NEW in 2010-11: Pilot program in Mandarin through Stanford University's Education Program for Gifted Children (EPGY) Online High School. Expanded Spanish program in lower school.

Wilmington Friends School has been a leader in global education since the 19th century.

Global learning at Friends includes signature international programs--the International Baccalaureate (IB) and School Year Abroad (SYA)--and a curriculum- and school-wide approach to education that prepares students for the challenges and opportunities of their future, even those that we cannot predict.

The world is changing quickly, fueled by technological progress measured in “machine generations” as short as one or two years. Friends offers an unsurpassed college preparatory program in terms of content in each academic discipline, and in the range and depth of academic and leadership skills that apply across disciplines and outside of the classroom. We recognize that the careers our students will pursue may not even exist yet, and the program at Friends is designed to prepare students for whatever the future brings.

* Friends students learn how to engage complex questions intellectually—with multi-layered, open-minded, truly "global" thinking.

* They learn the academic and leadership skills to engage challenges in and outside of the classroom, with a sense of responsibility and confidence that they can communicate, act, and lead effectively.

* They learn how to listen and how to work with people of different points of view.

* And they learn that the faster the world changes, the more important their own foundation of values and ethics becomes.

Global education is coordinated throughout the curriculum, culminating in the IB program. Friends was the first school in Delaware authorized to offer the IB, which is recognized around the world as representing one of the highest standards—indeed, it is often recognized as the highest standard—in college preparatory education. Authorization as an IB school also ensures international certification of quality across academic disciplines, to the benefit of all of our students.

Additional global education programs, including School Year Abroad and other international study and service learning programs, are coordinated at Friends through the Quaker Center for Understanding, Engagement, and Stewardship (QUEST). Programs under the auspices of QUEST include the service-learning trips (in 2009, to India and Costa Rica), and the “Big Ideas” and Lunch & Learn speaker series on issues related to cross-cultural and international understanding, social justice, and environmental stewardship.