As an organization that sets high standards and expectations, SABIS^® is committed to developing high-quality materials that help schools, teachers, and students in the network achieve high standards. The newest materials include, but are not limited to, the SABIS^® Book Series, E-books, and test questions. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

The SABIS^® Book Series, which currently consists of over 2,100 traditionally-formatted and E-titles, has been expanded to include new books in Spanish and Portuguese to meet the needs of schools, both currently in operation or planned, in Central and South America. The series also includes new ACE books, which are specifically tailored to help prepare students for external examinations taken around the world; titles for the Pre-school program in response to a number of Pre-schools opening in the network; Arabic readers based on famous and historic figures; and the Accelerated English series, which is becoming exceedingly important in driving educational standards in countries where students are not native English speakers.

SABIS^® expects to see a significant move from traditional print books to E-books over the next few years. In fact, in the 2017-18 academic year, 33 schools within the SABIS^® Network, including 32,000 students in levels E through N, are already using E-books. This growth has been accompanied by developments and updates in both the E-book software and the content to enhance the learning experience. Additionally, and perhaps the most exciting development of all, is the integration of Augmented Reality (AR) in E-books. To learn more about AR, read this issue’s article entitled “Augmented Reality Poised to Impact Student Learning.”

Testing, which is a central component of the SABIS^® Educational System™ as schools monitor student progress and identify gaps, has also been updated. Over 75,000 new test questions have been added to the SABIS^® exam question databank, bringing the total number of questions to over 1 million! Schools using SABIS Integrated Testing and Learning^® (ITL^®) will also benefit from new software updates that allow the integration of new types of questions that external exams are beginning to use. These include drag and drop, image labelling, and text editing questions, among others.

With the introduction of new and updated high-quality material in schools around the world, SABIS^® is ensuring that schools, teachers, and students are all given the support they need to learn. Using traditional books and interactive E-books that enhance the learning experience and having a broad range of test questions, SABIS^® students develop a solid foundation of knowledge that helps them meet high standards and achieve success.