Educational visits and outdoor learning play an extremely important role within a school community, enriching the educational programme and helping to develop students’ self-confidence, character, resilience and positive relationships with peers and adults. Jake Wiid explains the importance of an Educational Visits Coordinator role and how it could be a key part of your community.

It’s that time of year when we have the great pleasure of celebrating the outstanding work across our community of universities and schools each year via the CIS Higher Education Awards. We present them during our CIS Global Forum on International Admission & Guidance. 

The CIS definition of global citizenship is often cited in research and continues to be one of our most visited web pages since its publication in 2009. Yet, in 2020, rising voices on social injustice compelled us to take a closer look.

In light of the changing landscape, at CIS we have moved away from using the terms ‘host country’ and ‘host country national’. Find out why.

Checking on the well-being of our students and staff is one of the most important responsibilities of educational leaders, especially when cultural norms and a lack of inclusion and diversity may prevent them from speaking up and asking for support.

We’re always looking for ways to use data to help solve challenges facing our membership community. And our work to foster greater inclusion across our global community via diversity, equity and anti-racism (I-DEA) continues at pace. One way we are linking these two priorities is to share our data analysis expertise via strategic partnerships, most recently to determine diversity baseline data in international schools, collecting data on gender, nationality, and ethnicity of board members, heads of schools, leadership teams, and teachers.

Ten CIS schools and universities conducted sessions with their international students to understand better the pressures they face when making the transition from secondary school to university, especially in relation to moving across countries and cultures. Explore the three themes emerging from this CIS project so far.

Imagine the scenario. A 16-year student sobbing in a school teacher’s classroom because on the surface it would appear that he is struggling to cope with the stress of his first semester school examinations. Then you discover that this young man has a known history of anxiety and lost contact with his professional support when he transitioned between international schools and countries. Natasha Winnard gives valuable advice to help schools and educators.

What does global citizenship mean to your students and school community? How do you define, articulate, and implement global citizenship development and intercultural learning? Many schools that we support along their school improvement journeys continue to grapple with how to envision this work. And our conversations usually lead to one challenging question: how do we assess the impact and know whether students have indeed developed the traits of a global citizen?

I have taught critical race theory for the past ten years in three different overseas American schools, and that experience has solidified my unequivocal belief that teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are fundamental to an effective liberal arts education, still very relevant in preparing our youth for the world they will inherit.

If diversity means including other viewpoints and perspectives, and representation from groups other than the majority, then this surely includes linguistic diversity as well. And surely there is no better route to decolonising the curricula of international schools than to set local and student languages in parity alongside the colonial language that is English.

The cyclical nature of school accreditation and curriculum evaluations can be challenging for schools to coordinate when working with multiple organizations. That’s where our partnerships with the IB and other accreditation agencies help schools to manage that their evaluation cycles more efficiently and effectively. Here’s how it works.

As students explore and research their next steps beyond secondary school in the midst of the pandemic, we work with our members to support the best possible outcome for those who are interested in international higher education opportunities. Here's how our 2021 virtual University Exploration Days are proving to be a great solution.

What constitutes effective leadership and ‘leadership by presence’ when uncertainty and crisis management continues to be the order of the day? The unpredictable nature of the pandemic and the lack of previous knowledge have truly tested the mettle of international school leaders. Sudha Govindswamy asked some leaders from CIS member schools to share their approaches and strategies.

From guiding statements to student learning, what’s your school’s ‘golden thread’? Is it linear or complex and messy? How does it guide your school? Simon Camby presents key questions for you to reflect on as you think about your school.

We’ve talked a lot about how our community of educators, counsellors and school communities can protect students online.But where do we start when helping students protect themselves online?

Peer evaluation is at the core of the CIS International Accreditation experience—educators lead, strengthen and shape international education together. Our new Director of School Evaluation & Development Services, Simon Camby, explored how peer evaluation training works from the inside.

What does it look like to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism in schools and universities? How will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and the young people we are educating? Conrad Hughes describes ways educational institutions can ‘decolonise the curriculum’.