Jambo!

And a warm welcome back to our schools returning after the holidays and also to those mid-way through their academic year.

In this our 50th Anniversary Year, AISA has a lot in store for our member schools. I encourage you to make sure your AISA membership is working for you by taking advantage of the wide array of quality Professional Learning opportunities and other AISA support programmes and services we have on offer. All of these are listed on our website but let me mention a few that are coming up very soon.

Our 50th Anniversary Conference will take place from the 21 – 23 November 2019. Registrations are well underway so why not join other school leaders, governors, educators an co-professionals at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) and learn with highly skilled world-class experts, network with colleagues from across the region, explore the excellent learning taking place in AISA schools, chat with our learning partners in the exhibition hall and enjoy the renowned ‘AISA vibe’ during the conference. This year we have a specific stream targeting school governance that has been carefully designed over 2 full days during the conference to support School Heads and Trustees. Details of the entire conference programme (with close to 70 individual learning sessions), accommodation and registration are available on our conference website. It is worth noting that some conference sessions are already full – so do not delay and register for your place now.

Under the expert leadership of Graham Watts and the AISA Professional Learning Design Team (PLDT) we have over 20 Professional Learning Institutes (PLIs) and IB workshops programmed throughout the 2019/20 school year and taking place at AISA host schools across the Continent. Please take a look at the PLI line up here. We have also extended our bi-monthly eTime Webinar series taking place live online every second Wednesday.

The American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) is hosting their second Governance as Leadership (GaL) Professional Learning Institute in association with AISA on 31 August 2019 and 1 September 2019 in JoBurg. Facilitated by Dr. Bill Ryan and Dr. Chip Barder, the sessions are designed to build school teams with differing levels of experience, introducing newcomers to the triple helix of fiduciary, strategic, and generative governance.

This year AISA will launch a new pilot programme that aims to support Wellbeing in our schools. Our work with Child Protection over the years has clearly shown that further social emotional support is required for all the members of our school communities be they students, parents, teachers or school leaders. At our last meeting in May, the AISA Board overwhelming supported this important initiative, recognizing the need for AISA to take a leadership role in addressing the increasing social emotional challenges that our international school communities face. Under the coordination of our own Chanel Worsteling, AISA is working with several partners internationally, along with several pilot schools in the AISA region to design and implement a holistic approach to wellbeing in all our schools. More on this soon.

I now invite you to peruse the rest of this month’s eCircular to ensure you know what’s lined up from AISA .My very best to all our members for a successful year ahead.

Dr Peter Bateman

AISA Executive Director