Cambridge Lower Secondary

Benefits for your child
Cambridge Lower Secondary provides a natural progression from primary education, helping to equip your child with the knowledge and skills needed for post-14 education programmes that lead to the formal IGCSE qualifications and beyond. The programme is suitable for students with English as first or second language.

Teachers are able to monitor your child’s development through a number of progress checks built into the Cambridge Lower Secondary programme. Short progression tests are a valuable way for teachers to understand your child’s strengths and identify areas where more help is needed. The focus of these tests is showing where your child is on their learning journey, rather than getting right or wrong answers.

Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint tests are marked in Cambridge, and are taken in grade 8 at Zlatarski International School of Sofia. On completion of Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint, your child will receive a statement of achievement and you will receive detailed feedback about your child’s performance. This will help your school to advise on different progression routes after age 14 and choose the one that will be most suitable for your child.

Your child’s international education
Your child’s needs as a learner are at the heart of our approach to education. Our Cambridge Pathway aims to give your child a love of learning that will stay with them through school, university and beyond. Our approach helps us develop learners who are:

• confident in working with information and ideas – their own and those of others
• responsible for themselves, responsive to and respectful of others
• reflective and developing their ability to learn
• innovative and equipped for new and future challenges
• engaged intellectually and socially, ready to make a difference.

A global learning community
With the Cambridge Pathway at Zlatarski International School of Sofia, your child is joining a global community of learners from more than 10 000 schools in over 160 countries. By developing a global outlook in Cambridge learners we aim to equip them for success in the fast-changing modern world.

How does the Cambridge Pathway help students applying for university?
Success in Cambridge qualifications often give students admission to the world’s best universities – in the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and beyond. Cambridge qualifications are accepted and valued by universities around the world, including MIT, Harvard and Cambridge.

They are recognised as qualifications that prepare and equip students with the skills they need to succeed both at university and beyond. Universities tell us that they value the independent research and critical thinking skills, as well as the deep subject knowledge that our qualifications bring.

“Cambridge students are very well-prepared for our curriculum and we find that they have a lot of confidence, but also that they have good deep subject knowledge, and the ability to think critically” Stuart Schmill, Dean of Admissions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)