply understand chemistry”. Read how Concordia’s AP Chemistry labs bring learning to life.

The Bolt spoke with Concordia elementary school STEM teacher Mr. Caldwell about how elementary students are learning hands-on design thinking. 

Concordia art students took advantage of summer to pursue new projects and courses, discover new styles and mediums and even organize exhibitions.

Two Concordia 2023 graduates Karin and Yu Hyeon have co-authored a paper along with music teacher Mr. Crowden, exploring the roots of the Cheo art form.

Concordia International School Hanoi is the only school in Hanoi with chapters of the US National Honor Society (NHS) and National Junior Honor Society (NJHS). 

Concordia’s creative coders in grades 3, 4 and 5 joined coders from Jakarta's Pattimura and Pondok Indah Elementary Schools and Concordia Shanghai to compete in the Global Codeathon.

Concordia middle school robotics students participated in a recent Vex IQ Robotics competition. 

Not specifically scored, the event was an opportunity for middle school robotics students from different schools around Hanoi to build and engage in an informal competition. 
 

Concordia held its annual Concordia International Research Conference on April 1st, 2023. 

This year’s Keynote speakers were Mr. Kester Scandrett, Country Representative from US water management consulting firm DSI, and Mr. JJ Hurley, from the US Department of Agriculture at the US Embassy. 
 

Advanced art school students are learning to do large-scale self portraits on cardboard. The exercise presents a challenge both in terms of the larger than life size of the pieces, as well as exploring the nuances of cardboard as a medium.

Concordia middle school robotics students are working in teams and learning collaboration skills to build their bots in the most efficient way possible - and win a tug-of-war against other robots.

Concordia International School Hanoi, has earned the College Board's AP® Computer Science Female Diversity Award for expanding young women’s access to AP Computer Science A (CSA). This award acknowledges schools worldwide for their work toward equal gender representation during the 2021-22 school year.

Concordia senior Thomas (G12) designed a facial recognition program that greets students as they walk by - much to their surprise! 

Advanced Placement (AP) is a United States program created by the College Board which offers university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. The program is widely recognized by US universities as well as universities throughout the world. Most US universities grant placement and course credit to students who score a three to five on the examinations.

Concordia Grade 7 science students were asked to develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and the way the parts cells contribute to the function. 

The ECO ASA was introduced by our wonderful Librarian, Ms. Judi Taylor.  Ms. Taylor helped our Elementary School students to raise awareness about wildlife and environment conservation in Vietnam. Students interested in the environment joined the six-week ASA.

Grade 5 science students were asked to combine two or more substances to make a chemical reaction. They could choose their own experiments, explore and go through the scientific method of question, hypothesis, procedure, materials, observation and conclusion.

#ConcordiaHanoi Grade 8 science students in their Forces and Motion unit are applying Newton's Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects. Students design and build capsules to hold the egg, launch them in a rocket, and land them without breaking.

Concordia is known for its strong math program, and students at all levels regularly score much higher than the global standard for their grade. 

The Bolt spoke with four Grade 5 students and their teacher to find out why. 
 

Concordia’s Math and Science Club (C-MaS) provides an after school opportunity for students to delve deeper into the world of math and science, experiment and learn more about their topics of interest, and even compete.

Have you ever wished you could communicate with a friend in a faraway place simply by squeezing a plush toy? Well that is precisely the Internet of Things device and application one Concordia student designed in her STEAM Lab 2 class to stay in touch with her friend back home.

The Bolt spoke with our Elementary School Principal, Ms. Kristin Kappelmann about math instruction in our lower elementary school program

#ConcordiaHanoi high school students in AP Environmental Science and middle school environmental students got the chance to meet an expert in energy, Mr. Markus Bissel, with GIZ, the German aid organization. 

Concordia continues to provide an impressive listing of Advanced Placement (AP) courses available to qualifying students in grades 10 through 12. 

Concordia International School Hanoi boasts an excellent music program. Many of our middle and high school students participate in Choir and Chamber Ensemble. This spring the school prioritized in-person concerts to give these students a chance to showcase their hard work in practice and share their talents with the community.

Mr. Ed Sul introduces and tries to get his Grade 8 students to fall in love with the richness of Shakespeare. 

Using the Next Generation Science Standards, our Grade 5were able to meet the Disciplinary Core Ideas (below) by creating a science experiment and poster that explored those ideas.

Concordia’s first Advanced Placement (AP) art class has displayed their work in advance of formal submission to the AP review board. Each student focused on a particular theme - ranging from loneliness and materialism and gender to body shaming - and explored styles and mediums through which to express their ideas. 

The third annual Concordia International Research Conference Hanoi (CIRCH) conference took place on April 2, at which students presented papers and abstracts on their research findings, sharing first-hand analysis of data or experiments. 

Concordia Reception teachers creatively overcome Home Learning challenges to build our Reception students' math confidence. 

Concordia senior Mirae has presented her paper at the International Conference for Big Data Education (ICBDE) - the only accepted paper from a High School out of approximately 70 presenters. 

The 5th grade classes recently worked on one of the Disciplinary Core Ideas in the Next Generation Science Standards. Students were given the task of creating a mold environment and recording their observations over the course of two weeks. 
 

Concordia’s high school science students participated in the annual Hanoi Science Debates, debating on physics, chemistry and biology.

Concordia students, Jiwon (Gx), Ema and Duc, are designing and developing a mobile app to provide information about events at Concordia and shows AQI, as part of the Coding Club project. 

Concordia’s grade 3’s Science unit is on Weather and Climate.  In math, grade 3 students are learning about measurement and geometry. 

The Zero Plastic Campaign is challenging the Concordia community to be more aware of the use of plastic. 

Concordia's elementary-wide STEM program introduced basic design and engineering concepts to students.

Students in Grade 7 social studies are currently studying megacities, their problems and possible solutions.

Concordia continues to provide an impressive listing of AP courses available to qualifying students in grades 10 through 12. 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, New York (USA) recognized Concordia International School Hanoi for its outstanding achievements in science education.

Concordia Grade 8A Language Arts students acted out and filmed scenes from Shakespeare’s famous play, Romeo and Juliet, as part of their unit on the playwrite. 
The Bolt spoke to students about what they learned. 

Congratulations to our girls who placed 1st and our boys who placed 2nd.

Over 30 high school students took part in what was one of our school’s most ambitious performances to date.

Big Data students from Concordia Hanoi and Concordia Shanghai collaborated and shared their research findings at the annual Concordia International Research Conference Hanoi (CIRCH).

Chief Medical Advisor at the US Embassy CDC/PEPFAR program in Vietnam spoke to our female MS and HS students about her career path in STEM.

The class introduces students to computer science with a focus on the Java programming language.

Although cut short, our athletes had a great second season of sports, including middle school soccer and high school basketball. Read what our coaches have to say about their season.

Concordia’s AP Env. Science students are gaining timely, applicable knowledge of the environment and how humans are impacting it.

Students had many opportunities to work with robotics, learn coding skills, and explore various areas in the science fields.

As an introduction to cytology (cellular biology) and microscopy, Grade 9 is investigating some of the local watering holes.

AP Chemistry students are conducting experiments on electrolytes and conductivity using titration. In the titration exercise, their job is to evaluate different brands and qualities of vinegar and see if the concentration reported is actually true.

Concordia’s National Junior Honor Society chapter has initiated a program meet and read with Reception students online.

Our HS Ensemble put together this performance of Vivaldi's 'Spring' remotely.

Grade 6 explored why their Ratios Unit matters by relating their data points to the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Elementary students met with the high school Robotics class to learn more about their projects and watch their first live competition.

Grade 5's efforts helped Concordia raise over 96 Million VND (4000 USD), which will help SympaMeals provide more than 3,500 meal coupons for families in need.

Grade 9 science students dissected pig hearts to understand the inner workings of the mammalian circulatory organ.

The class thought about animal and plant structures and how those structures could be used to protect themselves.

The high school art class is hosting its first art exhibition in Building B until December 1st.

Concordia senior Rachel is our first student to complete all of the courses in a “math minor” by taking six university math courses from Concordia University Nebraska.

Grade 7 students built 3D models of cells for their science unit.

Concordia has launched our first high school Robotics class, teaching students every facet of the robotics process.

The Micro:bit Coding program introduces students to the Design Thinking process using Concordia’s new creative lab.