The AISA2019 Conference was held in beautiful Cape Town from November 21^st to 23^rd and included two well attended pre-conference events; Women in Leadership and Child Protection which were held on November 20^th. With nearly 400 school delegates, 85 Associate member delegates and 26 special guests, AISA2019 was the largest AISA conference in recent history.

The theme of the conference was, ‘Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future’, a fitting theme for AISA’s 50^th Anniversary celebrations. The conference was opened by Dr Peter Bateman, AISA’s Executive Director and Dr Dan Jubert, the Head Teacher of the American International School of Cape Town and AISA’s Board Chair. Dan shared the African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The proverb illustrates the role of AISA, which in bringing people together enables all to achieve so much more. Ewan McIntosh from NoTosh, the keynote speaker, further inspired delegates to work collectively and creatively to develop a single vision that is developed, owned and known by the entire school community.

During the day, conference delegates had 16 deep dives to choose from providing a learning experience that was both intensive and broad. Topics included: Hard Conversations, Well-being Matters, Developing Culturally Competent Students, Growth Mindset, Student Agency, Design Thinking and Designing Authentic, Performance-based Tasks and Projects.

The Gala Dinner was an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on AISA’s 50 years with Areta William’s, the author of AISA 50^th Anniversary commemorative book, reflecting personally on her journey with AISA. Another highlight of the night was the awarding the AISA Outstanding Contribution to an AISA Programme Award to Dr Irene Epp and the Outstanding Contribution to Educational Leadership Award to Dr Andy Page-Smith.

The conference was closed with AISA’s trademark Talking Heads presentation which was ably led by Tim Stuart on Student Learning and Engagement, Fatma Odaymat on the Power of Failure and Andy Page-Smith on School Culture.

See photo’s of AISA 2019 HERE

See images from the Graphic Harvester HERE

With the huge success of AISA2019, the AISA team is going to have to work very hard to make AISA 2020 equally as impactful. Save the Date of 18^th -21^st November 2020 where once again we will be in beautiful Cape Town.