My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
No matter how wonderful its buildings might be, any school without its students is just an empty shell.
It is the laughter, the chatter, the curiosity and, dare I say, the antics of the students that give life and vibrancy to a school.
With the exception of a handful of students who are still doing their final French Bac examinations, all our students have now finished their school year. As a consequence, our classrooms have now entered their annual period of summer slumber.
Well, almost....
On Thursday afternoon we had our last faculty meeting for the year. The final meeting is always a bitter-sweet experience as we farewell some colleagues who are moving on to new adventures in various parts of the world, we recognise the long service of several highly valued teachers, and we award the annual Guy Benet Awards for Teaching Excellence – this year’s recipients being Sylvaine Follini and Natasha Ramírez.
Among the sessions held with the faculty this week were the very significant planning meetings to prepare our 5-year report to the Council of International Schools (CIS). CIS is one of Awty’s two major accreditation agencies, and it is the ‘gold standard’ accreditation credential that establishes us as a top-tier international school. (Because CIS has a specific focus on ensuring best practice in ‘international’ education, the French Section has naturally chosen not to participate in the CIS accreditation process, which will thus only accredit the International Section of the school).
It is now five years since we had our last major visit, and CIS requires that we submit a report on the changes in the school since that visit together with our responses to the recommendations made at the time by the visiting team.
Since CIS’ last visit to Awty, CIS has refined its accreditation standards, and we are now required to show compliance in seven areas:
1. The school’s Guiding Statements
2. Teaching and Learning
3. Governance and Leadership
4. Faculty and Support Staff
5. Access to Teaching and Learning
6. School Culture and Partnerships for Learning
7. Operational Systems
Having served as a member of several CIS visiting teams to schools in various countries over the years, I know from my own first-hand experience how valuable the CIS processes of self-reflection and self-evaluation are in encouraging best practices in schools. Indeed, when I developed and implemented a new appraisal system for Awty’s senior personnel this year, I used the inspiration of the CIS model of self-reflection as its foundation.
When the CIS visitors arrive, construction will be well underway on the new extension to the Lower School that began this week. It is early days yet, and most of the work this week simply involved erection of the perimeter fencing and establishing the boundaries and infrastructure of the builders’ construction zone (as shown in the photo on right, taken on Tuesday).
Nonetheless, the arrival of the builders marked an exciting step forward towards the next phase of our building program – a step which also signified the commencement of the third major building project under my headship at Awty.
Hopefully there will be some truly exciting construction happening during the coming weeks and months at Awty – construction not only of new buildings, but also the construction of new ideas, concepts and plans as we engage in the CIS-led process of self-reflection and self-evaluation.
And, reflecting the priority I have always seen as being at number 1 in schools, I am thrilled to say that the real winners will be our students.
Empty Corridors
Sunday, 9 June 2013