Our Story

Introduction Letter

Richard Joannides, School Founder

Dear Verita family and friends,

The most meaningful endeavor of my life is to be able to touch the hearts and minds of our children. Every day when I walk into Verita International School, I feel grateful, humbled and honored. All of us at Verita have a sacred duty to our students and to the parent community who have entrusted us with the development of their children at the most critical and formative time of their lives.

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To see the faces of our students and to share first-hand the wonder and awe and discovery of their world is inspiring. It’s what I call pure moments of joy. We must never forget the joy! For through joy and love of learning, intrinsic motivation and student agency is cultivated. Our future graduates of painters, scientists and inventors will be instilled with the drive to do something because it is interesting, challenging and fascinating. It finally comes down to helping students develop a higher degree of autonomy, mastery and intrinsic motivation that will foster high levels of creativity, critical thinking and innovation.

With our well-designed inquiry-based curricula, we can empower students with critical thinking and help them turn passions into pivotal life skills. The role of education is no longer to teach arbitrary academic content, but to help our children thrive in a world that will label irrelevant the prescribed automated learner and reward the innovative thinker. As a CIS member school and COBIS Patron’s Accredited Member delivering our inquiry-based learning approach strengthened through the tools offered by Fieldwork Education, IGSCE and IB-DP curricula; we assure a robust and rigorous academic process while at the same time celebrating, cultivating and encouraging curiosity and the love of learning.

Life is a beautiful adventure but our children will also be faced with unavoidable difficulties that will stretch and test them. Verita strongly believes in teaching Social Emotional Learning skills of self-regulation that builds many important inner competencies such as resilience. It is through resilience and a growth mindset that we thrive during some of the most challenging times in our lives. It is wisdom not knowledge that brings success, happiness and fulfilment in life. We want our children to be wise. We want our children to be kind and loving. With our SEL curricula, we provide the ideal platform for fostering well-being in our students.

A strong bond and partnership with parents is pivotal and one of the most important aspects of our school. We see Verita as a family with common values committed to the well-being of our children. It is a privilege to serve the families and children in our community.

We look forward to serving the Verita community for generations to come.

– Richard Joannides

Founder of Verita School

The Verita School
Timeline

1982

Verita’s journey began in 1982 with a young woman named Gabriela Simionescu who was one of the first brave trailblazers in the Romanian private education system, opening one of the first English speaking Nursery and Kindergarten schools in Bucharest. In the first few years, the school operated incognito for if any of the Communist government officials would have discovered her, it would have meant serious consequences and immediate closure of the school. However, this did not dissuade, or hinder Gabriela Simionescu dream of having an English school and she persevered forward even through many difficulties and challenges.

1989

After the revolution in 1989 the school quickly grew and permanently established a formal presence in Piata Unirii. Eventually the school grew to also incorporate Nursery, Reception and Primary year groups.

2012

In 2012, Richard Joannides and Gabriela Simionescu decided to join forces and focus on bringing international teachers and implementing the National Curriculum of England and Wales. Richard Joannides was passionate about integrating and bringing on board new state of the art pedagogy that included Inquiry Based Learning approaches and Social Emotional Learning curricula.

2014

In 2014, the school moved to the prestigious Dacia blvd in one of the most beautiful and historical buildings in the area. Verita grew rapidly and organically from the bottom age groups upwards.

I knew I wanted to rekindle and revisit my childhood dream of creating a school. But no ordinary school. I wanted to change the paradigm of education. I wanted to push the limits of what a school could be.

– Richard Joannides

Founder Verita International School