ISP Newsletter December 2020

The ISP Newsletter is a termly communication designed to share news with colleagues and friends across the partnership.

ISP Newsletter December 2020

The ISP Newsletter is a termly communication designed to share news with colleagues and friends across the partnership.

ISP Newsletter - December 2020

Covered in this edition:
Welcome - Nick Rugg, Regional Managing Director - Europe
Season’s Greetings from Steve Brown, CEO
ISP International Learning Opportunities for Students
The Learning Hub
School News
Europe
Mexico & Central America
Middle East
South America
Southeast Asia
USA
Student Feature - Learning about Music with Julia
Alumni Feature - Reminiscing about school with Nicole Yau
Staff Feature - Five Questions with Paulo Forero
Street Child United
ISP Brainteaser

Welcome
Nick Rugg, Regional Managing Director - Europe

Dear Colleagues,

This has been a year like no other. It is hard to reflect on its impact on ISP without thinking about the wider world, how our lives have changed and how we have been humbled and radically impacted by something hardly any of us saw coming. I know you will all have your own personal COVID stories and that sadly many of you will also have personal stories of loss too, me included, but I want to dwell in this introduction on what the positive outcomes may be for us, even long after the COVID virus has been brought under sufficient control to allow us to return to a reasonably normal way of life with our freedoms restored.

When all our schools had to close in Europe back in March, we entered new territory. There was no reference point in the past which we could turn to which we could start to base our planning. I remember in one of Martin Skelton´s talks on what goes on in the brain in relation to learning, he underlined how the brain tries to save energy by referencing back new information all the time to previous information. But none of us have had to deal with a global pandemic before. We needed to act quickly if this struggle was going to be a good one.

We did what we could to learn from colleagues outside of our group in China who were a few weeks ahead of us in terms of switching the school operation to one of distance learning and we continued to engage with schools who were just a bit ahead of us in the trajectory of the pandemic. We realised and accepted that we were going to make mistakes, but we also realised that we had to be transparent with our students, our families and our staff if we were going to get through this. We also understood instinctively that we had to ensure that this was a team effort. And so, began a daily call with all our Heads and the regional team to help us navigate and share our way through the crisis.

We were already a well-connected and collaborative team but, in my opinion, this collegiate approach bonded the team together in a way which had not been seen before. It created a network full of trust, professional respect and “psychological safety”, the benefits of which will be felt long after the virus has been brought under control.

I came across the phrase “psychological safety” for the first time in a book published at the start of this year by Matthew Syed called “Rebel Ideas”. In his book he explains that an environment is psychologically safe when people feel they can offer suggestions and take sensible risks without provoking retaliation. He references a major piece of work by Google which found that this concept was the single most important factor driving success in team performance.

Again, noting the positive outcomes we have achieved through amazing team performance, ISP has seen some incredible initiatives and ‘Wow Moments’ this year. The expansion of the International Learning Opportunities for Students has been extremely successful, going from just three to 11 amazing and enriching programmes rolling out during this academic year, including the hugely successful ISP Maths Challenge, the ISP Film Festival starting in February 2021 and the launch of ISP Futures.

The new ISP Futures programme marks a commitment to developing a whole organisation approach across all of our schools and offices to environmental sustainability. We, as an organisation, are embarking on a pathway to a more sustainable future and are committed to leaving behind a better world for both current and future students. As the first step on this journey, ISP have partnered with NGO Tree-Nation to plant one tree on behalf of every ISP student and staff member, that’s over 50,000 trees in accredited reforestation projects around the world.

It's also been one year since The Learning Hub launched, and this year there have been many exciting developments including The Heads’ Leadership Programme and Beginning to Blend course launches.

I am immensely proud to work at ISP and those teams with which I am connected as I trust you are too. I know that this crisis is not yet over, but I have seen how effective we can be when we pull together and support each other. Thank you for everything you have done to support our students, families and each other and I hope you all have some well-deserved and much needed down time over the festive period in whatever circumstances you may be in. Like you I trust that 2021 will be rather better then 2020!

Very best wishes,
Nick Rugg
Regional Managing Director – Europe

Season’s Greetings from Steve Brown, CEO

Watch the video from Steve Brown, CEO, wishing all colleagues across ISP a very happy and restful holiday season!

International Learning Opportunities for Students

Despite this challenging year, we are pleased to be able to offer 11 exciting International Learning Opportunities for Students (ILOS) that give our students the chance to experience learning outside of the classroom and connect with other ISP students. The ILOS provide memorable experiences and enable our students to:
• develop their language and communication skills
• experience different cultures
• cultivate long-term friendships with students from other countries
• offer students the chance to come together and interact digitally

Take a moment to discover all of them by watching our new ILOS video for 2020/21.

ISP Maths Challenge

In the first week of December, a whopping 9,433 ISP students, from all 46 schools took part in the first ever ISP Maths Challenge! Our students from around the world came together to compete against other ISP students, improve their problem-solving skills, and build their confidence in maths. The month-long event, culminating in a week of exciting maths competition, challenged ISP students aged 5 - 18 years through interactive, adaptive curriculum questions and live multi-player maths games.

Using the award-winning Mathletics platform allowed students to engage at their own ability, rewarding improvement and creating a positive learning experience no matter what their level. We saw some fantastic learning moments from schools around the globe, with some teachers and students really going the extra mile in the social media photo challenge! Highlights included outdoor maths, maths dress-up days, incorporating maths into art, science and even PE lessons, and generally getting creative with maths.

A huge congratulations to all our students that took part, and a special mention to our winners.

Winning students:
1st Place: Wei Hern T from Tenby Setia Eco Park
2nd Place: Jayden G from Tenby Setia Eco Park
3rd Place: Micayla T from Tenby Setia Eco Park

Winning teams:
1st Place: Class 10T from Tenby International Schools Tropicana Aman
2nd Place: Class 103 from Tomás Alva Edison School
3rd Place: Class Cuarto from Liceo Panamericano – Samborondón
4th Place: Class F4S from Tenby Setia Eco Park
5th Place: Class Add Maths from Tenby Schools Penang

ISP Virtual Buddy Exchange Programme

The first intake of the ISP Virtual Buddy Exchange Programme (VBEP) has come to an end connecting 162 students from 43 ISP Schools through weekly video calls. During the last eight weeks several amazing learning moments happened and many friendships were built. Highlights include, two buddies singing pop songs and playing the ukulele in Week 2’s topic – Music and another pair bonding over holidays in Week 3’s topic – A Tour of My Country. Even though the students were from different continents, they realised they’d both stayed on the same tropical island! The second intake of the VBEP will take place in Spring 2021!

ISP Futures & ISP Film Festival

Recently, we launched two new programmes: ISP Futures and the ISP Film Festival. ISP Futures marks a commitment from ISP to developing a whole organisation approach to environmental sustainability. As an organisation we are embarking on a pathway to a more sustainable future and are committed to leaving behind a better world for both current and future students. As the first step on this journey, we are partnering with NGO Tree-Nation to plant one tree on behalf of every ISP student and staff member (over 50’000 trees!) in reforestation projects around the world. We are at the beginning of our journey to become more sustainable, and we believe that by working together we can make a difference, become more responsible as an organisation and encourage and support our students, staff and families to be Change Makers for a better future.

Lights, camera, action! The ISP Film Festival is here! ISP students will have the opportunity to learn about many different aspects of the film industry from planning to post-production and produce a short film. The programme aims to offer students a lifelong-memorable experience and provide a platform into possible future career pathways into filmmaking and media. It will be unique opportunity for them to share their talent on a global stage and showcase the creativity at ISP.

Find out more about all of the International Learning Opportunities here.

The Learning Hub 2020 – A year of learning

The end of 2020 is just around the corner, and what a year it’s been! Despite the uncertainty and difficulty throughout this year, together, we grew and improved as a community to solve each challenge and to share solutions and strategies so that we could continue to put our students’ wellbeing and learning first.

Here are some highlights and stats from an incredible year of Learning:
Let’s talk about learning: our most popular course on The Learning Hub, which has reached over 3,000 colleagues, begins by defining what we mean by ‘learning’ at ISP and helps build our shared understanding of learning. And with your feedback on the course, we’ll be releasing an updated version in the new year!

Distance learning: this digital resource supported over 2,500 colleagues to deliver teaching and help students to continue learning at a distance through ISP’s learning approach – through your feedback and the incredible Net Promoter Score of 63 you gave this resource, we know how much you appreciated it (if you want to understand what this means, then check out our quick course on Net Promoter Score here.). In particular, you told us how it helped you remain focused on learning and how the distance learning toolkit supported your practice.

COVID-19 Toolkit: this resource helped ISP schools to -navigate the varying academic, wellbeing, safeguarding, marketing and communication challenges that arose when COVID-19 forced the closure of every single school.

New to ISP - Heads Leadership Programme

In November, we launched our New Heads Leadership programme to support the 19 new Heads of School who joined ISP this year. The programme provides 150 days of learning, coaching and mentoring to support new Heads of Schools in their leadership role. Despite the inability to gather in person, the programme ran virtually, with live, interactive sessions led and facilitated by Executive Coach Geoff Keeling and support from Amy Scholtz. Sessions included time with CEO Steve Brown, who shared his School of Choice strategy and defined what makes a great leader at ISP. Group Director of Learning & Innovation, Emily Porter, shared ISP’s Leadership Competencies as well as ISP Learning Strategy, Learning.First. CFO Darren Mee led a session on commercial KPIs and shared his leadership story. Head of Digital Learning, Analourdes Herrera, led a demo of the Learning Hub and The New Heads Learning Community Forum. Heads had the opportunity to engage, share, collaborate and learn from key ISP leaders, as well as, from each other. In addition, and as part of the New to ISP – Heads Leadership Programme, a mentor has been provided to each of the new Heads for the duration of programme. The mentors for this programme are experienced ISP leaders whose role is to support a new head in their first year at ISP. We are thankful for the time and effort these successful leaders are investing in these relationships and the invaluable support they are providing.

Up and coming learning experiences

We’re working with colleagues from every function across ISP to co-design experiences personalised to colleagues and their roles. Whether that be how to design blended learning experiences, how to get the most out of NetSuite, how to improve your negotiation skills, or how to design learning-focused content - be sure to look out for new learning opportunities, in particular:

Maximising Admissions Potential: Our new course, Maximising Admissions Potential, has been co-designed with sales expert Jen Wagstaff of CreativeMind with the aim of improving and revitalising your persuasion, influence and communication skills. This course leads learners through the enrolment process, giving you great ideas, fresh perspectives and challenges to help you learn new knowledge, skills and understanding that over time, will become consolidated and embedded into your daily routines. Whilst ultimately aimed at helping admissions colleagues achieve their enrolment goals and process, we recommend this course to everyone in ISP and encourage them to apply the learnings to their roles and contexts.

ISP Learning Glossary: This December sees the launch of the digital ISP Learning Glossary - our quick and easy guide to ISP's language of learning. You may have heard us talk about creating a 'good struggle' for our learners, or perhaps you've seen some 'amazing learning' in one of our schools. This digital Learning Glossary contains clear, concise definitions of these terms and more, with a set of supporting videos and resources to help us get better. We hope you'll use the Learning Glossary to spread ISP's language of learning far and wide - across our schools, teams and beyond!

Beginning to Blend: Following a successful pilot, we’re releasing Beginning to Blend, a micro-learning experience on blended learning co-designed with teachers, school leaders and colleagues. This introductory course is the first of a series of experiences on the topic of blended learning, and helps learners to discover more about blended learning, demystify the theory and practice, apply learning in learners own context and supports learners through facilitated communities of practice and webinars.

Grow with The Learning Hub!

Are you looking for a new opportunity to lead the learning, to build relationships and networks, to contribute to a global learning community, to use your passion for professional learning, to help embed quality in innovative ways and to be part of a dynamic team? If that’s you, then please get in touch with The Learning Hub team thelearninghub@ispschools.com. We’re building a Learning Hub Champion Network in every school and office across ISP and are looking for colleagues to come join the team.