Update from Africa, Europe, Middle East regional director - Andrew Bollington
Back in April I promised to focus on “improvement of our core services to existing and potential IB World Schools” and I highlighted professional development as one of the core services that needed attention. Not, I hasten to add, because of negative feedback about the quality of our training, but in response to the many requests to make IB professional development more accessible and consistent.
We are now implementing a package of changes designed to nurture, grow and enhance the quality of our professional development support across the region. The highlights include:
- A half million dollar investment in workshop leader training and school visitor training. We believe that we need to invest more in strengthening and growing the team of people who lead IB workshops.
- A new annual programme of events, published by school year. We know that schools need this information well in advance and we are working hard to get ahead in the planning.
- The use of “convenient” cities. We surveyed schools to get feedback on the best locations and so we know that accessibility and time out of the classroom is a key issue for the majority of schools.
- A shift towards using professional venues for training that avoids lengthy bus transfers. Schools do not always have the best environment for adult learning.
- The inclusion of 3rd party training providers in our annual programme with active quality audit by the IB. We know that others provide excellent training and we want to find ways of making that available where it meets IB requirements.
- Streamlining of the online information about events and the booking process. We want to make it quick and easy to find the best event and to register.
- The introduction of an online workshop feedback system (we trialled this in July) so that we can quickly analyse and act on participant and leader feedback.
These and many other changes will become apparent during 2009. The move towards professional training venues (not exclusively – we will still use some school facilities where that is more effective) will have an impact on cost, but we believe that the trade-off is worthwhile. For example, our next workshops in Paris uses a more expensive venue (Paris is not cheap!) but the overall cost to a school should be lower as accessibility (by plane and train) is excellent and teachers will be able to walk from their hotel room to the training room. As ever, your feedback is warmly welcomed to andrew.bollington@ibo.org.
Andrew Bollington
Regional Director
