When you strengthen Israel's education system, you ensure the future of the nation.

About IASA

IASA: cultivating Excellence, Leadership and Community Service among students.

The Israel Arts and Science Academy (IASA) is a residential high school for high-achieving and motivated young people from across Israel. These students have a high level of curiosity and a love of learning. Joining a community of youngsters with great ability is a stimulating and inspirational experience. IASA students focus on reaching their potential while celebrating one another’s successes.

IASA’s unique learning methodology fosters critical thinking while promoting individual choices and talents. Combining demanding academic studies with a rich and supportive community life, our students and graduates produce exceptional achievements, earning IASA international recognition.

At IASA:

Excellence is a lifelong pursuit of doing your best in everything you undertake. Our focus on excellence extends beyond academics, to how you live your life, the way you treat others and what you contribute to society.

Students’ Leadership skills are developed by providing opportunities to take responsibility for activities and endeavors, helping them learn to lead while cultivating respect for others, humility and the ability to listen.

Service to others is prized as highly as excellence and leadership. IASA students perform Community Service every week throughout their education, with the goal of making service to the community a lifelong commitment.

IASA graduates comprise an astonishing 7% of Talpiot.

It is rare for any high school to have even a single graduate accepted.

Ensuring the survival of the nation.

Talpiot is the Israeli Defense Force’s most exclusive program. Only 50 from each year’s crop of more than 100,000 high school graduates are accepted to Talpiot for a nine-year commitment.

“Talpiotniks” are tasked with solving real problems for the Israeli Army, Navy and Air Force. The demanding IASA curriculum and the discipline students develop provide outstanding preparation for the rigors of Talpiot. Many of the IASA graduates who become Talpiotniks report that their motivation for joining was their desire to give back to their country.

From Major Yuval Nevo, former Talpiot Commander, in a letter to Etay Benovich, IASA CEO and Principal.

“ There is a great difference between the abilities of a gifted student who simply went through a system that makes no mark on him, and a student who went through a system like yours that develops him. It can make a decisive difference between one who realizes his potential and in doing so contributes to society, and one who fades into the background and his talents are left unused.”

IASA History

A legacy of nurturing the talents of our nation’s best and brightest.

In 1987, Raphi Amram ( z”l) and Mary Jane Asher (z”l) and Robert H. Asher (z”l) undertook to make their vision —a high school for high-achieving and motivated students combining art and science—a reality.

For years, the three had advocated for the establishment of a school that would give Israel’s brightest students the best opportunity to reach their full potential.

IASA Founders Mary Jane (z”l) and Robert H. Asher (z”l)

IASA Founder Raphi Amram ( z"l)

The land that became IASA.

Construction site, January 24, 1990.

Work in progress building IASA.

A rare snowy day at IASA. Sculpture in foreground: The Wind , by Danny Kafri, in memory of Charles Schusterman.

Aiming at an estimable goal

The Founders assembled a distinguished international panel of academicians, scientists, artists and musicians . They drew up plans for an academy that would welcome high-achieving students from every corner of Israel, with a focus on the periphery.

Then fate stepped in

The preparation of the architectural blueprints, the submission of the plans to—and approval by—51 separate municipal agencies, and the construction of the academic and housing facilities in Jerusalem, was a protracted process that would typically take three years. Miraculously, it was all completed in 15 months, and on September 2, 1990, the Israel Arts and Science Academy—a school destined to make an incredible contribution to Israel—opened its doors to its first class of high school students.

A proud history of excellence and accomplishment

Since that day, IASA students and graduates have achieved at an unprecedented academic level, and have contributed to society at an outsized rate. IASA has become a powerful force advancing excellence in education and commitment to the community.

Pillars of IASA

Excellence, Leadership and Community Service.

The original goals for IASA, articulated by co-founder Bob Asher at the cornerstone ceremony held on June 27, 1989, were Excellence, Leadership and Community Service. To this day, we remain resolutely focused upon these goals.

Founder Robert H. Asher (center) at the cornerstone ceremony.

Each student is directed into a life of thoughtfulness and community involvement.

Excellence in all things.

IASA students are challenged to excel in everything they undertake, to make the pursuit of excellence a lifetime avocation. Aspiring to excellence in all things is demanding and rigorous, but it is an essential component of life at IASA, and a trademark of our school’s alumni.

Developing accomplished leaders.

How do you create leaders? Give them responsibility and opportunities to lead at every turn. IASA students learn by doing, with encouraging support and guidance from committed faculty. The lessons in leadership students absorb during their three years at IASA provide a sturdy foundation for the scientific, academic, business, government and cultural positions to which they ascend as adults.

Service to others.

The Crown Community Service Program (CCSP) may be the most important pillar for IASA students; it is the glue that binds the three together. These high-ability young people are voracious learners and highly productive. It is natural that they may focus attention on their own efforts, sometimes to the exclusion of their role in the community. Service to the community improves our students’ ability to relate to others and helps them become better human beings.

Since the inception of the school, IASA students perform community service every week throughout their education. Our goal is to direct each student into a life of thoughtfulness and involvement in their community.

The CCSP is a serious activity for each student. The staff searches for new and challenging opportunities in which the students have the ability to make a real contribution to people in need. Each year, IASA students work with approximately 30 organizations.

Our commitment to community service sets IASA students down the path to happier lives. New research on brain chemistry indicates that increasing the capacity for compassion activates the circuitry for happiness. Making service to others a lifetime pursuit richly rewards those who give as well as those who receive.

Our Students

Young people, each on the journey to becoming a “mensch.”

Each of the approximately 300 students enrolled at IASA could share a remarkable account of how they were transformed by their pursuit of Excellence, Leadership and Community Service . The following true story is one of many that could be told.

Going confidently where many are reluctant to go.

The Swedish Village is a residential and working space for adults with severe cognitive disabilities. The profound handicaps its residents live with make it a very difficult place to visit.

In 2015, our Crown Community Service Program (CCSP) staff began a conversation with the Swedish Village about the possibility of our students volunteering there. Village administrators questioned whether high school students had the maturity and empathy required to make a positive contribution to the residents.

IASA Community Service in action, one-on-one.

IASA student leading horse carrying his blind and autistic charge.

A very encouraging start.

A pilot program involving four of our students delivered outstanding results. The staff of the Village was unanimous in their praise for the work our students accomplished.

In 2016, the program was doubled and eight of our students participated, the results again surpassing expectations. In 2017 the program redoubled, with 16 students volunteering.

Developing relationships with residents.

The students provide welcome relief from the isolation residents experience. IASA students join residents in arts and crafts, day trips, music, singing and group conversations, which foster self-expression and communication.

Two dedicated students received national recognition. Download the PDF of their amazing story.

Expanding the size and scope.

In 2017, a number of students who were not part of the regular Village volunteers thought the residents would benefit from celebrating various holidays.

They brought their idea to the staff at the Village, which was utterly amazed at the perceptiveness and understanding our students have for the residents. They enthusiastically approved our students’ plan, which began with a simple Kabalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) that the residents wholly enjoyed.

Service to others—the most important pillar.

Assisting someone who truly needs your help is a remarkable experience. You have to do it to understand it, and once our students offer themselves to others, they look forward to doing it again and again. Annually, approximately 40% of our graduates choose to perform a year of public service (national average = 2.8%) prior to and in addition to their army service.

Donors

Be a part of the extraordinary success of IASA.

Our mission—to develop and foster Excellence, Leadership and Community Service among Israel’s best and brightest students—is both essential and effective.

IASA students make the very most of the extraordinary education they receive. Fully 25% of our graduates earn PhDs (compared to 1.3% nationally) , and many others become accomplished leaders in business, government, the arts and the military. IASA graduates are at the nexus of virtually every important field of endeavor in the nation, and their achievements strengthen Israel.

to learn more and join the IASA family.

Your involvement is needed.

While every effort is made to reduce costs and develop revenue sources where possible (for example, from the rental of facilities), the cost of education at IASA exceeds the tuition charged and the funding received from the Ministry of Education. Seventy percent of our students deserve and receive scholarship assistance, which is indispensable to achieving our goal of a diverse student population.

Join us in helping to achieve our vision of developing outstanding leaders, strengthening Israel's education system and securing her future.

Please contact us to join as a member of the IASA family.

innovative programs

IASA Middle School has begun to introduce new methodologies in teaching. Frontal teaching is on the way out, being replaced by coaching and teamwork, both at the teacher and student levels. New programs are being introduced. This year, three major programs have been introduced: Project Week(s), Upperclassmen Mentoring and Community Service .

PROJECT WEEK(S): Teaching students how to learn

Twice a year, IASA-MS and Guatemala School students put their regular studies on hold and pour all their energy into IASA's unique Project Weeks program. Based on IASA-HS Project Week, the middle school Project Weeks introduce students to the structure of advanced research and group study and enable them to explore an area of personal interest.

This year's first Project Week focused on two topics: for 7th graders, "Asking Questions," and for 8th graders, "How is what I learn in school connected to the real world?" The 8th grade students researched and visited a number of work places, including Machane Yehuda market shops, hi-tech offices, companies, hair salons, and a recording studio to investigate the relationships between school learning and workplace skills. They discovered that a lot of the "soft skills" they learn in school such as interpersonal relations, working in teams, creative thinking, and problem solving are essential in the "real world."

VISIT TO THE ISRAEL MUSEUM DURING PROJECT WEEK

Academic achievements at the highest level now begin with 7th grade students.

In the second Project Week, both 7th and 8th grade students researched the concept of "Success." They raised questions, such as how companies manage to sell products that consumers know are unhealthy, and what makes some people succeed in keeping friends and others struggle, and used research skills and teamwork to create presentations to share their conclusions. Israel's Channel 2 did a report on the project.

Project Weeks are an integral component of IASA's emphasis on curiosity and independent learning.

Visit to the Israel Museum

IASA-HS student hosting IASA-MS students

Poster project: “Why did the attitude towards women in folklore and myth change over time?

Poster project: “Why do songs get stuck in our heads?”

Poster project: “How can there be such different ideologies if we all live in the same world?”

Poster project: “How is energy transferred in a Newton’s cradle?”

PROJECT WEEK: Poster Presentation

Students utilizing online tools for group research during Project Week.

IASA-MS COMMUNITY SERVICE

Performing Community Service - a first in Israel middle schools

IASA-MS is the first middle school in Israel to include volunteering as part of its curriculum. The IASA-MS Community Service program wanted to continue IASA’s commitment to community service, but needed to be adapted for middle school students. Students volunteer to help Kiryat Menachem residents in a variety of projects including: tending community gardens, helping disadvantaged toddlers in local daycares, and doing activities with elderly immigrants from Ethiopia and the Former Soviet Union. IASA-MS students are joined in some projects by 5th & 6th grade Guatemala School students. The Administration of the Guatemala School sees the value of this important commitment.

Each student is directed into a life of thoughtfulness and community involvement.

IASA-HS graduates report that one of the most life-changing aspects of IASA is the Crown Community Service Program. By bringing this model program into younger students' lives, the IASA-MS makes giving back to society a basic part of their character development, and launches a life-long journey of social responsibility.

The Excellence Educators Institute (EEI) is Israel's largest trainer of teachers in math and science for high-achieving students in elementary and middle schools.

EEI is a team of unique teaching professionals developing new paths that encourage children’s eagerness to learn. Our expert educators design complete STEM curricula, including user-friendly teachers' manuals, classroom activities, and printables. The units are structured as riddles and quests that keep students motivated, engaging their interest in learning science and math.

EEI educators provide teacher training sessions to all teachers who use the program. The training sessions ensure that teachers are thoroughly prepared to teach our units. At the training sessions, the teachers themselves carry out the units, playing the role of students to prepare themselves for teaching them.

EEI's commitment doesn't end when the training sessions are complete. We understand that teachers can't implement long-lasting pedagogical change without ongoing support, so our Field Coordinators are a key ingredient in the EEI's secret sauce for enabling teachers to achieve educational excellence. They visit every participating school every 6 weeks and maintain constant contact through email and phone to all teachers participating in Excellence 2000, Al-Ma-Da, and other EEI programs.

EEI was initiated to design programs for high-achieving elementary and middle school students. EEI's mission has now expanded to encompass the general student population.

Meeting the unique needs of Israel's youth to excel in science and math.

Al Mada

Innovative instruction in math and science for elementary schools.

Al Mada makes science and math exciting, with interactive experiments that engage young people’s imaginations.

Learn more about this fast-growing program .

International

Exporting education excellence to Singapore.

EEI’s senior staff regularly travels abroad to train teachers in countries—such as Singapore, where education is a national priority—in which our enrichment programs operate.

Learn more about our successful international programs .

Al-Ma-da

Providing elementary schools with a STEM learning environment.

Today's students live in a 21st-century world of rapid change. New technologies replace old faster than ever before. Information is available at lightning speed in unprecedented quantities. When everything is unpredictable, Israel must prepare its young people to excel at solving the problems of the future.

Teach students to think - scientifically - creatively - mathematically - out of the box .

Train teachers to teach passionately, make their classrooms dynamic, and help their students grow.

Children become young scientists, mathematicians avid to explore and learn.

Training teachers to inspire their students.

Al-Ma-Da does exactly that. It is ICEE's teacher training and curriculum development program for grade-level elementary school students. The program presents each science and math learning unit as a mystery, piquing students' interest and enlisting them as investigators who carry out experiments to discover the answer. Along the way, they learn essential scientific and arithmetic concepts as well as critical thinking skills.

Al-Ma-Da provides schools with everything they need to become thriving STEM learning environments. ICEE outfits each school with the lab resources it needs for the program. We develop and distribute easy-to-follow teacher manuals and classroom materials. We facilitate online learning platforms, contests, and math applets.

Most important, we provide participating teachers with 2 years of extensive training in how to implement the program. We ensure their continued success through ongoing coaching and classroom visits for up to 4 years.

Starting with just 4 Jerusalem schools in 2011, Al-Ma-Da has grown rapidly. It now operates across Israel, in every cultural and religious sector. For the year 2017, there was authorization to add 50 schools; 350 applications were received. The Ministry of Education has approved the expansion by 100 schools in 2018-2019. In 2018-19 will train about 550 teachers and directly impact about 17,000 students. ICEE has become the address of choice for schools seeking exceptional teacher training, and even with the expansion the demand from principals and teachers is not fulfilled.

Written by an Al-Ma-Da teacher training participant:

"The Al-Ma-Da teacher training was fascinating and refreshing. I love the idea of opening each class with an interesting and curiosity-arousing activity to capture students' attention and keep them motivated. I can't wait to get back to the classroom to implement these ideas! Looking forward to the next training session!"

International Programs

Helping Singapore’s schools achieve even more.

Etay Benovich (black sweater), ICEE CEO and IASA Principal, welcomes Ng Chee Meng, Singapore Minister of Education, and his delegation for their annual visit.

The hunger for excellence in education is by no means an Israeli phenomenon; it is a priority for every country searching for a better future, including Singapore, which has one of the world’s top education systems.

The success of Mitchell Excellence 2000 (ME2K) , an enrichment program in science and math for high-achieving grade 4-9 students, attracted the attention of the Singapore Ministry of Education. The Ministry launched a two-year trial project in which the International Center for Excellence through Education (ICEE) would train science teachers in an adapted version of the program.

Teachers from 30 schools were selected to participate, and underwent training by Excellence Educators Institute staff members over the course of 2009 and 2010. An evaluation study was conducted alongside the implementation of the ME2K program.

An outstanding initial report card.

At the conclusion of the trial phase, the Singapore Ministry of Education determined the program to be successfully achieving its goals, and elected to expand it , extending ME2K to all the centers for gifted and talented students, and bringing ME2K training seminars to more and more teachers in the country.

Adding math to the science curriculum.

At the onset of the trial phase, Singapore had accepted only the science curriculum of ME2K, and had excluded the math curriculum. The reasoning was that Singaporean students consistently scored at the high level in the international math tests.

Once Singaporean administrators were exposed to the science curriculum of ME2K, however, they made a significant change. Beginning in 2014, ICEE expanded its work in Singapore to target primary school mathematics. The program provided ME2K math training to fourth- to sixth-grade teachers, including teachers of advanced students and teachers in gifted programs.

Targeting a nationwide adoption.

In 2016, in light of these successes, the Singapore Ministry of Education decided to further expand our work in that country. The Ministry’s strategic goal is to expand ME2K in mathematics to all primary schools by 2020.

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