Our university members questioned international school counsellors during our recent webinar series about how to best connect with their students at this uncertain time. Here are their tips and advice.

How has the pandemic changed how secondary school students worldwide are learning about their university options and defining when and where to enrol at university? Through panel discussions in a recent webinar series, we've gathered a wealth of insights from international school counsellors worldwide.

Schools are expected to take particular care to protect student information as part of their child protection obligations. But what happens when a child moves to a new school? Schools can feel torn between safeguarding the student and protecting the student's sensitive information. We explore legal considerations and share practical tips. 

Resilience has been difficult for many of us this past year. Our competence to both withstand and recover from difficult conditions continues to be tested. We invited Ellen Mahoney and Kristin Daniel of the Circulus Institute to share their ideas and guidance for 2021. 

Six months ago, educators from different parts of the world signed and made their voices heard through a petition. They strongly recommended all accreditation agencies and organizations that accredit and evaluate international school quality worldwide to ensure the explicit inclusion of anti-racism and anti-discrimination principles against all forms discrimination in their accreditation standards.

To do the groundwork for tackling racism, it's important to meet each person where they are in their own journey of understanding. As one of the facilitators of our Tackling Racism Workshops, Chris Green explains how these learning opportunities help us first understand self, then understand others, and finally understand our systems and structures.

CIS International Accreditation standards are continually reviewed to ensure their relevance to our school community’s needs. In recent years, we worked to embed new protocol requirements on inclusion, diversity, and equity and have now strengthened them further around anti-racism. Learn more from Chris Durbin, Direction of International Accreditation at CIS.

Tackling racism is hard. We have to give it all we have.

Jane Larsson reflects on what we learned in 2020. She also outlines steps that school communities can take and the self-assessment questions that we’re using at CIS.

Learning and adapting can bring both discomfort and opportunities. We take a look at the opportunities we discovered as 2020 adjusted our path. From delivering sensitive content virtually in our child protection workshops to addressing our biases in anti-racism workshops, and helping students on their pathways to university.

There’s a lot to reflect upon from the past extraordinary year. Carole Denny takes a moment to acknowledge the accomplishments of our community, some lessons we've learned from virtual school visits, and inspiring moments that have motivated us through it all.

In a year of deep learning, Jane Larsson tells us that nowhere has her own been more significant than in our work at CIS to examine systemic racism. She learned about trust, or to be clear, "I learned I am not trusted and why." In Jane's latest blog, she focuses on how we first need to earn trust before we can instill it.

"I remember reading the CIS website’s promise of ’Shaping the Future of International Education’ and I thought 'Wow, that sounds exciting; I would love to contribute to that, but what would that look like in practice?'" A year later, Nico Evers is our Director of Higher Education Services and reports on his first CIS Summit of University and School Leaders and how we're doing on that promise. 

One of the highlights of our CIS Global Forum each year is the celebration of outstanding work across our community of universities and schools via the Higher Education Awards. This year, amid such a challenging time, it gives us enormous pleasure to celebrate, recognise, and thank our award recipients for their exemplary service in the international admission and guidance community.

The CIS membership community places the student and their needs at the centre of education. Peter Williams takes up the challenge of highlighting a critical aspect relating to the prompt ‘who are the learners?’, bringing meaning to it using three lenses, and shares a rationale for why we need to invest in identity for the sake of all learners.

What does 'charging our batteries' really mean? So often, people take a break from work only to crave something to occupy minds, establish routine and break the monotony. Lee Hole, Head of Secondary School at GEMS International School–Al Khail in the United Arab Emirates describes what to look out for and ways to recharge.

With so much going on in our busy minds, busy lives, and even busier inboxes, it can be extremely easy to miss small but important details like authentic email addresses—and cybercriminals take great advantage of this. Here are some things to look out for.

Reflections from two foundational learning and listening exercises as we explore our implicit biases and consider “What if we centred equity in accreditation?”

What does it mean to purposefully and intentionally 'tackle' racism? And how will we hold ourselves accountable to each other and for the young people we serve in international education? We asked speakers from our upcoming Tackling Racism Workshop Series to identify some of the common missteps that educational leaders and educators make in their goal to address and tackle racism.

Some safeguarding and well-being risks have increased for many children as a consequence of moving to remote learning. At the same time, the sudden shift to home-based learning and concerns about students’ academic progress has meant that key elements of some schools’ safeguarding and well-being education were paused or weakened. We look at different approaches to terminology, explore challenges, and offer eight steps/solutions that schools can take as we draw on examples from CIS Accredited schools and on the work of experts in this field.