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LAHC
Sharing expertise for school improvement

Thursday 19th October - Building inclusive communities

True diversity through authenticity
 
Through lived experience as a thought leader, change maker,  broadcaster and world record swimmer: Ayo will look to illustrate how we can all be outliers in our way - to break away for societal norms and empower ourselves through the interrogation of truths constructed by our environments. 
 
Location: Paracas 1
Location: Central foyer
Leadership for equity
 
During this session, educational leaders will reflect on the following questions needed for equity, inclusion, and anti-racist transformation in schools.     

● What does it mean to lead with equity?
● What are the characteristics of schools that are equitable and inclusive?
● What are the equity leadership dispositions essential for leading schools?
● How can we lead and design equitable and inclusive educational experiences for students and adults?
● What are the essential self and systems reflection leaders need to engage in?
 
Location: Paracas 1
 
We will take 30 minutes to reflect on the key issues arising from the preceding keynote presentations and discuss how they relate to our own experiences in our schools. Delegates will discuss these questions in small groups and then feed back to the whole group.
 
Location: Paracas 1
 
1. IE University, Monica Paz - Inclusion, diversity & well-being (the talk will be in Spanish)

Diversity, inclusion, equity and justice are now present in every global forum we participate in. Is this an aspiration, a goal or a value? As international institutions welcoming students, faculty, and staff from all over the world and backgrounds, we are responsible for creating an equal field where individuals can develop in a fair and safe environment.

Monica PazMonica is Associate Director for Undergraduate Programs at one of IE's international offices in Lima, Perú and is responsible for IE's programmes in Perú, Bolivia and Paraguay. She has a bachelor's degree in communication sciences, specialising in strategic marketing. Before joining IE University, Monica focused on marketing and commercial areas at companies such as America Television and Scotiabank.  

Location: Paracas 1
 

2. Equip My School, Stuart Rickard - Let’s stop using spreadsheets for our overseas procurement!

Spreadsheets are boring! You could even say they are laborious in the modern world of tech and apps.  So why are we still using them to coordinate the overseas orders in our International Schools?

Procurement is such a small part of your responsibility, so why does it take up so much of your time each year?

Let me walk you through how the EquipMySchool procurement portal works and discuss the ways it will save everyone in school time, allowing your teachers to get back to doing what they do best and steering very clear of the traditional spreadsheet!

Stuart Rickard, alongside Helen Cox, founded a global supply chain company for international schools, called EquipMySchool.com, 16 years ago with a simple mantra: always keep your promises. A born digital native, Stuart has an intrinsic understanding of software, hardware, systems and processes; he loves ice cream and evenings in with a roaring log fire and his family of four.

Location: Inka I
 

3. Cambridge International, Sofia Hughes and Sol Boschi - Empowering teachers to make a difference by choosing Cambridge International

What’s New from Cambridge? 
Resources and new products for international (early years programme, CEM (centre for evaluation and monitoring), animated ed briefs, new editions, and much more.

Sofia is currently the Executive Secretary for the International Confederation of Principals. She joined Cambridge International in March 2023 and has over 25 years' experience within Cambridge International schools in Argentina as Teacher, Head of English and Head of Secondary.

Sol is a creative educational-oriented professional, who has vast experience in the bilingual and publishing fields. She has worked for several publishers, providing educational consultancy to key stakeholders at different levels. 

Location: Inka II
 

4. GL Education, Alexander Kingsley - From surviving to thriving: identifying and supporting fragile learners using PASS and well-being data

As education moves out of the pandemic, the lasting effect on students is still there for all to see. Research has shown that student success is underpinned by wellbeing, and the last two years have required a greater focus on wellbeing than ever before. Whereas once before teachers may have focused on their fragile learners, now there is a need to get a complete understanding of a student’s context and needs. 

During this session, GL Education hope to outline the different elements of data triangulation, that being attainment, ability and attitude. The session will explore how we can use this data to help every student meet their potential and thrive within the ever-changing school environment.

Alex will discuss how, through the use of assessment, a complete profile of a student can be made, and through data from the PASS Survey, alongside traditional attainment and ability data, we can begin to implement interventions and ensure that every child is supported. 

Alex has taught English in both primary and secondary schools in Spain, and then five years teaching at an all-girls independent school in Manchester. Passionate about supporting the holistic development of students, Alex places a strong emphasis on their well-being alongside academic growth. He is now part of GL Education, assisting schools in their efforts to foster student success. 

Location: Inka III
 

5. Finalsite, Susan Verbeke - Put your prospective family journey to the test, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression

Today’s prospective families offer new challenges for schools.. They spend the majority of their time in the “research” phase, they don't want to fill out long forms, and they want to understand the “why” behind choosing your school.

This session will help you identify the bumps in your journey and provide ideas so you can make it an enjoyable ride that families want to experience.

Highlights include:
    • A tightly aligned admissions and marketing team
    • The importance of search engine optimisation, PPC, and social media
    • An engaging and streamlined website and application experience
    • Personalisation and automation tools to streamline the process, and
    • Highlights from other schools who do it well

Susan has extensive experience helping schools with their online presence having worked at the International School of Beijing and currently as an International Client Success Manager at Finalsite. She is passionate about helping schools drive engagement, enrollment and retention by advocating industry best practices and incorporating the latest technologies to meet the ever-changing needs and competitive landscape.

Location: Inka IV
 

6. Collins International, Agostina Marozzi - Adaptive learning in schools - What is it and how can it improve your students’ learning outcomes?

Learn more about adaptive learning and metacognition in the classroom. Using the Adapt from Collins platform, we’ll show how through metacognition, you can support every student with a data driven approach to intervention - without changing the way you teach.
 
Agostina Collins
 
 
Agostina is Collins' International Sales Representative Latin America.
 
 
 
 
Location: Inka V
Location: Paracas 2
Location: Paracas 1
 
1. Joel Jr. Llaban (virtual) - Leading culturally responsive and sustaining learning

We will explore dispositions, mindsets, and frameworks to support us in courageously leading anti-racist, anti-bias change at schools, particularly in our learning cultures and ecosystems. In congruence with our belief that our action on DEIJ is a personal as much as political act, this workshop will hopefully enable us to understand that "education is a practice of freedom".

We will explore ways that we can collectively develop systems and structures that will enable leaders to understand and implement culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. We will explore ways to cultivate a learning culture and curriculum where it centres the identities, histories, and narratives of identities in the margins. We will then plan to collaborate with peers within our own community in developing transformative actions on curriculum and learning.

Location: Paracas 1
 

2. Ayo Akinwolere - Finding your voice

This workshop is designed to teach leaders on how to communicate with authority, authenticity, empathy and self awareness. It will utilise techniques used by global thought leaders such as Barack Obama and Mel Robbins. Finding your voice aims to compare and contrast engaging techniques in order to amplify your voice in its most authentic form. 

Location: Inka I/II
 

3. Schools Inclusion Alliance (SIA, Claire Harvey) - Managing polarised opinions around gender identity and sexual orientation (and other things)

At times, discussions and action around inclusion can feel like walking a tightrope – whatever you do or say feels risky. With the younger generation ever pushing boundaries and demanding you do more and quicker, and on the other side with comments from others about ‘woke’ or ‘cancel culture’, the culture wars of groups pitted against each other, and schools stuck in the middle, can feel very real and close. But it doesn’t have to be as scary as it seems. In this session, we will demystify some of the subjects (especially gender identity vs sex), provide a safe space to ask questions and also provide tops and tools to help you navigate the differing views, influencing factors and find policies and processes that are aligned to your schools real circumstances and values.

Location: Inka III
 

4. Erika Jaymez (in Spanish), Atención a la diversidad en el marco del diseño universal para el aprendizaje

El taller “Atención a la diversidad en el marco del diseño universal para el aprendizaje” introduce a los participantes en los conceptos fundamentales del modelo social de siscapacidad, el enfoque inclusivo o de atención a la diversidad y el diseño universal para el aprendizaje. Ello con el propósito de orientarlos hacia una propuesta pedagógica inclusiva concreta, contextualizada en un marco teórico claro y aterrizada en una batería de estrategias y recursos plausibles de aplicar en el contexto escolar, con los estudiantes, sus familias y el colegiado. El taller también pretende fomentar la reflexión activa de los participantes hacia un cambio de paradigma sobre la discapacidad, de la segregación a la inclusión; también sobre las barreras que afrontan todos aquellos estudiantes con diversidad funcional para aprender o para participar de la escolaridad, en igualdad de oportunidades; y, finalmente, sobre los apoyos pertinentes de implementar para disminuir o eliminar estas barreras previamente identificadas.

Location: Inka IV
 

5. Maria Alejandra Meza Cuba and Elaine Sandoval Carrasco (Fleming College students) - Starting the conversation about inequality

How we started the conversation about inequality in our school and how involving students in the process can help. The two students who will be leading this breakout are in their second year of the IB Diploma programme.
 
Location: Inka V
 
1. Unifrog, Lucy Lundstrom - Tools and resources to track alumni data and integrate college and career guidance into your school’s curriculum 
 
The workshop will be focused on the different ways that college and career guidance can be integrated into and included in a school’s curriculum, regardless of the flexibility they have with time and resources. Some of the main discussion points will include how to incorporate college and career exploration into short activities that can be facilitated by both teachers and counsellors, providing unique support to each student. We will discuss some of the ways it might be possible to involve teachers in the process to facilitate the job of counsellors and take a look at some case studies to highlight how schools have done this successfully. We will also look at how Unifrog might be used in this process to track student and alumni information to inform future school decisions. The workshop will conclude with a guided 10-minute idea exchange drawing from participants’ own experience since there are quite a few LAHC member schools who already use Unifrog to support students in different ways and it would be great for all attendees to have the opportunity to share their own experience and successes in this area.
 
Lucy is the Area Manager for the Americas at Unifrog, overseeing and supporting its partner schools across the Americas and the Caribbean. Prior to joining Unifrog, Lucy was a teacher at schools in Latin America for 10 years.
 
Location: Paracas 1
 
 
2. Hodder Education, Rebecca Plummer - Who we are and how can we help!
 
A welcome to Hodder Education: who we are and what we publish. How we can help schools with access to course materials, both digitally and in print, and how we go about supplying these to make it as easy as possible for schools. With a quick overview of our popular titles, and our newest titles; a walkthrough of our online digital platform; and plenty of time for a Q and A at the end. 
 
Rebecca HodderRebecca is the Education Consultant for Latin American and Iberia (Spain and Portugal), living in Barcelona, Spain. She joined Hodder Education in March 2022, moving into education publishing after a career in teaching in the UK and Spain. Following a degree in English literature, she completed teacher training in a UK public school. After her NQT year, she moved to an international school in Spain, where she was also early years reading lead, specialising in phonics.
 
Location: Inka I/II
 
 
3. VS America, Andrew Lowes - Transforming learning spaces through furniture
 
A researched based view and discussion on why optimising our physical learning environment is so important to student and teacher success and well-being. Why is more natural spontaneous movement needed in our learning spaces than before and how can furniture better support your educational delivery model.  We’ll look at the environmental elements that set the best conditions for teaching and learning based on research and a practical approach to creating change. We’ll look at inspiring references and photos of transformed learning spaces from schools across Latin America.  
 
Andrew VS AmericaAndrew is an accredited learning environments planner who has been helping to re-imagine and transform learning environments for over 20 years, starting in Australia where he is originally from, and Canada where he settled in 2006. He now lives with his family in Costa Rica dedicating efforts to Latin American educational facilities. His passion is working with international schools and improving learning space conditions to support student and teacher well-being that positively affect academic outcomes. 
 
Location: Inka III
 
 
4. Kognity, Maximilano Valencia - Kognity and the IBO collaboration - A new level for science content
 
Would you like your students to access the same resources as the top IBDP schools worldwide? That's exactly what Kognity and the IBO aims for - to level the playing field for IB students all across the globe. Our new science digital textbooks are designed to assist both teachers and students in self-directed learning. With formative assessment tools and trackable statistics, monitoring learning progress becomes effortless from any location. Come join us in exploring the platform and experience a journey of comparing academic achievements from all around the world.
 
Kognity MaxMax is the Kognity representative for the Americas, bringing with him expertise in educational technology. Having joined Kognity in 2018, he currently directs his efforts towards enhancing academic achievements of IBDP/IGCSE institutions across the region. His primary focus lies in the improvement of performance outcomes and the implementation of economically viable content solutions.
 
 
Location: CANCELLED
 
 
5. International Curriculum Association (ICA), Karen Fraser Colby de Mattos - International learning: taking action and making a difference
 
We will explore how asset-based pedagogies, which incorporate students’ cultural identities and funds of knowledge into the classroom, may foster the development of international learning and global citizenry. Starting in our international early years curriculum, children become aware of self and develop an increasing understanding of others.  A strong interest in their own culture and in other cultures flourishes and they thrive as they celebrate the diversity of their community. Our rigorous curricula (IEYC, IPC and IMYC) provide the context for children and teenagers to appreciate, respect and explore multiple perspectives and points of view, and develop academic excellence within a safe and trusting environment.
 
Children and teenagers feel empowered to enact meaningful and positive change, taking action, and are driven by a desire to make a difference. There are multiple opportunities to facilitate ways in which children and teenagers can develop skills and dispositions to become global citizens. The international, personal and subject goals, our foundations and the connections to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals are examples of how to allow learners to view their learning through a different lens. Our progressive pedagogy and our process to facilitate learning inspire them to become co-constructors of their learning. 
 
Karen ICAKaren has taught from early childhood to college level learners from many socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds in both public and private schools, and has held senior leadership positions in pluricultural environments. She has been working as a consultant and has created, developed, and implemented several social projects and bilingual programmes, and has implemented international curricula in different schools. She is currently the Outreach and Development Specialist for the Americas at ICA and is also part of their professional learning and accreditation teams. She is also a mindfulness teacher.
 
Location: Inka V
Location: Central foyer
 
1. Joel Jr. Llaban (virtual) - Engaging our communities in DEIJ
 
This session is designed for school leaders and DEIJ leaders in schools who are beginning or continuing their journey in leading and engaging their communities in DEIJ work. This session will offer entry points to the work and respond to the question, where do we begin?    
                                                                                                                                             
● What leadership dispositions and strategies are essential in leading the work?
● How might our leadership be a barrier or enabler for anti-racist transformation?
● How can leaders co-create intentions and action for DEIJ at schools?
● How do we design for a collaborative and participatory DEIJ action in our communities?
 
We will explore leadership characteristics, tools, dispositions, and frameworks that enable leaders to design a participatory and impactful process aimed at engaging our communities. School leaders will understand what it means to enable and empower DEIJ practitioners at school, ensuring they have the positional and influential leadership, as well as time, accountability, agency, autonomy, and budget to lead and enact change.
 
Location: Paracas 1
 
 
2. Fabiola Betancourt - Universal learning design workshop roadmap (in Spanish)
 
El Diseño Universal de Aprendizaje (DUA) constituye un marco para guiar el diseño de entornos de aprendizaje accesibles y desafiantes para todos. Su objetivo es ayudar a los estudiantes a convertirse en "estudiantes expertos" de forma que, cada uno a su manera, lleguen a ser aprendices decididos y motivados, ingeniosos y conocedores, estratégicos y orientados a objetivos.
 
El objetivo del DUA es modificar el diseño del entorno de aprendizaje en lugar de intentar cambiar al alumno. Cuando los entornos están diseñados de manera intencionada para reducir o eliminar las barreras, todos los alumnos pueden participar en un proceso de aprendizaje que sea tan riguroso como significativo. 

The session will cover:
    • Historical review on universal design
    • Conceptualization of universal learning design
    • Neuroscientific foundations of the universal learning design
    • Brain networks involved in learning
    • Digital media and the universal learning design
    • Principles of universal learning design
 
Location: Inka I/II
 
 
3. SIA (Helen Semple), Building the fundamentals: Psychological safety
 
Whether it is well-being, inclusion or safeguarding, success depends on having a culture where people can be vulnerable, can have difficult conversations and trust they will be heard. The key to achieving this is psychological safety. This interactive session will explore what we mean by psychological safety and explore practical tools and tips for creating a safe and open environment for your school community.
 
Location: Inka III
 
 
4. Gina Graham - Cómo fortalecer la alianza escuela-familia (in Spanish)
 
Este taller proporcionará a los participantes algunas herramientas y estrategias para fortalecer la alianza entre la escuela y las familias. Los participantes comprederán la importancia de una relación sólida entre
la escuela y las familias y su impacto en el bienestar del estudiante. Aprenderán estrategias para mejorar la comunicación con las familias y se abordarán desafíos comunes con los padres desde un enfoque basado
en las soluciones.
 
Location: Inka IV
 
 
5. Melissa Beeko - Journeying into diversity: Exploring a school-wide approach to racial diversity CPD
 
This session will reflect on my school’s approach to racial diversity training. The session will explore our motivation, our key objectives and the methods used. It will celebrate our accomplishments in promoting racial equity within our school community by reviewing what has worked effectively. The session will also acknowledge challenges encountered and areas of improvement. 
 
This honest reflection hopes to stimulate discussion, create a space for the sharing of ideas and provide insights into possible initial steps in this area of training.
 
Location: Inka IV
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