Founder & Director, Concordian International School

Concordian International School is a Nursery to Grade 12 IB World School located in Bangkaew, Samutprakarn, Thailand. It is one of only four IB Schools in Thailand offering the full range of IB programs – PYP, MYP, and DP.

Concordian International School was founded by Mrs. Varnnee Chearavanont Ross, currently serves as Founder and Director, in August 2001 with 33 students and it is now educating more than 922 students, within the International Baccalaureate (IB) Organization programs. Concordian is the only fully trilingual international school in Thailand using the IB program with English, Chinese, and Thai as the main languages of instruction. In the Early Years and Primary Years programs, students learn in an English-Chinese Immersion Program.

Concordian International School is a private international school, and is a member of the International Schools Association of Thailand (ISAT) and the East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS). It is also fully accredited by the International Baccalaureate Organization, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and the Council of International Schools (CIS).

The school mission is to promote academic excellence while nurturing young people to become responsible, moral and intellectual leaders, people of dignity, integrity, and compassion, who want to make a difference in the world.

Varnnee founded Concordian as an educational institution in 2001 and worked with top linguistic educators from many parts of the world. She created a unique innovative English-Chinese immersion program at Concordian. The learning of 3 languages simultaneously has proven to be a benefit in our students’ lifelong learning.

She encourages her students to participate in community service. She has joined Concordian’s school build project every year since its inception that is frequently located in remote hill tribe areas. We help to upgrade or build new facilities for less fortunate schools’ grounds. She also participated in school build trips with The Build Foundation annually in the hill tribes areas aiming to give an education opportunity to those in need.

Varnnee also sponsors many deserving students by offering scholarship to attend Concordian and university to help them and their families; she does this with the hope that these students will be the future leaders with morality, intellect, integrity and compassion and will make a positive difference to other lives.

In order to earn a Concordian Diploma, all students must participate in community service. Some of these community service projects must be developed and implemented by the students themselves. However, others involve the whole community including parents, teachers, staff, and students. One in particular is a tree planting program in which the Concoridan community completes yearly tree planting trips to a degraded forest in Khao Yai National Park. Reforestation of this area will enable to have sufficient food for the wildlife and to recover the ecosystem. This program has existed at Concordian for 8 years. The planting area has been successfully recovered and more wildlife has returned to that area after having sufficient food. As a result of these efforts, the community and Khun Varnnee are responsible for the reforestation of 400 rai of National Park land.
The things she is most proud of are being the Concordian educators and management team that innovated the only trilingual English, Chinese and Thai immersion program under IB PYP (International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program) in the world, and builds knowledge, ethical and compassionate leadership to Concordian students, with academic excellence, resulting in students graduating from top universities around the world. Her son also attended this school as one of the founding students who graduated from Concordian and recently graduated from King’s College London. Forty percent of our students could attend a world top 100 university. She is hopefully making a positive difference in the lives of her students at Concordian and hopefully these students will make a positive impact to society as leaders in whatever field they choose and wherever they are.

Varnnee’s achievement has earned her and Concordian International School several awards in national and international levels. Concordian International school was honored with the award “Ethical School” from the Dr. Thiam Chokwatana Ethical Schools Network in 2012, while Varnnee was honored with the title of “Ethical Thai Female Teacher” in the following year. In addition, she was awarded with the title of “the Role Model of the Education Industry” from the Foundation of Science and Technology Council of Thailand in 2013 and 2015. She was also honored with the award “Founder’s Alumni” from alma mater (high school), Ojai Valley School, California, USA. In 2018, Varnnee received the “Outstanding ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Award” from ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network (AWEN) Thailand and had an opportunity to be an honorable keynote speaker at Thailand Social Expo 2018, Bangkok, Thailand, by the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, under the theme “Women’s Empowerment: Moving Towards Thailand’s Economics and Society”

Lastly, Varnnee founded Concordian and devoted herself for the past 20 years by including values within the curriculum to expose students to community service to serve others as well as self-initiative projects as part of the school requirements throughout the years at Concordian with the hope to build the young leaders with responsibility, moral, intellect, integrity and compassion to make a difference and a positive impact on others’ lives, society and the world.