MYP Update

The real value of networking

by John Collins, MYP Coordinator

On Saturday 24 March, Natalie Jensen and I flew to Hong Kong to attend the International Baccalaureate Global Conference. It was a three-day conference that saw over 1500 educators from around the Asia-Pacific region come together to meet, share ideas and be inspired to continue to improve the way in which our respective schools go about achieving the IB’s central mission: to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

We heard from a range of key note speakers including Dr Jamie Chiu, a clinical psychologist and founder of The Brightly Project, who spoke about empowering schools and teachers to feel more confident, capable and knowledgeable in their efforts to support students’ wellbeing. We also heard from Michael McQueen, a ‘future forecaster’, who gave us a glimpse of the world that the young people of today will be living in tomorrow and then looked at how schools might best prepare students for this future, through concept- and skill-centred education.

For me, though, the most value came from attending the various break-out sessions where I got to hear from other schools exactly how they implement various aspects of the IB programmes. I was particularly interested in learning more about the ways in which schools approach concept-based learning, skills-centred approaches and service learning. I gained some great insights into these areas and am looking forward to using these ideas to further enrich what we do at Preshil.

I met with some amazingly passionate educators who were so willing to share time and resources, and I look forward to maintaining contact with this network to assist us in enhancing our delivery of the MYP at Preshil.

The conference concluded with a dinner that was held at Disneyland. Mickey and Minnie Mouse came in and danced and I ate snails. So that was cool!