Effective Collaboration Through High-Performing Teams

Phil Holdsworth & Sam Egerton

Impact International

(Keynote Speakers)

From Plans to Progress, Part 1: Diagnose and Design for Collective Action

Most school improvement efforts stall because teams move too fast to solutions and then struggle to implement them. In this workshop, you will use the first half of the Progress Loop, Diagnose → Design, to sharpen an existing improvement initiative in your school. We will focus on two practical steps that create clarity and alignment:

1. Diagnosing the most important challenge (not a laundry list)
2. Designing a coherent response that teams can implement in your context.

You will use simple protocols, compare insights with peers, and leave with one next step you can act on immediately.
You’ll leave with:

• A practical method to identify the critical challenge facing your team or school.
• A clearer problem statement and a draft direction for action.
• A way to involve the right voices without pulling in half the school.

Ewen Bailey

Leadership Team Development Consultant

Managed Autonomy: Getting the Balance Right in CPD

Catherine Ellis

Assistant Principal, St. Joseph’s Institution International School

From Modelling to Mastery: Developing a Shared Framework for Learner Self-Regulation

Michael Downes

Head of History, Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong

Bridging Silos: A Whole‑School Model for Mandatory Training, Competence, and Risk‑Informed CPD

This interactive workshop helps CPD leaders build bridges across departments by using Data Governance as a clear, universal example of how mandatory training, competence, and risk management can be aligned into a whole‑school system. Many schools have strong policies and SOPs, yet frontline practice remains inconsistent because training is fragmented, role expectations are unclear, and renewal cycles are not well defined.

Through practical activities and a real data protection case, participants will learn how to create a unified mandatory training register, apply incident‑informed learning loops, and connect these structures to the School Improvement Plan and accreditation requirements. The workshop also illustrates Pristine Privacy’s competency‑based approach to Data Protection Leadership, showing how competence can be expressed, evidenced, and reinforced through a cycle of identifying gaps and taking targeted action. Participants will leave with actionable tools to strengthen alignment, enhance relevance, and support a coherent, risk‑aware CPD ecosystem.

Roy Ng

Founder & CEO/Principal Consultant, Pristine Privacy

How to run a discovery conversation with your staff

Shane Leaning

Organisational Coach, Education Leaders

(Keynote Speaker)

From Plans to Progress, Part 2: Implement and Measure What We Value

Part 2 is designed to work as a standalone workshop. You do not need to have attended Part 1. Even strong designs fail when implementation lacks clear ownership, resourcing, and feedback. In this workshop, you will use the second half of the Progress Loop, Implement → Impact, to turn a priority into disciplined action, fast learning, and visible progress.

We will focus on how leaders can allow improvement initiatives to grow into the the school during delivery: running small tests, clarifying “what good looks like,” and using simple measures that help teams adapt without losing momentum. You will practice turning a plan into a short cycle of action, evidence, and adjustment that strengthens trust rather than draining it. The aim is a lightweight framework for action and review that makes progress visible and keeps momentum high.

You’ll leave with:

• A way to turn initiatives into small tests with clear outcomes.
• A small set of progress indicators that reflect what your school values.
• A short review cycle for adjusting when reality diverges from the plan.

Ewen Bailey

Leadership Team Development Consultant

Three Tiers, One Vision: Strengthening Autonomy Through Collaboration

Liam Tombs & Shamini Kamalasen

Assistant Heads for Teaching & Learning, Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar

From Curriculum Intent to Classroom Practice: Interdisciplinary Learning Through the SDGs at KS3

This workshop examines how KS3 interdisciplinary learning through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be used as a practical mechanism for co-constructing a shared Teaching and Learning model. Rather than treating interdisciplinary projects as standalone initiatives, the session positions SDG-focused curriculum design as a framework through which subject leaders and their teams collaboratively align curriculum intent, pedagogical approaches, and assessment principles.

Participants will explore how subject teams contributed to the design of interdisciplinary SDG learning by negotiating disciplinary roles, agreeing common learning outcomes, and developing shared expectations for high-quality learning. The workshop highlights how the SDGs provide a common professional language that supports coherence across subjects while preserving subject integrity, acting as a bridge between individual classroom practice and a consistent Teaching and Learning vision.

Through structured reflection and collaborative dialogue, participants will evaluate leadership conditions and structures that enable teachers to meaningfully contribute to curriculum and pedagogical design. They will then apply this thinking to their own context, identifying how interdisciplinary learning could support greater coherence, inclusion, and collective efficacy within KS3.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain how the SDGs can function as a shared Teaching and Learning framework at KS3.
• Identify processes that support co-construction of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment.
• Evaluate leadership strategies that balance coherence with professional autonomy.
• Outline a transferable next step for strengthening interdisciplinary learning in their own school context.

Omar Murtaza

Deputy Head of Secondary, British School in Tokyo

The Positive Power of Connection

Kathryn Hemming

Relationship Lead for South-East Asia and China, Making Stuff Better

Designing PD that doesn’t exhaust people

Shane Leaning

Organisational Coach, Education Leaders

(Keynote Speaker)

Collaboration Groups at EiM: the successes, the challenges, lessons learned

This workshop shares reflections from EiM’s experience of designing and running collaboration groups across a family of international schools. The session focuses on what this experience has revealed about the conditions that appear to support collaborative learning, as well as the challenges that can limit its impact.

Through examples drawn from practice, the workshop considers how collaboration can act as a bridge between schools, roles and professional cultures, and between professional learning and changes in practice. Participants will be invited to reflect on how issues such as clarity of purpose, group structure, facilitation and organisational context have influenced engagement over time.

Rather than presenting a single model of best practice, the session uses EiM’s experience as a stimulus for reflection. Participants will be encouraged to consider which conditions resonate with their own contexts, which may not, and what this suggests about designing collaborative learning that is both meaningful and sustainable. By the end of the session, participants will have reflected on insights from EiM’s experience that can be applied within their own schools when designing and supporting collaborative learning.

Vivienne Robinson

Head of Professional Learning, Education in Motion (EIM)

From Compliance to Collective Efficacy: Designing PD that Teachers Choose, Not Endure

My intention for this interactive workshop is to invite participants to think honestly about how professional learning works in their own schools. In particular, we will explore how CPL/CPD structures can either build bridges or quietly put barriers in place. These include bridges between strategic intentions and what actually happens day to day, between leadership direction and teacher agency, and between individual expertise and collective efficacy.

Using familiar CPL formats such as whole-school training days, staff-led sessions and short sharing models, including a ‘Teacher Slam’ approach we are currently trialling, participants will work together to identify where professional learning can start to feel compliance-driven, even when collaboration is the intention. Drawing on real examples from both whole-school and teacher-led professional learning, the session will focus on practical design decisions that help build trust, distribute expertise and create genuine opportunities for contribution. Participants will also have time to adapt ideas directly to their own contexts and professional learning structures.

By the end of the session, participants will (hopefully):
– have a clearer understanding of how CPL design choices influence collaboration and trust
– gain a simple, practical framework for reviewing and reshaping professional learning structures
– leave with one low-risk, high-trust change they can realistically trial in their own setting

Carly Peart

Vice Principal – Professional Learning, Bangkok Patana School

Great Teaching Teams – How high-performing schools make collaboration work

Matt McGinlay

Evidence Based Education

Panel: Vicki Rotheram (SHR), Kelly King (DCSPX) and representatives from Jerudong International School Brunei

How Academic Councils brought our school community together

This presentation explores how schools can harness parent, staff, and student voice to drive meaningful and sustainable improvement. It will examine the impact of parent communities in supporting positive change and strengthening whole-school culture.

The session will outline our model for Academic Councils, in which school leaders identify priority areas for development through student voice. Council leaders are then appointed to each focus area and invite interested members of staff, parents, and student parliament to form collaborative working groups aligned with the school improvement plan.

Drawing on practical examples, the presentation will demonstrate how these councils bring stakeholders together to co-create, embed, and review whole-school policies. It will highlight how shared leadership promotes accountability, inclusion, and ownership across the school community.

Participants will leave with a clear framework for establishing inclusive governance structures that enhance engagement, strengthen partnerships, and support continuous school improvement.

James McCusker

Deputy Head of Secondary, Regent’s International School Bangkok

Supporting others and your own career progression

For developing leaders, supporting others is a powerful pathway for growth. When leaders guide the progression of colleagues, they learn by observing change in real time—how confidence develops, skills are applied, and decisions lead to impact. This process builds self-awareness, strengthens judgement, and sharpens leadership practice.

This session explores how coaching the progression of others contributes directly to your own development. Rather than focusing on titles or promotions, the emphasis is on the everyday leadership work that builds capability over time. One of the tools introduced in this session is the 70 20 10 model of leadership development, first articulated by the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina, to help frame how learning happens through experience, relationships, and reflection

The session will focus in particular on how leaders can coach progression in practical, manageable ways, and how observing the growth they support becomes a mirror for their own leadership journey.

Michael Iannini

Author, consultant and founder of Peersphere

(Keynote Speaker)

What Makes Professional Learning Stick? Moving beyond platforms and one-off sessions to classroom-focused collaboration

This facilitative workshop explores how schools can design professional learning that genuinely improves classroom practice while strengthening collaboration and collective efficacy.

Drawing on research and lived experience from a whole-school professional growth journey, the session focuses on three design principles that underpin effective teacher development: professional learning must be relational, built on sustainable long-term structures, and rooted in classroom practice through observation and feedback.

Participants will engage with brief framing ideas, paired and small-group discussions, and structured reflection to examine how these principles currently play out in their own schools. Rather than promoting a single model or platform, the workshop invites leaders to think critically about the structures that sit beneath professional development — and how tools, frameworks, and resources can be used to support, rather than drive, those structures.

By the end of the session, participants will leave with a clearer sense of the core principles of effective professional learning, practical questions to guide future PD design, and ideas for strengthening collaborative, classroom-focused professional growth within their own contexts.

Phil May

Assistant Head of Senior School – Colleague Development, Jerudong International School Brunei

Building the Bridge: Collaboration That Converts Intention Into Action

Most teams collaborate well up to the point where something actually has to change. At that moment, collaboration often gives way to hesitation, over-planning, or a return to familiar routines. This workshop explores why that gap exists and how leaders can design bridges that allow teams to move forward before certainty is available.

Participants will examine collaboration through a before–after–bridge lens, identifying where agreement and shared intent fail to translate into action. Using a psychological safety versus comfort framework, the session challenges the assumption that collaboration requires comfort, and instead shows how leaders can make discomfort safe enough for learning and change.

Through structured conversation and practical reflection, participants will explore how short-cycle learning and change engines can function as bridges, lowering the risk of the first step, distributing responsibility across teams, and enabling leadership to emerge through action rather than position.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to recognise where collaboration stalls in their context and apply a simple tool that help teams act, learn, and move together through change.

Andrew Mowat

EduSpark Cofounder and Leadership Trainer

From Co-Construction to Collective Efficacy: Building and Living a Whole-School Teaching & Learning Framework

This session explores how a whole-school Teaching and Learning Framework can be collaboratively designed, implemented, and sustained to strengthen collective efficacy and professional learning. It will draw on our school’s year-long journey, participants will examine how evidence, research, and staff voice were intentionally woven together to co-construct a shared model that is now actively lived across the whole school from EY to Y13.

It will focus on the process that Nexus has gone through, how leaders and teachers worked together to build trust, align beliefs about learning, and create a framework that meaningfully informs classroom practice.
It will highlight how the framework is now embedded through lesson visits, professional dialogue, and teacher goal-setting, ensuring it remains a living, evolving tool rather than a static document.

Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own contexts and consider how similar collaborative approaches can build bridges across teams, phases, and roles, supporting sustainable professional learning and shared responsibility for improvement.

Kay McCabe

Director of Teaching and Learning,
Nexus International School, Malaysia

From Pushback to Partnership: Collaborating with Parents Around RSE

This practical workshop explores how international schools can build more constructive and trusting relationships with parents around Relationships and Sexual Health Education (RSE). International school settings often have a diverse demographic where values, expectations, and experiences often differ. Rather than responding to concerns as they arise, the session introduces a clear parent pathway model that supports schools to plan communication and engagement before, during, and after RSE delivery.

Using the parent pathway model, participants will look at “before” examples such as clear curriculum letters, running early parent focus groups, and holding parent workshops that explain what is taught and why at different ages. Participants will also explore practical “during” strategies, such as lesson reminders with suggested questions parents can ask at home, and “after” approaches that invite reflection and feedback from families.

Through shared examples and short activities, participants will leave with a draft parent engagement plan tailored to their school context, supported by practical examples of parent communication letters and parent workshop approaches. By the end of the session, attendees will feel more confident leading conversations with parents and supporting a more open, respectful relationship between home and school.

Natalie Hodkinson

Director of Choice and Consent

Creating a Professional Learning Culture – From intention to impact: leading professional learning across a College

Professional learning has the greatest impact when it is not experienced as a programme, initiative or event, but as a shared way of working. This session explores how leaders at all levels can shape the conditions for professional learning to thrive across a College – aligning culture, structures and leadership so that professional learning is purposeful, impactful and sustainable.
Drawing on research and lived practice from international school contexts, the workshop will invite participants to reflect on how professional learning is currently led in their setting, where it adds the most value, and how its’ impact can be strengthened.

By the end of the session, participants will have:

• Considered how shared expertise, trust and psychological safety accelerate improvement.
• Explored the leadership conditions that enable professional learning to move from activity to culture.
• Reflected on how evidence, data and professional dialogue further refine PLD focus and priorities.

Paula Kennedy-Wingate & Chris Timms

Assistant Head (Teaching and Learning) and Deputy Head, Dulwich College Singapore

CPD as Bridge-Building: How Inclusion Work Strengthens Whole-School Collaboration

In this workshop, participants will explore how inclusion work can act as a practical and cultural bridge between teams when viewed through a CPD leadership lens. Using examples from Bangkok Prep, the session will examine how everyday systems – including referral processes, shared dashboards, pen portraits, and IEPs – can function as professional learning infrastructure, shaping shared language, trust, and collective responsibility.

Participants will engage in structured discussion to reflect on where collaboration in their own settings currently runs in parallel rather than in partnership, and how CPD strategy can intentionally use systems and routines to bring teams together. The workshop will focus on inclusion as a meeting point for educators, support staff, and pastoral teams, rather than a specialist domain.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Identify how existing systems in their school already influence adult practice and collaboration.
• Recognise opportunities to use inclusion-related work as a bridge for shared ownership and collective efficacy.
• Apply reflective prompts to make CPD more embedded, deliberate, and collaborative rather than event-driven.

Jonathan Breaden

Assistant Head (Learning) of Primary, Bangkok International Preparatory & Secondary School

The Rosetta Stone: Implementing a Shared Teaching and Learning Framework

This workshop invites participants into the journey of building coherence in schools where good practice already exists, but too often lives in pockets rather than as a shared language. The session explores how a thoughtfully curated whole-school vision can bring clarity, alignment and renewed purpose to teaching and learning.

Drawing on real experiences of leading whole school change, the workshop shares how a shared, evidence informed framework can become a unifying reference point across what we learn (curriculum), our learning environment (lived values) and how we learn (pedagogy). What makes great implementation against the EEF Framework? Participants will reflect on how frameworks move from a laminated document to real classroom practice, and how co-construction with staff strengthens ownership and trust.

The workshop also focuses on the human side of implementation, exploring how to bring students, senior leaders, middle leaders, teachers and support staff on the journey together, building shared understanding.

Morgan Whitfield and Danielle Fountain

Assistant Headteachers, British International School Ho Chi Minh City

Safe to Speak, Ready to Learn

By the end of the Learn session, participants will be able to:

1. Distinguish between trust, harmony, and psychological safety in school leadership contexts, and recognise common leadership behaviours that can unintentionally reduce psychological safety during CPD and collaborative work.
2. Apply practical, trust-based strategies to foster psychologically safe environments that support staff learning, professional dialogue, and open participation.
3. Integrate simple psychological safety practices into CPD design, meetings, and learning conversations, and identify one concrete action they can trial immediately within their school or CPD framework.

Shirralee Sisson

Trainer / Counsellor, Positive Wellbeing