ABOUT US

ABOUT US

TLP International provides quality education wherever you may be in the world. With its main centre located at UP Los Baños in Laguna, Philippines, the school provides a progressive K-6 mainstream schooling and K-10 homeschool and distance learning program.

TLP is a team of proactive people with a champion mindset. As a Progressive Educational Institution, our goal is to continue to soar higher and live the vision and mission of TLP to the fullest. We continue to research, brainstorm, and work towards continuous improvement in the direction of our vast mission field.

THE FOUNDER

Veronica Quintana-Arioder "Teacher Vicki", founder and school directress of TLP International, has been in the teaching profession for more than forty years. Thirty-two years of this were her matchless dedication and commitment to teaching Biology at the UP Rural High School in Los Baños, Laguna. Teaching is not just a mere profession to her. It is her life, heart, soul, and passion. She retired from UP Rural High School at the age of 58, paving the way to new discoveries, deeper realizations, and more fulfilling experiences in her life as a teacher.

THE FOUNDER’S LEGACY

Professor Quintana is an educator who never settled for mediocrity when it comes to her craft. She would always try to innovate and create strategies and techniques to suit the needs of her students. Unsurprisingly, majority of her former students, motivated by her classes, took up Biology in their undergraduate degrees.

The professionalism and commitment of Prof. Quintana not only influenced many students but inspired her two daughters as well. Both of her daughters took Education in their master’s degree program at the University of the Philippines in Diliman and the University of Western Sydney in Australia.

Believing that the legacy of education should transcend generations, Prof. Quintana and her two daughters established Proteach (1998), a Teacher Training Service Provider the goal of which is to design and customize workshops and seminars for teachers and teachers-to-be. This mother-daughter venture brought them not only closer to teachers but also exposed them and opened their eyes to the problems and difficulties faced by many students.

THE TEACHING-LEARNING GAP

With the current student-teacher ratio in most Philippine schools, both students and teachers find it almost impossible to overcome difficulties in the teaching-learning process. As a result, there remain a large number of students whose potentials are not maximized. Teachers struggle in terms of dealing with slow learners or those with learning delays and disabilities. On the other hand, fast learners are left unchallenged with undirected energies, causing them to develop behavioral disorders and/or extreme boredom. This work of dealing with behavioral problems of students, plus the burden of making daily lesson plans, complying with paper works and committee deadlines, handling parent complaints, and addressing various concerns all seem insurmountable.

THE BIRTH OF THE LEARNING PLACE INTERNATIONAL

Proteach, headed by Prof. Quintana’s youngest daughter, Maricar, analyzed the contributing factors that cause the growing gap between teaching and learning in the classroom context. This endeavor gave birth to a laboratory preschool education called Treasures of Wisdom (1998) which was later renamed as The Learning Place or TLP (2000) and expanded to elementary education. TLP became the avenue to test and document progressive teaching strategies that would be able to recognize multiple intelligences, maximize learner’s potentials, and address the varying learning needs of different students.

Professor Quintana continued to search for a better curriculum, attending conferences both locally and abroad to update and upgrade her about the global trends and the 21st-century initiatives in education. It was during her two-year stay in Thailand when she came across a progressive, modular, mastery-based, character-building learning system package. Together with her foreign friends, Prof. Quintana acquired a comprehensive training on the use of the curriculum. This led them to pioneer the Bangkok International Christian School in Thailand. The hands-on teaching experience using its learning system led her to discover more of the missing link in the traditional educational curriculum many schools have been accustomed to using.  

Prof. Quintana introduced the learning system to her eldest daughter Veronica, also known as Teacher Vicki, who further studied and tested its learning approach, first with her two children and then in a regular classroom set-up. The combination of the system and Proteach’s learning styles, strategies, and educational researches successfully gelled together. The very good result and the positive changes that the parents and teachers saw among TLP’s first eight students were significantly observed. Both the fast and slow learners found their niche in the program, having tremendous fun, excitement, and greater challenges daily in school.

The program’s strong emphasis on reading, storytelling, and Bibically-based character building also developed confidence in every child. With a small student-teacher ratio per class, the teachers will surely be able to give individual attention to every student. This development became a word-of-mouth in the community which led to several inquiries and considerable growth of enrollees per year.

THE CURRICULUM UPGRADE FIT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Teacher Vicki, now the TLP School Directress, and Prof. Quintana both actively involved and continue to involve in the school’s research program and partnerships with local and global Curriculum Specialists and Administrators through training and conferences. This is to further hone their expertise in using the learning system and to upgrade their curriculum. It was in the year 2006 when TLP added and adopted another research-based multi-awarded CITA (Commission on International Trans-Regional Accreditation) educational curriculum which heavily emphasizes critical thinking and character values in its approach. Further, carefully selected supplementary learning materials and resources are also used to enrich the major subject content of the curriculum.

TLP teachers undergo rigorous training (both in-house and outsourced) before plunging into the real classroom arena. Observations and evaluations are conducted quarterly not only to check if procedures are well followed, but also to encourage and motivate the TLP teachers and staff in promoting excellence in every area of the school’s operation. TLP as a proactive educational institution is committed to keep improving and be in tune with the changing times and current needs of its constituents. Its main emphasis is to engage its students in learning that is relevant and that equips them for the demands of the 21st century. At TLP, acquiring and developing leadership skills have an equal bearing as one’s academic accomplishments.