Learning from others
Dear colleagues,
One of the great privileges of leading a school or coordinating an IB programme is the opportunity to step outside your own context and learn alongside other IB educators in the region. This weekend, I swapped Cairo for Prague, leaving my school to facilitate a workshop at the International School of Prague. Across the campus, around fifteen workshops are taking place simultaneously — a powerful reminder that professional learning is alive and well in our community.
I always return from these weekends having learned as much as I have facilitated.
The IB Website
On the eve of the workshops, the IB Field Representative, Roz Trudgon, brought all workshop leaders together for a short professional learning session. This year, instead of a presentation, she set us a task: a scavenger hunt on the open-access IB website. It was simple — and brilliant.
The exercise was a timely reminder of just how many high-quality, free resources are available to IB educators.
Two stood out in particular:
- Diploma Programme subject choice guidance — invaluable for coordinators supporting students and parents to make thoughtful, informed decisions each year. See the page on Diploma Subjects and DP Curriculum Booklet
- IB Nanos — free, 15-minute professional learning modules that are perfect for staff meetings, inset sessions, or individual development. Small, focused, and highly practical. See the page on FREE IB Professional Development - Webinars & Nanos
It reinforced something important: sometimes the resources we most need are already there — we simply need to revisit them.
Case Study: International School of Prague
But I never only learn from the IB itself. I also learn from the host school.
The International School of Prague offered powerful reminders about culture and environment.
First, the intentional use of physical space to promote learning. The displays were not decorative; they were purposeful. They celebrated thinking, process, identity and belonging. The environment spoke — quietly but clearly — about what the school values.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, the visible care for staff. We often speak about student wellbeing, but here there were clear examples of staff wellbeing being prioritised too. Two small but meaningful practices stood out: public acknowledgement of colleagues who had given many years of service, and displays that made visible the people behind the roles — celebrating staff as human beings, not just job titles. See the page on Staff Well-Being
These are simple things. But culture is built on simple things done consistently.
PS
Professional learning weekends are never just about the workshop content. They are about community, perspective, and returning home slightly changed — and hopefully ready to make small, meaningful shifts in our own schools.
One of the activities I ran in the workshop I was facilitating - Leading an IB Learning Organisation - was to ask all participants to choose short videos from films, each of which was to illustrate an aspect of leadership. It is a great activity to encourage thoughtful reflection on the IN leadership intelligences. One participant offered the following video and we watched from 11 minutes in to the end when the Canadian Prime Minister was trying to make sense of the world we lived in, especially resonant on the weekend that conflict in the Middle East erupted. It raises questions such as:
- how do we, as leaders, make sense of the world around us?
- to what extent are we the chief story teller for our organisation, helping to make sense of what is happens?
- what is our mission (who we are), our vision (where we are going) and what is our strategy to get there?
Another participant who had lived and worked in Africa shared this wonderful collaboration, reminding us all of the beauty of humanity, of how much we share - an important reminder at a time when differences are tearing us apart.