A new support service for school librarians from Consilium Education Join us on November 23rd, 2023, 08.15 UK time. School Librarians always have a foot in more than one camp, playing both teaching and support roles. Story tellers and administrators, they will lead curriculum and community initiatives and be asked to manage resources across the whole school Consilium Education is pleased to announce a new initiative to support all school librarians. COBIS librarians are warmly invited to our introductory training event when our resident library experts, Rob George and Sal Flint will talk abou ..read more

Seeing what’s there A radical approach to staff development; values driven policy; teaching difficult issues in the Classics and what you should look for in a recruitment agency. Seeing what's there Teaching Generation Alpha how to see what's all around them is a key environmental goal. See it, love it and then protect it. Values in action Accreditation specialist Gary Minnitt suggests that values are the heartbeat of any effective school - all else follows. Learning Talk The British School Muscat has made a radical break from conventional PD and teacher evaluation. Kai Vacher repo ..read more

Putting a face to the new name in discounts for Teachers and Education staff Assistant Head Teacher, Katie Latham, took the plunge this year to set up her own company and she is now Managing Director of Teacher Card Limited. We all stand to benefit! How we got started  As an Assistant Head Teacher from Liverpool with the name, Katie, and the other name… ‘mum’ (of two soon to be three) I know only too well the pressures that school staff face on a daily basis, especially in the current climate. On one particular strike day back in April 2023, my husband Ian and I began chatting about the ..read more

Getting the most out of CPD for your school Ciara McGuane asks what school leaders need to think about to make sure that their colleagues get the most out of a year’s CPD. The CPD ‘Experience’ An old colleague once called me “The CPD Queen” (I’ll take it!). That being said, it hasn’t always been a rosy experience. I’m sure you can relate. Have you ever attended a teacher training workshop that felt like a tick-box activity? Have you ever had to go to a training event that, you felt, would serve no benefit to you or your students . . .  but you had to go regardless? Have you ever sat in a ..read more

ITM Editorial, October 2023 Observers Books and Generation Alpha Teachers of a certain vintage will remember with fondness the Observer’s Book series. These ‘slim volumes’ were pocket-sized field guides, the epitome of a growing mid-century awareness of what was all around us. What possible meaning could these books have for Generation Alpha – the younger children in our school right now? Perhaps everything. Starting with The Observer’s Book of Birds, first published in 1937, the series extended its reach throughout the natural world and into the cultural world of art, design and engineering ..read more

Adapting to change Richard Human reflects on the rewards and challenges of moving out of the classroom to become a full-time online teacher, trainer and coach. 2020 – 2023 Two things happened to me in 2020: like millions of others, I fell sick with COVID-19 and, like hundreds of thousands of other people, I was pushed into the world of remote learning and teaching. And what a world it was! Even today, I am unsure which of the two was worse – being on the end of a bout of COVID or emailing endless Word document assignments to families under siege with the expectation that they would be printed ..read more

Dr. Ochan Kusuma Powell Consililum Education library specialist, Sal Flint continues her column – School Readers – in which she talks to educators about their favourite books. This month’s Reader is Ochan Kusuma Powell. Why ‘School Readers?’  We all urge kids to read, but how has reading shaped our own personal and professional lives? I want to know which four books have most influenced the people I talk to – an unforgettable children’s book, a novel, a work of non-fiction and a ‘go-to’ book about education. This month’s School Reader is Ochan Kusma Powell, an accompl ..read more

Join the WWF’s Global Challenge for 2023! Charlotte Bouchier has news of this year’s WWF competition that enables students to explore the wonderful world of birds this October. What is the WWF Global Challenge? In 2021 and 2022, the online educational resources provider ITZA, in partnership with WWF launched the WWF Global Challenge, a free competition for schools. Over 24,000 students have taken part across 85 countries. Each Challenge has a different theme. In 2022 the focus was big cats. The Challenge this year focuses on birds, a dynamic and wide-ranging topic that will be sure to spark y ..read more

Creating a professional development culture based on coaching The British School Muscat has made a radical break from conventional PD and evaluation systems, which have beeen replaced by a framework based on coaching. Principal Kai Vacher reports on the dividend. New coaching programme We devised ‘Learning Talk’ as a coaching programme to support the professional growth of all our colleagues. Previously, our performance development (PD) process relied on graded lesson observations to evaluate teachers. In creating Learning Talk, we’ve abandoned these and redesigned the PD process around ..read more

The heartbeat of any school Having recently handed over the reins after five and half years as Director of Accreditation at the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), Gary Minnitt finds himself in reflective mood. The importance of accreditation I know that I am biased, but in my view, any serious school worth its salt should seek external validation through the process of accreditation. School self-evaluation against a set of well-thought out standards facilitated by one’s professional peers is essential for the health of any school. COBIS accreditation is of course only one pathw ..read more