15 years of building a leading educational brand

In the private school system, Newton School stands out as a "special phenomenon" because, after only 15 years of establishment and development, the school has affirmed its superior strengths in both mass education and specialized training, becoming a top educational brand in the capital; trusted by parents and students under the name "Specialized International School".

In November 2024, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Hanoi Education and Training sector (1954 - 2024) and the 15th anniversary of the school's founding (2009 - 2024), Newton School received many good news at the same time: its students won top prizes in prestigious national and international intellectual competitions.

In October 2024, at the launch ceremony for the Hanoi student teams participating in the 2024-2025 National High School Student Excellence Competition, Newton School was the name most frequently mentioned, filled with immense pride by the school's teachers and students. With continuous effort, sound investment, and a well-structured training plan, five outstanding students from Newton School officially made it onto the national competition team, including four students in Mathematics and one in Physics. The Director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training commended Newton School as the private school with the most students participating in the national competition, including a student in the 10th grade, Ha Dang An.

In 2024, Newton School was also the private school with the most presence at Noi Bai International Airport, joining the Hanoi Department of Education and Training's leadership delegation to welcome back students who had achieved outstanding results in international competitions. At the International Mathematics and Science Olympiad (IMSO 2024), all nine Newton School students won medals, including four gold medals, four silver medals, and one bronze medal, with one student achieving "Best In Theory" in Science (the best performance in the theoretical exam). This was the second consecutive year that Newton School led in achievements compared to other schools in Vietnam at this competition.

At the 2024 International Junior Mathematical Olympiad (InIMC) held in India, Hanoi had 15 students who won medals, including 3 gold medals, 2 of which were won by students from Newton School. With a score of 140/150, Nguyen Phong Chau achieved the highest score in the entire Key Stage 2 level, surpassing the teams from the USA and China, while Nguyen Dang Khanh also won a gold medal with a high score.

Previously, Newton was the only private school with two students selected for the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO 2024), achieving the highest and second highest scores in the selection round. Also at this competition in 2023, for the first time in the school's history, Hoang Pham Minh Khanh became a member of the official team and achieved the highest result overall with a Silver Medal (the other four members who won Bronze Medals were all students from Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for Gifted Students).

At the recently concluded Bac Tu Liem District Excellent Student Competition for the 2024-2025 school year, as in previous years, Newton continued to lead with 50 awards across 9 out of 9 subjects, including 4 top-scoring students. The students who achieved high rankings in this competition will advance to the city-level excellent student competition to be held in the near future, promising to bring many more brilliant achievements to the school.

Notably, Newton School is recognized by the authorities and trusted and loved by parents and students not only for its outstanding academic achievements but also for its impressive overall educational results, with a 100% pass rate in both high school graduation and university entrance exams. In the 2024 high school graduation exam, 95% of 12th-grade students at Newton School achieved a perfect 10 in English thanks to their IELTS certificates, raising the average English score of the school's students to 9.68. The average total score for the three subjects of Math, Literature, and English reached 24.45; the average score for high school graduation was 8.2.

Similarly, in the 2024-2025 high school entrance exam for 10th grade, the school's average scores in the three subjects were high, with corresponding scores of: 8.17 (Mathematics) - 7.44 (Literature) - 8.45 (English). Hundreds of students from the school passed the entrance exams to prestigious specialized high schools, but due to their love for the school's educational environment, most of them continued to study at the high school level, aiming to win scholarships to top universities abroad.

To meet the needs and desires of parents, and to constantly listen to the development trends of education both domestically and internationally, Newton has taken a groundbreaking step in innovating its curriculum and classroom model. To date, the school's educational ecosystem is very diverse, encompassing programs such as: Semi-International English/Semi-International Chinese, Cambridge International (UK), American Bilingual, and high-quality programs. Within each program, the school divides classes according to proficiency levels and specific orientations; notably, there is an ICT class – providing early, in-depth computer science training for students with a particular interest in computer science and programming.

At the high school level, Newton School is renowned for its Scholarship Hunting class model, aiming for students to win awards in provincial/city and national-level academic competitions; achieve scholarships ranging from 70% to 100% to top universities worldwide; and ensure 100% of students are admitted to top universities in Vietnam… For over 10 years, Newton School students have been known for their achievements in securing scholarships to prestigious universities around the world and are among the top schools with the highest number of scholarship recipients in the Hanoi education system.

Besides focusing on cultivating cultural knowledge, Newton School always wants its students to showcase their talents through sports, arts, and extracurricular activities… to develop the skills to become future leaders and global citizens. The school made its mark at the WSIF 2024 World School Forum, won the national volunteer award, high prizes in the "Hanoi Voice" Young Singers competition, the Special Prize at the Choral Festival of the Nam-Bac Tu Liem High School cluster, the First Prize at the Hanoi City Choral Festival… along with many high prizes in sports competitions at the district, city, and national levels.

With its advanced educational program and modern, comprehensively invested facilities, the school has officially achieved accreditation from the Cognia Organization - USA, and has been certified as a green, clean, beautiful, and safe school model. It has also been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including: a Certificate of Merit from the Ministry of Education and Training for outstanding achievements in the emulation movement for innovation in management, teaching, and learning; and recognition for its smart education initiative - Sei Awards - from the Institute for Innovation and Digital Transformation (Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations).

The 15-year journey of Newton School's establishment and growth is closely linked to the name of its captain and inspirational leader – the dedicated and creative educator Le Thi Bich Dung, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Co-founder, and Head of the Innovation Committee of the school.

Graduating from the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Hanoi in 1981, Ms. Bich Dung spent 13 years teaching advanced mathematics and programming at the University of Mining and Geology. The following 12 years were spent studying and working abroad. Driven by a desire to contribute her accumulated knowledge and expertise to her homeland, Ms. Bich Dung decided to return to Vietnam, harboring a dream of doing something for education. This "something" became clearly defined after a reunion with her former teacher – Associate Professor Dr. Tran Van Nhung, former Deputy Minister of Education and Training.

“My meeting with Professor Le Thi Bich Dung was truly a stroke of luck. When I shared my plans and desires to invest in education, he advised me to open a high school that was innovative and aligned with international standards; the goal was to bring the best practices from abroad into Vietnamese education for students from a young age; only then could we train generations of progressive students… Inspired by his suggestion, my colleagues and I researched and decided to establish Newton School,” recalled educator Le Thi Bich Dung.

Recalling the journey of building Newton School, Ms. Bich Dung divides it into three periods: from 2009 to 2014 was the period of defining the direction; from 2014 to 2018 was the period of spreading its wings far out to sea; and from 2018 to the present is the period of strong and sustainable development. Each period corresponds to memories of hardship and difficulty, but always filled with love and dedication.

Ms. Bich Dung recalled: "For the first five years, the school rented a location at the Aquatic Sports Palace, My Dinh National Sports Complex. Newton School had its first opening ceremony with the participation of more than 20 staff, teachers, and employees, and 71 first-grade students. There, there were spacious courtyards full of golden sunshine and green grass; two rows of trees neatly arranged on each step leading to the school gate; and small but tidy and organized classrooms..."

After its first five years, Newton, a newly established school, had already ranked among the top universities in the capital and nationwide in terms of university entrance exam scores. Following a period of exploration, learning, and experience, the school resolutely pursued and firmly established its own unique path: a holistic education model; combining the national curriculum with an international English program, creating a Newton student style guided by the motto: " Every student is a future leader ."

The summer of 2014 was a brilliant and unforgettable one for all the teachers and students of Newton School. With the strategic vision and investment of the Board of Directors, Newton School officially moved to its new facility – its own school, located in the Hoang Quoc Viet urban area, Bac Tu Liem district. Newton School, a multi-level school, was considered one of the most modern schools in Hanoi at the time, with over 100 classrooms designed to international standards, equipped with air conditioning, projectors, interactive whiteboards, and spaces for physical education, sports, and talent development, including a swimming pool, gymnasium, football and basketball courts, and an auditorium…

During this period, the total number of students in the school increased nearly tenfold; the school's scale continued to grow. In 2018, the school's second campus in Goldmark City (136 Ho Tung Mau - Bac Tu Liem) officially opened. Also in that school year, Newton became a strategic partner of the American educational organization Equest - opening up great opportunities for students and the school. In 2019, Newton Primary and Secondary School 5 (Thanh Ha Urban Area) was established and became the third educational institution of the Newton School System. To date, Newton School has 4 campuses with a total of nearly 8,500 students. On September 18th, the System commenced construction of Newton Westlake School (Nam Thang Long Urban Area, Phu Thuong Ward, Tay Ho District), comprising 3 levels of education (preschool, primary, and secondary), covering approximately 1 hectare with the vision of becoming a modern, smart, and high-quality international school.

According to educator Le Thi Bich Dung, to build a good educational environment, three factors must be addressed: firstly, creating a training environment that fosters students' potential; secondly, employing advanced teaching methods; and thirdly, having adequate modern teaching equipment. Newton School has strived to develop all three of these factors equally.

As the Vice Chairperson of the Board of Directors, Head of the Innovation and Creativity Committee in teaching and learning across the entire system, and teacher of the group training gifted math students, Ms. Bich Dung understands that expertise is the core foundation for creating a quality education, and continuous innovation is the way to develop the school in the IT era.

Ms. Bich Dung's innovative efforts to adapt to changing circumstances were most evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, she had been nurturing ideas for IT application models for many years, and during the pandemic, she transformed challenges into motivation, quickly embracing trends and making Newton a leading school in effectively implementing online teaching and learning. To achieve this, she and the teaching staff of Newton School widely implemented online teaching and learning across all grade levels in the entire system, moving students from the traditional classroom to a magical learning environment in the digital space: without distance, with strong interaction and boundless creativity.

With the determination to transform Newton System classrooms into "Smart Classrooms," the school has uniformly adopted the use of IT applications and teaching software on tablets in combination with traditional teaching methods – chalk and blackboard. This teaching method creates a significant advantage in many aspects: students receive a larger amount of knowledge, learn more vividly and enthusiastically, and actively participate in classroom activities. The school's quality improves, subject departments coordinate quickly and effectively, producing students with strong IT skills, broader knowledge, comprehensive development, and leadership in the era of digital experts such as ChatGPT, AI, Bing, etc.

Ms. Bich Dung's dedication has spread to all teachers and students in the school. She constantly strives to simplify complex and difficult concepts in lessons, calling them "Inspiring Lessons." She launched the "Inspiring Teacher" movement throughout the school to encourage teachers to research lessons and make teaching more engaging and understandable for students. For her contributions to education, Ms. Le Thi Bich Dung was honored with the prestigious "Dedicated and Creative Teacher of Hanoi" award from the Department of Education and Training; and also received a Certificate of Merit from the Ministry of Education and Training for her achievements in the "Innovation and Creativity in Management, Teaching, and Learning" emulation movement.

“From birth to soaring high into the ocean – to strong and sustainable growth – that is the 15-year journey Newton School has taken. Despite countless difficulties and challenges, with the love for our students, the support of parents, and the growth of our students, the school's leadership and teaching staff have overcome everything. Today, in light of the progress and achievements we have made, we are even more determined and committed to using all our enthusiasm and creativity to continue developing the Newton School brand into a specialized international school, a smart school, a happy school in a modern international direction, the number one choice for students and parents,” – Ms. Hoang Thi Man, Principal of Newton Secondary and High School, shared emotionally.