AISA Members’ Circular September 2015 I Vol . 6 No 2
From the Desk of the Executive Director AISA 2016 Art Challenge
In this Issue:
Margaret Sanders International Scholarship Visiting Author Opportunity AISA SchooLink Invites New Schools Moodle Course Creator Certification Training
From the Desk of the Executive Director Greetings from AISA and welcome to our September 2015 Circular. I hope your new school year has begun well. The team at AISA is back into the thick of things as requests come flowing in for our various programmes and services. Be sure not to miss out on these – why not check on our website and remind yourself of the benefits of being an AISA member? I have just come back from my latest school visit but this time it was even more special than usual as I was attending AISA’s first Professional Learning Institute (PLI) being hosted by the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ). The institute topic was ‘Learning Through Inquiry’ and was very well attended. It did not take me long to see why so many people had signed up - with Jill (Bellamy) and Rachel (Caldwell) expertly facilitating the group’s learning. This event served to reinforce for me AISA’s decision to offer more specialized, differentiated and targeted learning opportunities for our members. It also reminded me of the incredible intellectual capital we have in our region. Jill and Rachel were so well prepared, so fluent in their subject matter, and did an excellent job of demonstrating good practice. A special thanks to Andy Page Smith and his team at AISJ for hosting this event with AISA. It seems I am not the only one to have realized the learning potential of our new PLIs as some of them are already fully booked! So if you are considering attending one of these please do not delay in going to the AISA website to register – in most cases spaces are limited to no more than 30 people for each event. Only our fully accredited schools are able to access these events so you can be certain you will be in the room with like-minded peers. I would also like to draw your special attention to two upcoming PLIs in areas that I believe ALL AISA schools should be concentrating their programmes and policy. The first is in Child Protection (at LCS in Accra on 2 and 3 of October) and the second is in Service Learning (at IST in Dar es Salaam on 12 to 14 March). Further details for both these are and on our website. Thanks to everyone who has made contact with us here at AISA so far this year. We love hearing from you and particularly value hearing your ideas for how we can serve you and your learning community better.
Dr Peter Bateman Executive Director Association of International Schools In Africa