Aug circulari

AISA Members’ Circular

Aug 06, 2014

In this issue

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Note from the Director AISA Greetings AISA Website Revamp Directory Update AISA Social

6. IB Workshops [Register Now] 7. Child Protection Symposium [Register Now] 8. Art Challenge 2015 9. AISA Learning 2.0 10. Annual Membership Subscriptions

Note from the Executive Director

AISA Website Revamp

Greetings and a heartfelt welcome back to all our AISA members. We also welcome all the new School Heads and Staff joining AISA schools in 2014/15. I hope you will enjoy your time with us and hope to see you at one of our upcoming Professional Learning events during the year. Speaking of which, AISA has just appointed Katherine Tucker as our new Director of Professional Learning. Katherine is keen to hear from all our Curriculum and PD Coordinators as we rework AISA’s Professional Learning programme to fit in better with your needs. So please get in touch with her at ktucker@aisa.or.ke.

Walt Disney once said “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” The AISA team has taken this to heart and while we hope you have been, lounging on a blue striped deck chairs lapping up some great weather, we have been busy getting creative and exploring some exciting new possibilities, revamping the association’s online presence. We are redesigning, restructuring and reinventing our entire website and its processes to make it simpler, better and faster for you.

We have a jam packed year of activities ahead. Please be sure to visit our website often www.aisa.or.ke and while you’re there why not register your name as part of your AISA School Profile to receive regular updates and access all the members only services we offer! For now, I trust you find the information below interesting and informative.

We are overhauling the conference registration process to make things simpler and more secure for you to book your seats on AISA’s sort after events. The new site will make the online registration process for conferences, events, workshops and other opportunities a lot more streamlined. We are redesigning the look and feel of the website to better connect us with our members, and the continent we represent. The new website is going live on September 1st. So watch this space – www.aisa.or.ke

AISA Liaisons Welcome back! It’s my personal mission for 2014, to get to know each and every AISA Liaison in our member schools and associates. It’s going to take some time and I’m going to need your help to achieve this, so I urge you not to be shy and to reach out to me whenever you can.

Peter Bateman

Executive Director

Warm AISA Greetings As the new academic year begins it looks like it’s certainly shaping up to be an exciting year for us at AISA. As our intrepid Director mentioned we have a new addition to the AISA family, Katherine Tucker who joined our team as our Professional Learning Director. I have no doubt that Katherine will be reaching out to your Professional Learning staff to discuss exciting development opportunities such as our IB workshops scheduled in October this year, and many more coming soon. You’ll find more information about this years IB workshop in this circular, so please sign up as soon as you can. If you need more information on these or other activities that AISA are offering please don’t hesitate to contact me directly, my door, inbox and telephone lines are always open, so don’t be shy to make the connection.

I trust that you had a great summer break and are now raring to go for the exciting new academic year ahead.

Max Henderson Communication Director

The role of the AISA liaison is a vital role for us, and is growing in importance. AISA is going to be relying on you to maintain the schools membership profile, to assist where needed when registering your staff members for events and to be AISA’s first port of call when we reach out to our members.

Many of our member schools have welcomed new staff at the start of this year, and notably some new school leaders as well. In May this year we asked you to update your school’s online profile with any new changes to School Leaders, AISA Liaisons, Professional Learning Leaders or other critical staff members. If i could ask you to check your schools profile and details on www. AISA.or.ke If anything needs updating please email me any details that need to be updated as we have closed the online updating until we have finalized the launch of the new website.

If there are any questions please contact me Max Henderson mhenderson@aisa.or.ke

AISA Social

As part of our cyber revamp we are increasing our reach to all our members and providing you with more contact points to engage with us at the Association, and with each other. In August we are launching the AISA Social Media Suite.

Soon you will be able to connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Add us as a friend, like our pages , join our groups, channels and plug into the AISA network. Keep yourself updated and let’s start chatting, sharing and connecting.

Links to these are here. Our Facebook home page: Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) Follow us on Twittter: @AISASCHOOLS And our YouTube Channel : Association of International Schools in Africa

IB Workshops We still have some seats available in our October IB regional workshop. These provide great learning opportunities for IB teachers from Early Years through to the Diploma programmes, for both new teachers to the IB and more experienced ones. It also provides an excellent way to connect and learn from your colleagues across the continent.

For more information please contact Katherine (Ktucker@ aisa.or.ke) and she will happily discuss your individual or school needs and help you find the right course. October is just around the corner so let us know as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Sign up and join the October training in Cape Town. Register International Baccalaureate Workshops October 10-12, 2014: Cape Town, South Africa AISA in cooperation with the International Baccalaureate are offering the following workshops: • • • •

Making the PYP Happen in the Classroom (PYP) (Category 1) CAS (Diploma Programme) (Category 1 & 2) Assessment in the Early Years (PYP) (Category 2) Digital Citizenship (PYP) (Category 3)

AISA Child Protection Symposium R u n n i n g concurrently with the AISA conference 2015 is the Child Protection Symposium. The goal of this symposium is to increase awareness of issues around protecting children from and assisting where trauma might have occurred. The symposium will look at how to address any issues that might have arisen, what to do if you are first on scene and how to council victims going forward. This is the very first child protection symposium to be run at the AISA conference and due to the crucial nature of the content we are opening attendance to everybody, AISA members or non AISA members so tell your colleagues and let’s get everyone up to speed. Online registration for this will open on September 1st. www.aisa.or.ke/cp_symposium

AISA Art Challenge Submissions are now open to all full and affiliate member schools for their submissions for the AISA 2014 Art Challenge. Many of you will be familiar with this fun, annual competition that activates and pulls together the AISA network. Member schools submit art work to AISA, with 12 of the submitted art works being included in the AISA calendar with great prizes for the winning submissions. Rules and guidelines for the competition can be found on the AISA website.

Alternatively you can contact me directly for more information: mhenderson@aisa.or.ke

AISA Learning 2.014 Conference September 18-20 2014 AISA Learning 2.014 Conference ICS in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia are the proud hosts for the first ever Learning 2.0, conference to be held in Africa. This is a conference created and run by international school teachers for international school teachers.

The programme is an exciting professional learning program which promises to be innovative, invigorating and engaging.

Register here

AISA Annual Membership Subscription This is a brand new school year which brings so much renewal and excitement. I just wanted to give a gentle reminder that AISA membership dues will also need to be renewed. To find out the status of your AISA membership, or if you have any questions, please drop Connie an email. cmunene@aisa.or.ke

You are receiving this circular as a valued member of the AISA network.

Visit www.aisa.or.ke for more information. © 2013 Association of International Schools in Africa. All rights reserved.