CPD UPDATE
Issue 14
CPD Update
March 2018
Issue 14, March 2018
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Inside this Issue 3
CPD Executive Committee
15 Secondary History JAWS
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Update from the Chair
16 Primary School Science JAWS
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Healthier, Wealthier and Wiser 17 Secondary School Science JAWS
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FOBISIA Cares
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FOBISIA Leadership Conference 18 Literally the Best & BusiestSaturday
10 Note Taking is a Skill
17 A Level English Literature JAWS
19 Teaching Assistant JAWS 20 Creativity in the Classroom 21 FOBIT
12 Design Technology JAWS 13 Primary PE JAWS 14 Early Years JAWS
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22 CPD Calendar 2017-18
CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
CPD Executive Committee
Region A Jackie Houghton Bangkok Patana School, Thailand jaho@patana.ac.th
Region C Eleanor Loran Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong eloran@dbis.edu.hk
David Lousley Shrewsbury International School, Thailand david.l@shrewsbury.ac.th
Neil Tamlyn North London Collegiate School, Jeju, South Korea ntamlyn@nlcsjeju.kr
Region B Nicholas Sheehan Jerudong International School, Brunei nicholas.sheehan@jis.edu.bn
FOBISIA HQ Daphne Wong, CPD Coordinator & Editor CPD Update daphne.wong@fobisia.org
Benyna Richards Tanglin Trust School, Singapore Benyna.Richards@tts.edu.sg
Tania Donoghue, Executive Officer tania.donoghue@fobisia.org
From the Editor... If you have any interesting articles that you want to share with your colleagues, please email them to us at FOBISIA HQ (daphne.wong@fobisia.org).
Social Media
www.fobisia.org
FOBISIA
#FOBISIA
@FOBISIA1
Publications THE FOBISIAN Membership Handbook CPD Update CPD Handbook Friendly Games Handbook Music Handbook Primary Maths Handbook Secondary Maths Handbook
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Update from the Chair Jackie Houghton, Assistant Principal Professional Learning, Bangkok Patana School This year, a wealth of Professional Learning opportunities have taken place across the FOBISIA network in the form of Job-a-like workshops and conferences. The Biennial Teachers’ and Teaching Assistants’ Conference, FOBISIA CARES, in October was a great success with top-quality keynote speakers Ben Walden and Jonathan Taylor providing stimulating presentations and sessions followed by a range of workshop sessions led by FOBISIA teachers. A huge “thank you” goes to British Vietnames International School Ho Chi Minh City and British International School Hanoi for co-hosting the event. Last weekend, the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Leaders’ Conference was equally successful, ably facilitated by Dr. Coleen Jackson. The focus this year was on learning and teaching. As Dylan Wiliam says, “Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.” With this central premise the CPD Leaders from over 32 schools came together to share their expertise and knowledge and began to develop a programme to support teacher development. A fantastic learning opportunity for all participants with some tangible outcomes. The FOBISIA CPD strategic plan is progressing well. Thanks go to Daphne Wong (FOBISIA CPD Coordinator) and Nicholas Sheehan (Vice-Chair of the CPD Executive) as the advancement of the FOBISIA Community Portal is down to their hard work and determination. They have spent hours setting up the system and testing it to ensure it is robust and meets the needs of the community. Therefore, we are moving closer to our vision that the Portal will become a vibrant professional online community for FOBISIA teachers and leaders. Next steps for the introduction of the Forum ..
As mentioned in the previous CPD Update, there have been some challenges we have had to face regarding the National Professional Qualifications (NPQ). The Department for Education (DfE) has yet to approve the award of the qualification to those taking the programme outside the UK. This has led to a level of uncertainty surrounding the future of the NPQ programmes. However, as FOBISIA CPD Leaders in various schools have invested time and energy into delivering the programmes, in collaboration with the Institute of Education (IoE) University College London (UCL), a decision has been made to continue with our original plan. We will maintain our relationship with the IoE who have recently been ranked as the world number one for Education for the fifth year running in the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject. The programmes will be facilitated by FOBISIA Leaders and will follow the same rigour in terms of programme delivery and assessment as the qualifications presented in the UK at the IoE. In the first instance, the courses provided will be accredited by the IoE and awarded the UCL-IOE International Professional Qualification. If, in the future, the DfE does approve delivery of the programmes overseas, we will be able to offer the National Professional Qualifications once more. Finally, I will leave you with this quote from Ken Robinson: “Leadership is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility.” CPD leaders have a key role to play in creating the climate of possibility; not an easy task but one to keep at the forefront of our minds. Jackie Houghton Chair FOBISIA CPD Executive Assistant Principal Professional Learning, Bangkok Patana School
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CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
Electronics and Robotics Workshop By Steven Daly, Head of Design & Technology, Regents International School Pattaya The Design & Technology Department at Regents International School is leading the way in South East Asia by delivering high quality CPD to teachers from international schools on Electronics and Robotics. Delegates have travelled as far as the Middle East, China, Arab Emirates and even North Africa to visit Regents and benefit from the training. On October 5th 2017, the D&T Department ran a two days FOBISIA JAWS to support teachers from FOBISIA member schools with the implementation of electronics and robotics into the curriculum at KS2-5. Many delegates attended from local international schools, Bangkok, Phuket as well as Malaysia. Physics, ICT, Technology Coordinators, STEAM Ambassadors, Computing and Design & Technology Teachers are among a few of the disciplines teachers came from with the common aim of developing and implementing STEAM into the curriculum. The electronics and robotics workshop focused on electronic circuits and programming using Arduino. Arduino is an open source electronic prototyping platform that enables users to support students in creating interactive electronic products and robotics at very low cost. Teachers spent the first day learning the basics of electronic circuits of blinking an LED, reading a potentiometer, driving multiple LEDs, reading temperature sensor, driving a servo motor and using and displaying information on LCD before assembling a robotic arm. Day 2 was all about programming and testing the circuits. Johnny Man, teacher from Garden International Rayong in Thailand stated that it was the best CPD he had attended and that he had learned a great deal from the experience and will be implementing this back at school.
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Healthier, Wealthier and Wiser By Joe Greenwood, Principal, Shenzhen College of International Education, China The 2017 FOBISIA leadership conference theme of ‘Health, Wealth and Self’ attracted my interest as a some-time Biology and Psychology teacher who had, to date, failed to accumulate enormous wealth. I felt sure that I could learn something new, or failing that tell other people my opinion, in at least one of these areas even if enormous wealth still remained firmly out of reach. A quick tour of the ground floor of the labyrinthine Grand Hyatt Hotel, ended with a Grand escalator ride up to the Grand Salon to hear the first keynote speaker. Our new Chairperson, Simon, supplied a witty welcome, followed by an upbeat update from the ever-inspiring world of UK education.
point animations would stand up in the highly competitive world of conference presentation. Graham Hill, going before me, went old school, delivering an off-the-cuff sans projector talk. To be honest, I was pleased when half the audience left after his talk, providing more intimacy for those of us left behind. I did not manage to get to hear any of the other Talking Heads talking, but I think it is a great innovation and a splendid means for sharing the best, and worst, of our collective experiences. One school of thought believes that standing up to eat is good for the digestion in some way; this was the presiding philosophy at lunch on both days. Exhibitors with a lot of chairs around their desks soon became very popular, thus depriving a number of delegates of the health-giving benefits of standing up. As I explained to one colleague, “Roman Emperors had famously short life spans, and they always ate lying down.’ Talking of Roman emperors, our post-prandial offering was a smorgasbord of erudition, supplied by Rob Holroyd. Rob opened up the self strand of the conference with the poser, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Which he had kindly translated for us; the days when school heads could converse fluently in Latin are well and truly over, I can only remember that Caesar adsum iam forte and Caesar sic in omnibus. Day one ended with a buffet dinner in the JP teres restaurant.
The first keynote was delivered by Dick Moore, who gave a moving and personal account of his response to personal tragedy. Dick’s story chimed with the presentation on suicide given at our previous Heads Business Meeting. Dick started the Health strand of the conference theme and this was continued through a number of additional sessions over the next two days looking at how schools can better recognize and respond to the mental health issues by which they are confronted.
Day two started with a presentation by John Littleford who shared an enormous wealth of knowledge from his experience in working with international schools, both in this talk and in the other sessions which he presented. John seems
One innovation at this year’s conference was HEADTalks. I had thought that it was going to be called Talking Heads, and considered this to be a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ opportunity. Having volunteered to give one of the talks, I was a little nervous, wondering if my off the peg power-
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Continued from previous page... to have confronted every kind of disaster in every kind of school and is still standing, which is very reassuring. He discussed the longevity of heads, which is a matter dear to our hearts for most of us in attendance. John’s contribution completed the three themes of the conference. As something of an antiquarian grammarian, I objected slightly to two components of the title of the next keynote: ‘To boldly go…Positive Leadership in a VUCA world’. Putting the vexed question of split infinitives to one side, I was not familiar at all with the word VUCA, which is presumably one of the words, like Brexit or ASBO, fewer and fewer of which you understand the longer you live outside the UK. It came as a pleasant surprise that VUCA had nothing to do with verruca, and its connotations of childhood swimming lessons. I was glad to hear that it means volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. This hopefully means that it is unlikely that a computer programmer will be able to come up with an algorithm to replace what school leaders do in the immediate future.
Two days of mind-altering insights were brought to a close atop the huge needle in central KL. Standing in the lift with my fellow delegates, I could not help but think FOBISIA is really moving up in the world. However, I found it harder to read any such metaphorical meaning on events when the floor of the restaurant failed to rotate. I guess that FOBISIA must be a no-spin zone. Well done and thanks to all organisers and contributors for a great conference. CPD Update
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FOBISIA Cares By Paul Holyome, Principal, British Vietnamese International School, Ho Chi Minh CIty, Vietnam On 20th-22nd October 2017, British Vietnamese International School Ho Chi Minh City and British International School Hanoi played host to the biennial FOBISIA Teacher and Teaching Assistant Conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Over 120 teachers and teaching assistants made the journey to the wonderful city for two and half days of excellent CPD and networking entitled “FOBISIA Cares.� The event started with a cocktail evening at a beautiful roof top bar in HCMC. An opportunity for delegates to mix and socialise with each, before the main event. Delegates were able to talk about their own schools and share experiences with like minded professionals from across the region. FOBISIA were delighted to be able to secure the services of Ben Walden and Jonathan Taylor. Both of these key note speakers were well respected and well known internationally and in the UK. Their keynote presentations and follow up work shops were extremely popular, a huge success and very fitting for the theme of the conference. We were delighted that a large number of teachers stepped up to deliver excellent workshops over the two days. The teachers had worked hard to prepare some very interesting and extremely useful workshops for delegates to choose from. We would like to thank all those teachers who took the time to prepare such excellent material for the conference.
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On the Saturday evening HCMC hosted a record for the largest number of people on a vespa motorbike tour. One hundred delegates jumped on the back of vespa motorbikes to embark on an unforgettable city tour experience. Despite the down pour of rain at the beginning, the delegates were treated to a very special evening of sightseeing, food and a live band to finish. Feedback during and after the event has been extremely positive and we are already looking forward to the next conference in 2019!
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Issue 14, March 2018
FOBISIA Leadership Conference By Sara Berenguer, Assistant Head of Primary, Regents International School, Pattaya The FOBISIA Leadership Conference took place on the 3rd and 4th November 2017 at Grand Hyatt, Kuala Lumpur. The theme “Health, Self & Wealth” attracted 140 Headteachers and Senior Leaders and 50 exhibitors. The theme was carefully chosen by FOBISIA chair, Simon Watson to encompass not only the state of emotional and mental well-being of educators, but also young people in schools. Ten percent of young people in international schools are suffering from diagnosable mental health disorders. Not only does this mean that vast numbers of young people are under-performing but also that they are unhappy at a time in their life where they should be glowing with endless opportunities. Dick Moore, one of the keynote speakers at this year’s FOBISIA Leadership Conference reiterated that although top schools had systems in place to react to social and mental health issues, they need to be acutely aware of not creating environments whereby these systems are required in the first place. https://www.dickmoore.org/
Dick’s call to arms is that schools should equip children to deal with the pressures of modern childhood/adolescence, and one of his workshops focused on a sharing of strategies to identify differences between day-to-day anxiety (or ‘normal’ reactions to pressure and stress) and the beginnings of depression. Clive Leach, another keynote speaker at the conference, continued the theme of well-being and mental health by linking mental resilience with positive behaviours, emotional control, well-being, and academic outcomes. http://www.cliveleach. com/ An initiative combining all of the above is currently taking place in Year 2 at Regents International School. The children are encouraged to choose a black square on which to place their worries according to their peers’ assessment of how ‘big’ their problem is in relation to the size of the square. As a school constantly reflecting on its children’s well-being, ensuring that they are equipped with tools and language to enable positive mental health starts at a very young age.
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NoteTaking is a Skill By Ruth Baker, Music and Drama Teacher ,British International School Phuket, Thailand “Note taking is a complex activity that requires comprehension and selection of information and written production processes.” (Piolat, Olive and Kellogg, 2005, p.291). Throughout our lives we take notes, whether it’s a simple as a shopping list or as complex as quantum theory. From Primary school students begin to take notes and develop these skills and continue to do so throughout their school career. Note-taking is an inherent part of the learning journey for everyone to record knowledge and as a bid to aid retention and recall. But what is the most effective way of note-taking?
career Paivio conducted countless experiments spanning 40 years utilising a variety of age groups and methodologies. On each occasion he found that the use of images increased memory and recall. This is not using images in isolation, but images and words combined. Further experiments have been completed by other scientists, psychologists and neurologists with the same outcome. In one experiment conducted by Jackie Andrade participants who used a combination of words and basic images recalled 29% more than those who solely used text.
Psychologists have been questioning how we learn for decades and looking back further Socrates, Plato and Aristotle commented on this topic. The 1990’s gave us the “decade of the brain”, consequently there is now a myriad of research with scientific grounding for us to utilise in order to ensure we are giving ourselves the best chance to learn. When we learn something new we need time and opportunities to engage with the new material to form connections in our brain. This isn’t a one off occasion and we need multiple opportunities to create and strengthen these connections. Notetaking is one of these opportunities, however it is often ineffective as instead of considering what we put down on paper we mindlessly transcribe what we see or hear. During the last 5 years the concept of sketchnotes has become more prominent with a number of texts being published. This form of note-taking combines words and images as well as using containers and connectors to help organise the information. Sketchnotes pose a challenge as you can no longer simply transcribe what you see or hear as you need to add relevant images to support your learning. The images are the key component that make them effective. The argument for Sketchnotes has its basis in brain based learning and draws on the work of Allan Paivio in particular for support. Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory (DCT) argues that our brain has 2 modes; the verbal mode and the visual mode. During his
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Neurologist and Professor of Neuroscience in the USA, William R. Klemm argues that the most powerful tool we can use to assist memory and recall are images. He describes the use of an images as creating a zip file in our brain and the simple cue that this one image provides triggers a chain of files in our brain to be opened and all information linked to this image accessed.
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Continued from previous page... Harvard graduates Elinor Amit and Evelina Fedorenko conducted a study in 2017 to see whether humans are predominantly verbal or visual thinkers. In the first stages of their experiment they simply asked participants questions to gauge this, however in later stages they had access to and MRI scanner. The results were overwhelmingly conclusive. Whether or not a person was asked to think in words or images, images were present. If our brains so readily use and access images then we should ensure that we make the most of this.
Sketchnotes tap into the way our brains work and are appealing to look at, meaning that a person is more likely to revisit them. It does take a little time to learn how to sketchnote, but as long the purpose is clear and you do not spend your time trying to create a work of art then the benefits are clear. Images aid our memory and as an additional bonus if we draw we activate the rewards cortex of our brain making us feel good and this helps to reduce our stress levels.
At British International School, Phuket I have had the opportunity to introduce staff to sketchnotes and a number of teachers have begun to incorporate them into their classroom practice. This is across both the Primary and Secondary school and we have now held our own World Sketchnote Day events for the last 2 years. Our celebrations last year featured sketchnotes kindly sent to us from sketchnoters around the globe to inspire us in our collaborative sketchnote entitled “Who am I at BISP?�. This year our aim was quite different. Working in collaboration with Deputy Principal, Ginette Stockings, we decided to host a parent workshop and begin creating a whole school visual dictionary. A total of 20 command terms used across the school were selected and written on separate pieces of paper that were hung in one room. Students, staff and parents were invited to come and draw a simple icon that they felt best represented the word. These have now been reviewed and the icons selected to begin our visual dictionary which we hope will encourage and support our students in their learning as well as inspiring them to utilise visual elements in their notes. Our sketchnote journey is ongoing and we hope to continue to see the positive impact this has on the learning that takes place in our school.
Everyone can draw a line, a square, a circle and a dot. Everyone can create basic images. Everyone can sketchnote.
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Design Technology JAWS By Paul Handley, Head of Design Technology , Harrow International School Bangkok, Thailand The ‘relevance and inclusion of Design Technology in an International Curriculum’ was at the forefront of the workshops and discussion sessions at this recent JAWS event Harrow International School Bangkok. Like-minded people from twelve different schools across FOBISIA joined together to discuss, share valuable resources, knowledge and strategies to help develop, enhance and drive this amazing subject, which fulfils many of the skills and experiences students need to access a full and broad curriculum. The two-day event kicked off with Harrow Bangkok teachers sharing their experience of establishing a brand new subject into an already successful curriculum. They talked about the delight of teaching new and exciting content, seeing the students working kinaesthetically using new techniques and processes and also the amazing support from the rest of the school community at Harrow. Individual workshops were then lead by the dedicated DT teachers from the visiting schools. Richard Smith (Bangkok Patana) showcased the ‘Importance of
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Iterative Design in Key Stage 3’ which sparked a discussion on how this leads to student’s independence on open-briefed contexts in IGCSE and A Level. Adam Spence (Bangkok Prep), Greg Roberts (BIS Vietnam) and Tom Stacey (Garden Rayong) then lead the way to show how their departments track, monitor and assess students explaining the different methods used. The whole delegation agreed how important detailed feedback and assessment can be and we were shown some great tips, tricks and gadgets to make a teacher’s life that little bit easier when it comes to accurate assessment. Other invaluable workshops included the use of language in the DT classroom by Lisa Black (The British School of Nepal) and how to plan a successful IGCSE curriculum lead by Penny Gosling (Alice Smith School). Time was set aside for all delegates to discuss successful design projects, gather resources and share stories of our teaching experiences, which we all felt were an extremely beneficial way of improving the support across our teaching subject in the South East Asia region.
Steve Daly (Regents Pattaya) and Jason Machin (Harrow Bangkok) ran practical sessions which give an insight into introducing robotics and electronics into a STEM curriculum and I would like to thank them for their time, expertise and interesting workshops where I hope the delegates can introduce aspects of the workshop into their teaching and curriculums. Finally, we had F1 in Schools come to Harrow Bangkok to lead a workshop on the invaluable work they do across the region to promote STEM subjects. The delegates were asked to design, make and develop their own racing cars which were fired down a 30 metre race track using CO2 as a fuel source. We are hoping that the contacts made here will inspire other schools in the area to compete in the F1 in Schools competition to give Harrow Bangkok some stern competition! I would like to thank everyone for attending and running workshops and hopefully see you all soon.
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Primary PE JAWS By Ben Atkinson, Head of PE Curriculum, The Alice Smith School, Malaysia On the 19th and 20th of January 2018, a host of Primary PE teachers from all corners of the FOBISIA community descended upon the Alice Smith Primary Campus to share knowledge and expertise regarding the delivery and evolution of PE practice in our respective schools. The two days consisted of a balance between practical workshops, presentations and symposiums on a range of topics including EYFS PE delivery, Assessment in PE, Sport Education, Dance, Tee ball, Touch Rugby, Crossfit in Curriculum
PE, Adapted Games ideas and use of Learning Technologies. All of which were in addition to all delegates participating in an open sharing of our overarching curriculum philosophies and teaching practices to give support to our schools as we move forward into the future of Primary PE delivery. As should be expected from a collective group of PE teachers the days were brought alive by everyone’s enthusiasm, energy and thirst for professional development as each session was greeted with a positivity that
shows the FOBISIA community's appetite for professional development and passion for our subject. We hope to continue the development of the Primary PE JAWS as we move into next academic year, as PE as a subject and a community is at an exciting and vibrant state of reflection and refinement across our schools and great things are happening in all corners of FOBISIA both in our sports halls and on our sports fields.
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Early Years JAWS By Adam Jones, Head of Infants and Early Years, St. Christopher’s International Primary School, Penang, Malaysia
St Christopher's International Primary School (SCIPS) on the Malaysian island of Penang hosted the Early Years JAWS with the theme of 'Enabling Environment - Through the Eyes of a Child'. The JAWS was well supported by over 10 international schools from across the region. After landing in Penang, delegates were welcomed to SCIPS and given a tour of the school campus by St Christopher's prefects from Year 6. Once visitors had gained a brief introduction to the school, the JAWS event started with a guided tour of the Early Years and Year 1 classes. The children were very happy to welcome our visitors, proudly showing them around their environment and talking eloquently about how they like to learn at school.
enjoy socialising and networking, whilst sampling some local delicacies such as Char Kuey Teow, Barbecue fish and Beef Satay. The Saturday of the JAWS was an opportunity for delegates to lead a workshop on a range of topics ranging from planning for continuous provision, helicopter stories and using the Seesaw App to capture learning. Over 30 teachers attended the workshop event to gain valuable CPD through a range of engaging, topical and entertaining workshops. As the JAWS approached its close, delegates had a final opportunity to reflect, network and hopefully making some strong professional and personal links. Thank you to all our international visitors for making this such a meaningful and enjoyable JAWS event.
After a well deserved lunch buffet at a local hotel, delegates had a chance to catch up and share what they had seen during their morning at SCIPS. This was followed by a workshop delivered by Adam Jones, Head of Early Years and Infants at St Christopher's. Teachers were given a chance to reflect on their own schools approach to some key early years areas, as the workshop focused on recent developments that had occurred at SCIPS in the last year. After some R&R, dinner was enjoyed at a local seaside hawker centre. All visitors were able to
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Secondary History JAWS By Matt Langridge, Head of History, Jerudong International School, Brunei
Jerudong International School (JIS) hosted the second FOBISIA History JAWS in October 2017 for fourteen teachers from across SEA. This is the second time the History Department has hosted a JAWS event. Two days were spent in highly informative and productive discussions and presentations by all members. We were fortunate enough to have some extremely experienced and passionate teachers that were willing to share some of their ‘secrets’
Our packed two days covered an enormous range of sessions including: enquiry based learning, differentiation, the Harkness Method, P4C, AfL, EAL and active engagement strategies These sessions were a mixture of practical activities and discussions as well as sharing resources that would be of immediate benefit in our classrooms. The highly professional and collegiate atmosphere of both days resulted in a hugely
beneficial experience for those involved and resulted in some very strong links being made between colleagues in different countries across the region. Speaking on behalf of the JIS participants, we certainly felt inspired by what we had seen and learnt and these last few weeks have seen many (if not all) of what we experienced being put into practice in our classes with nothing but positive outcomes. Here are some feedback from our participants:
“All responded with energy and a professional desire that was impressive.” “I will be incorporating Harkness debates with my A Level class.” “Friendly, cooperative and fun from the outset.” CPD Update
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Primary School Science JAWS By Junior School Team,Tanglin Trust School, Singapore On Friday 17th November and 18th November 2017, the Junior School at Tanglin Trust welcomed 12 fellow science leaders and primary school teachers from the FOBISIA network and schools across Asia. Each participant presented a workshop and shared their outstanding practice. The ethos for the JAWS was to promote a forum whereby teachers offer strategies, share great top tips and return to their school’s overflowing with ideas which will have a positive impact. The presentations offered the participants to not only discuss, but to carry out practical tasks. Exploring the learning games platform, ‘Breakout EDU’, was a great activity to demonstrate to teachers how they can promote critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication in their lessons. Approaching problem solving and applying knowledge as a team was essential to solve the range of challenges in the given time. This also brought great camaraderie to the JAWS.
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With thanks to a group of Year 6 children from Tanglin Trust who shared their expertise regarding science and technology with the participants. Communicating articulately, the children shared their knowledge and demonstrated in the junior science laboratory how this has been used to enhance their education. Thus, giving the participants the opportunity to experience first hand and see the influence this teaching strategy has had on the children’s learning.
Other workshops focused on making thinking visible, discussing science using the Harkness model, telling stories to teach subject knowledge, differentiating and challenging in lessons and asking hinge questions for assessing. In addition, using working walls in the classroom as a learning tool, offering STEM and the Genius Hour Project in science were also shared. Having the time to talk about issues was also beneficial and a great success as participants helped one another to find solutions and offer possible next steps. The information shared throughout the JAWS has been stored in a Google folder for everyone to access. It is envisaged that once participants have returned to their school’s they will be able to upload additional resources. Thus, sharing how they have taken something away, put their own spin on it and implemented into their curriculum. Continuing the JAWS beyond these two days and creating a virtual ‘Teach Meet.’
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Secondary School Science JAWS By Chris Coates, Tanglin Trust School, ,Singapore The FOBISIA Secondary Science JAWS took place on 17-18 November 2017 here at Tanglin Trust School. Sixteen senior school science teachers from across the FOBISIA region, from as far afield as New Delhi and Shenzhen, came to Tanglin Trust School for a series of workshops on various themes related to Science teaching. Workshops included: • The Role of Inquiry in Science; • Using Technology for Personalised Feedback; • Organising STEM Clubs – at all Key Stages; and
• Instructional Coaching for Science Teachers The participants were highly engaged in the activities and all the various schools contributed to the activities. We have set up an Edmodo page to enable us to stay in touch and continue to collaborate in the future. Feedback from the JAWS participants included: • A great opportunity to share great practice from colleagues who are currently in the classroom working under similar pressures all
with a common cause. • There was a lot of sharing of good practices and everyone was very welcoming and I feel we worked well as a group together. • I took something from every presentation - so many useful tips and tricks that presenters are already using. I very much enjoyed hosting the JAWS at Tanglin Trust School and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with FOBISIA colleagues in future.
A Level English Literature JAWS By Helen Prior, Head of English, Garden International School, Malaysia On Friday 27 and Saturday 28 October 2017, Garden International School Kuala Lumpur (GIS) had the pleasure of hosting 27 teachers for a JAWS focused specifically on teaching and learning in A Level English Literature. On the Friday, multiple workshops ran which explored best practice across a wide range of areas including analytical writing, the teaching of context, curriculum design and approaches to teaching different text types. In the afternoon, a group of Year 13 students from GIS offered their perspectives on studying A Level English Literature, and reminded us all of the importance of focusing on student well-being in addition to academic progress and attainment. We were also
fortunate to have the GIS Digital Learning Coaches run a highly engaging and useful session focused on using technology to flip learning for Key Stage 5 students, which was followed by Skype sessions with CIE and Edexcel examiners from the UK. On the Saturday, teachers broke
into ‘text-specific’ groups to discuss teaching strategies, share resources and brainstorm approaches to specific texts. Overall, it was an extremely busy but highly positive and productive JAWS. A huge thank you to all teachers who attended and shared with us over the two days.
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Teaching Assistant JAWS By Jo Lauffer, Head of School, Kowloon Bay Prep, Kellett School, Hong Kong There are many commonalities to the role of Teaching Assistant, regardless of the age range, subject or department they support or the setting in which they work. When you get thirty Teaching Assistants in a room together, there is no shortage of things for them to talk about! This was certainly the case at the Teaching Assistant JAWS hosted by Kellett School on the 26th and 27th January 2018. Teaching Assistants from Singapore, China, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong came together to share their experiences and expertise. Presentations by Teaching Assistants were wide ranging; from sharing tips for developing student’s inference skills during guided reading sessions, to using Makaton sign language as a way of supporting newly arrived non-English speakers, to creating inspiring learning spaces in Early Years classrooms – there were many more! Presenting individually or in small groups, everyone was wellprepared and ready to pass on their expertise to others and did so with a real enthusiasm and pride in their role. Teaching Assistants are often called upon to support students who are lacking confidence in a subject or finding it difficult to access the curriculum in some way. In recognition of this, some excellent professional development from a Speech and Language Therapist, an Occupational Therapist and from members of our Inclusion Department was organized for the attendees. Teaching Assistants went away with a greater insight into the challenges these learners experience, how best to support them and were equipped with some new tools to try back in the classroom.
The success of the conference came down to the enthusiasm, energy and commitment of the participants who came along with an enormous willingness to both learn and share good practice. It was a fantastic two-days of learning that is sure to have impact in classrooms across Asia. “Throughout the two days, I found myself drawing
from my own experiences in the classroom and reflecting on my own practice while using the new information to formulate new strategies to be used in future situations. Regardless of whether the presentations were directly related to my current position, each offered new perspectives on how to tackle a variety of issues.” Elizabeth Chow, Kellett School Teaching Assistant “We have come away with a bagful of ideas and
strategies that we could incorporate into our own teaching practice to further the students’ academic progression alongside their social and emotional growth. Strongly reinforcing that teaching is all about always learning, taking the time to reflect, applying new knowledge and reinventing our lesson plans or our approach to best suit the needs of the moment, the conference has instilled a stronger sense of pride in our roles as TAs and has ignited a deeper passion for optimising our impact on the students’ learning and well-being.” Sanjana Laungani – Kellett School Teaching Assistant
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CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
Literally the Best and Busiest Saturday By Justyna Waszczylko and Tia Court Smith, Bangkok International Preparatory and Secondary School, Thailand On Saturday 4th November, Bangkok Prep hosted a JAWS (Jobs Alike Workshops) at the new Secondary School campus. We were honoured to welcome nearly 30 staff from across the region to the Literacy Across the Curriculum JAWS. During the CPD event, teachers and Heads of Faculty from schools in Bangkok and across Asia – including China, Brunei, Hong Kong and Vietnam – shared innovative teaching and learning ideas on the development of literacy skills across different subjects, from English to Maths and Science. Throughout the day, participants led and engaged with no less than 15 different workshops that are detailed below. The passion and enthusiasm from all was reflected in interesting and insightful questions and extremely well prepared sessions. All participants contributed their own ideas to the discussion of effective strategies implemented at both primary and secondary level in their schools. At the end of the busy, yet inspiring, day, we left feeling even more equipped to help students develop their literacy skills. We emerged an understandably tired group enthused about sharing what we learnt with our colleagues in different Departments. A delegate said it best: “Engaging and inspiring workshops, very well organised, beautiful facilities and campus! I took away lots of ideas to implement which is how I rate the effectiveness of external CPD” Thank you to all who attended and made the workshops below so useful: • A whole school marking policy to improve
literacy of EAL students • Super Simple Starters - A range of quick, easy and engaging Literacy starter activities • Marking strategies to target literacy skills in English • Teaching literacy through Literature (catering to EAL learners in the teaching of English Literature) • Practical strategies for teaching grammar within the classroom • Literacy Shed - Using film to develop skills in English • Speaking and Listening across the curriculum • Supporting extended writing under examination conditions • Using the Frayer Model for Vocabulary in Maths • Literacy in the Science Classroom • Successful Cooperation with Parents in Encouraging Independent Reading at KS1 • Embedding grammar activities within the teaching sequence • Strategies to support EAL students within a mainstream classroom • Fronting the Writing: lessons that promote thinking and writing across the curriculum.
CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
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Creativity in the Classroom By Alexandra Long, Assistant Head of Primary, St. Stephen’s International School, Thailand On Saturday, participants were given a tour of St. Stephen’s Campus and enjoyed exploring the class role play areas and trying out the Primary class interactive displays. Participants also appreciated the sessions delivered by St. Stephen’s Early Years Team on how to promote creative and critical thinking in any classroom.
St. Stephen’s International School Bangkok were proud to host their first FOBISIA JAWS event on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd February 2018. The JAWS focused on ‘Creativity in the Classroom’ and drew participants from schools across Asia, including Ho Chi Minh, Brunei, Hanoi and Guangzhou. Teachers and Teaching Assistants alike came together to share their ideas about how to promote creativity amongst Staff and Students and discuss ways to ensure we prepare students for the creative jobs of the future. Participants lead a range of diverse, engaging workshops over the 2 days. These included tutorials on how to use ‘greenscreen’ technology and QR Codes creatively in lessons and how to bring the outdoors indoors by using VR technology such as ‘Google Cardboard’ and ‘Google Expeditions’. Participants also engaged in hands-on Art and Drama sessions and then took to the outdoors to learn about how to promote ‘Natural Thinking’ and creativity in an outdoor environment. Sessions also focused on core Curriculum areas
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and participants developed a portfolio of creative techniques and strategies in Maths and when teaching story writing and grammar concepts in English. Interactive workshops on Kahoot and Quizlet taught participants more creative AFL strategies and sparked some healthy competition amongst participants! The social activity on Friday evening provided opportunities for informal networking, whilst enjoying some delicious and creatively presented Italian food at Medini Sky Restaurant.
The JAWS participant had an excellent time experimenting at the sand and water stations, not to mention, getting messy with paints! All participants relished the opportunities to learn from one another and to share ideas that make learning fun and memorable. A great weekend was had by all and the St. Stephen’s team are looking forward to hosting JAWS again in the future.
CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
FOBIT By James Knight, Head of Primary ICT, Harrow International School Bangkok, Thailand Whilst the UK was shrouded in frost and snow in early March, 50 delegates from across Asia braved the scorching heat of Bangkok for the 11th annual FOBIT conference. The event had a lot to live up to considering the efforts of previous hosts, but we felt confident at Harrow Bangkok Pre-Prep that we would be able to meet and exceed the expectations of the delegates.
Across the 2 days, delegates then gave their own presentations on the successes and challenges of using EdTech to enhance teaching and learning. The real strength of FOBIT comes from the contributions made by attendees and the sharing opportunities that it brings. This year did not disappoint at all and a variety of topics were shared and discussed. Some of the topics discussed included; Digital safeguarding, Creativity with Computing and the importance of digital strategies. At the heart of all discussions and presentations though, was how we can best support our pupils with the technologies that we have at our disposal. Pupils from Harrow were also on hand to demonstrate some of their favourite aspects of EdTech and to discuss their own experiences of how we can best support their own aspirations for the future.
The conference started in earnest with an opening presentation from our Keynote speaker, Mr. Miles Berry. Miles is is principal lecturer in Computing Education at the University of Roehampton. Prior to joining Roehampton, he spent 18 years in four schools, much of the time as an ICT coordinator and most recently as a head teacher. In his presentation he gave practical advice on how we can integrate coding across the curriculum and the importance of it supporting the learning objectives within other subjects. This was incredibly well received by the cohort and kick-started the conference with great purpose.
I would like to thank all of the FOBISIA attendees for making considerable efforts in their contributions and in particular those that presented their innovative ideas and techniques.
CPD Update
Issue 14, March 2018
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CPD Calendar 2017-18 Name of JAWS/Conference
Name of School
CPD Leader Contact Details
FOBISIA Primary Technology Conference (FOBIT)
Harrow Bangkok
Dr. Tim Jefferis tim.jefferis@harrowschool.ac.th
02/03/2018
CPD Leaders Conference
Prince of Wales Island International School Harrow Beijing
Elizabeth Streat ejs@powiis.edu.my
02/03/2018
Barbara Justham bjustham@harrowbeijing.cn
02/03/2018
Primary AFL JAWS
Alice Smith School
Jaime Thistleton jthistleton.jb@alice-smith.edu.my
02/03/2018
Inclusion JAWS (including Psychology)
Garden International School co-host Tanglin Trust
David James james.d@gardenschool.edu.my
09/03/2018
Hands on Humanities (Primary) JAWS
The British School Kuala Lumpur
Simon Clarke simon.clarke@britishschool.edu.my
09/03/2018
Promoting STEM subjects (British National Space Agency)
Alice Smith School (Secondary)
Maria Osowiecki mosowiecki.ep@alice-smith.edu.my
16/03/2018
Active learning in Secondary Mathematics JAWS
International School Brunei
Andrea Taylor ataylor@ac.isb.edu.bn
20/04/2018
Subject Specialism in Junior School Settings
North London Collegiate School, Jeju
Hannah Cunningham hcunningham@nlcsjeju.kr
27/04/2018
Teaching Assistant JAWS
Bangkok Patana School
Jackie Houghton jaho@patana.ac.th
01/05/2018
Primary and Secondary Music JAWS
Prince of Wales Island International School
Elizabeth Streat ejs@powiis.edu.my
04/05/2018
Delivering Practical Art for the Whole School
Shrewsbury International School
David Lousley david.l@shrewsbury.ac.th
11/05/2018
Community Service Leaders JAWS
Garden International School Rayong Thailand
Jenn Blais jenniferb@gardenrayong.com
01/06/2018
Excellence for EAL learners - a whole school approach
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CPD Update
Event Date
Issue 14, March 2018