Latest Publications
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Making Agile Connections to Improve Innovation in Schools in Teach Middle East Magazine - Issue 7(2), January-March 2020
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Research-Engaged School Leadership: It's not rocket science in International School Leader Magazine - Issue 09, September 2019
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Leading the Vision for Educational Innovation in the UAE in Teach Middle East Magazine - Issue 1(7), September-December 2019
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Leading with ‘Impact’: A possible counterpoint to tribalism in International School Magazine - Issue 22.1 Autumn 2019
I have had the pleasure to present at a number of conferences on topics related to research-engagement, well-being and self-directed learning. Below you will find links to the presentation materials for each:
ECIS Leadership Conference, Madrid (virtual) – 25th April 2020
Conversations with Agility: Exploring the Implications for the Way we Work and Learn
What are school students doing at a software developers conference? Is a Scrum Master just another name for an outstanding rugby player? Is an Agile transformation the outcome of a successful yoga retreat? What has any of this got to do with leading world-class learning organisations?
In ‘eco-systems’ all over the world – from the software and technology industries, to business and human resources – conversations are happening about how to adapt our organisations to complex, fast-moving times.
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How do we make working environments more enriching and deliberately developmental for our employees?
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How do we benefit from the better decisions made by diverse teams in more systematic ways?
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How do we create more customer value, without compromising our strong collective values?
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How do we increase the adaptability of ourselves and our organisations in order to respond quickly to change?
By connecting with the ‘Agile’ community, a few outstanding educators are tapping into these conversations in ways that are hugely benefiting students, teachers, leadership teams, and accreditation organisations.
Come and join the dialogue about how we can all learn and grow together in agile ways (but without the off-putting jargon!).
IBAEM Conference Vienna – 6th October 2018
Aristotle's "Interactive Museum": Research-engaged schools and the future of international education
In this session, participants were asked to consider three developing themes in current educational thinking and practice:
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The increasing engagement in and engagement with educational research in schools.
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The developing understanding of complex adaptive systems (such as schools) and how change happens within them.
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The shift in thinking about how international schools are accredited – exemplified in the ACE Learning framework (NEASC/CIE).
As they align, these three themes are beginning to produce a powerful emergence that will shift how international schools operate, in transformative ways. This session drew on examples of IB schools making conscious connections between these three themes. By doing so, participants were encouraged to reflect on the concept of the research-engaged school and how a growing network of such learning organisations would powerfully benefit students, parents, teachers and school leaders.
AGIS Conference Hanover – 27th January 2018
Look, Think, Act – How practitioner research can help us to improve teaching and learning
At the 2014 ResearchEd conference in London, Dylan Wiliam advocated that ‘all teachers should be seeking to improve their practice through a process of ‘disciplined inquiry’’. In this workshop, I explored the different opportunities and challenges that teachers and pedagogical leaders face in using research to embed reflective practice and achieve improvements in teaching and learning.
IBAEM Conference The Hague – 30th October 2015
The Language of Thinking Well
Following on from our success in Rome, this workshop introduced the ways in which a greater focus on process rather than end product in our work as educators can bring great benefits. It can help to enhance both student well-being and students’ ability to think and inquire effectively to the benefit of their academic outcomes. Examples were used of questioning techniques and displays of growth in the PYP, specific ‘growth mindset’ interventions through subject teaching such as literature, and coaching conversations with students and colleagues to support personal and professional reflection.
IBAEM Conference Rome – 17th October 2014
Knowing Our Students: Connecting student learning and student well-being
In this session, my colleagues and I explored the link between student learning and student well-being that could be forged through the IB Approaches to Learning Skills. By focusing on our experience from specific initiatives from the International School of Paris such as peer mentoring, skill-focused unit planning and target-setting we shared the ways in which we were working to integrate these two historically separate strands of school life.
