Semesta School has three (3) separate campuses; Semesta Bilingual School, SD Semesta, and Semesta 2. The first campus is the oldest one which founded in May 1999, while SD Semesta was established in 2010, and Semesta 2 was recently founded in 2019. Originally, the school only welcomed male students until 2002, but they decided to start accepting female students this year. As a result, they began building a dormitory for girls in 2004 and became a special school building for girls in 2014. Meanwhile, an integrated girls’ dormitory building for middle and high school students was built in 2013 and opened in 2014. On the other hand, male junior high school students have one-story dormitories located to the north of the male high school dormitories.

In the year 2017, Semesta School began using the Cambridge curriculum which came from the Cambridge International Examination. They also started integrating technology in the classroom. At first, they used Microsoft’s tablet PC, Surface and switched to Google’s Chrome book in 2018.

When it comes to their school facilities, Semesta 2 has Library and Education Toys room, Science and Computer Laboratory, Futsal and Basketball Field, Gymnastic Room, Health Center, Cafeteria and Kitchen, and Music Room.

I was assigned in SMP Semesta 2 Semarang, an A-accredited national curriculum school. It is located in Jl. Jangli Gabeng No. 1 Tembalang, Semarang. Since this school uses the Cambridge curriculum, they also use its books which lead them to use the content-based instruction— a teaching approach that encourage students to study language through meaningful content. In addition, they utilize English as their MOI or medium of instruction. It is to enhance and optimize students’ language skills that can be used globally.

The school also organizes weekly activities, which are beneficial to improve students’ academic performances and characters. They call the weekly activities as subject week, these are Review and Reflection, Extra Lesson, Weekly Report, English Week, Social Week, Science Week, and Religion Week.

As mentioned, this school is technology integrated where most of the classroom activities are done with the use of technology. Every student is provided a Chrome Book as their tools for learning. Each classroom also has a Pannel Board or usually called Tutortouch, an interactive board that can project laptops’ screen and be used as a board at the same time. As well as Wi-Fi for their adequate internet connection to make the teaching and learning process more fun and interactive.

To build a child’s character, the school has guidance program and character building.  The main purpose of these is to strengthen the character of the students as the leader of information and to become noble and intelligent. As for the programs, they implement Career Planning, Parents-Teacher Home Visit, Reading Camp, Social Activity, One-on-one Meetings, and Leadership Camp.

Moreover, Semesta has also a pride for their students, where they compete them into the fields of Sports and Science such as Programs Science Projects Team, Olympus, STEAM-Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics. It is to engage the students to the world of science and discover more about the world, as well as letting them enjoy and be physically fit at the same time when they do sports.

The school is not only focusing on excellence inside the institution, they also offer their students extracurricular activities, such as OSIS, Pramuka, Futsal, Basketball, Archery, Tari Saman, Japanese Club, Singing, Creative Writing Club, Public Speaking, and Graphic Design. These allow the students to explore more of their potentials to be the best version of themselves

Most of the teachers both make use of teacher-centered approach and student-centered approach. Teacher-centered approach focuses only on the educator, where the students are usually passive. On the other side of the fence, student-centered approach is an approach that lets the students be their own agent of learning. In here, teachers are still part of their learning because it focuses on both students and instructors. The students can also work in pairs, groups, and even solo. That means, students work with the guidance of their teachers.

Furthermore, every teacher has their own teaching methods or strategies to facilitate their class. They depend their approaches according to their students, which is a good move because we all know that each student is different. There are also some who use game-based learning, a strategy that makes the teaching and learning process more interesting and amusing. Also, the learning activities are differentiated, in a sense that the teachers make sure that they implement different activities each session. It is great because repetitive activities make the students bored and lose their interest in learning