Jambo!
As the rains settle in to Nairobi, I am reminded that another calendar year is all too quickly drawing to a close and the Holiday Season will soon be upon us. As they say – time flies when you’re having fun!
Since my last communication to you AISA has been busy with the 2018 AISA Educators Conference which took place in Dakar in October. I’d like to thank the International School of Dakar for their help in making this event such a success. It was great to be back in West Africa with over 140 Educators and Associate exhibitors in attendance. I am mindful that our schools there have limited opportunities to access high quality, impactful and targeted Professional Learning on a regular basis. It was such a pleasure to note the openness and willingness to learn new things that this group of educators displays. Their call for AISA to try to make more professional learning accessible to our schools in this part of the Continent is certainly something we are looking at seriously. Please look for the review of this event from Graham Watts (AISA’s Director of Professional Learning) elsewhere in this circular. Please also contact Graham if your school would like to host one of our very popular Professional Learning Institutes (PLIs) next school year.
With the AEC complete, our attention is now turning to the inaugural AISA Invitational Conference (AIC) that will take place from the 30th – 31st March 2019 at the American International School in Lagos, Nigeria. While this event is primarily targeting non-member schools that are interested in experience the quality of learning AISA offers, and who are in the process of becoming an accredited international school, I do invite all educators and leaders from AISA member schools to take advantage of the close proximity of this learning event and register. Complete information about the programme and the logistics for the AIC is available on our AIC Website here.
We are also preparing for our new format, combined AISA Conference to take place in Cape Town from 21st – 23rd November 2019 at the CITCC, Cape Town. AISA’s Professional Learning Design Team (PLDT) will be gathering later in November to finalize the line-up of facilitators that I know will be our best yet. One particular item I want to make you aware of is the multi-stream governance deep dives we are preparing. These will target several aspects of good governance in international schools for a variety of stakeholders – be they new or experienced school leaders, senior admin staff and, significantly, school board members. Of course, this is also our 50th Anniversary Edition and we have a lot of great surprises in store for all who attend that event – so save the date. We will publish further details of the 2019 AISA Conference on our website early in the New Year.
Another date to save is the 2019 AISA Luncheon that will take place in San Francisco alongside the AAIE conference on Wednesday February 6th from 12:00 – 1:30pm. I will soon be sending out invitations to this event with full details – so watch out for those.
For now, as this is our last Circular for the year, it just remains for me to wish you, your loved ones and your entire school community a safe and relaxing holiday. Get some rest!
Dr Peter Bateman
Executive Director
