Happy New Year
On behalf of the Officers and Directors of IBSCA I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I hope that the return to school has gone smoothly and that the slow return to 'normality' is continuing. We are very mindful of the pressures that schools are under as a result of the continuing legacy of Covid, and I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that if there is anything we can do for our members which we are currently not doing, please let us know. While I am making appeals, please could I ask that you share any IB related news with us at IBSCA as we would like the opportunity to share this across the Association. Showcasing successes gives us all a boost and we would definitely like the website and newsletter to heavily feature examples from across the programmes and across our schools.
On the subject of sharing successes, I would like to take this opportunity on your behalf to publicly congratulate John Oakes who received an OBE in the Queen’s 2022 Honours List, for services to Education. As well you can imagine, John's reaction was one of humility and surprise, but we would like to add our congratulations to the plaudits we know he has received for all his efforts on behalf of IBSCA Schools.
In this edition of the Newsletter, you will see marketing materials related to our Spring Conference and our forthcoming Seminar series. We are committed to serving the interests of our members, and so the Seminars are being provided free of charge to member schools. Please take the time to look at the seminar sessions available and I hope to see as many schools sending delegates as possible. If there are areas which you feel have been overlooked please let us know as we have committed to repeating this model of seminars next year, and we would be happy to offer a range of subjects/topics.
Our Spring Conference will be held virtually on Thursday 3rd March. The theme of the Conference is Leading the Learning with the IB and we have a dynamic programme that explores a range of topics that we hope are of interest to member schools. As has been the case with our previous virtual conferences, our registration fee provides conference access to all IB educators from your school. It is our hope that a single access fee will allow more IB educators to participate in sessions that are relevant to them and be of benefit to your IB school community overall.
I hope that you all have a successful Spring term and I look forward to reading the flurry of emails sharing success stories which my appeal earlier will surely elicit.
Richard Markham
CEO, IB Schools and Colleges Association