Leadership in IB Schools

Southbank Hampstead Principal, Helen O’Donoghue attended the International Baccalaureate Heads’ Conference in Seville last week. “It was an opportunity for me to meet Heads from around the world and discuss the programme their schools offer and the challenges we all face as school leaders,” she explained. More than 500 participants from all around the world attended the event. As well as informative sessions about the growth of the IB programmes and how educators can seek to continue to improve “action” in their schools, there was a keynote speech from Andy Hargreaves, the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Its mission is to promote social justice and connect theory and practice in education. Andy has written numerous books (available in many languages) on culture, change and leadership in education. “It was a real pleasure to hear someone ‘live’ especially when you have read much of his work,” said Helen. “Andy challenged the audience to take up ‘The 4th Way of Leadership and Change’. One approach relates to creating ‘evidence informed communities’, where schools can learn from one another, where there is a sharing of knowledge and wisdom to improve. This is something we try to promote throughout the Southbank community with our parent education mornings and staff-to-staff professional learning afternoons. We also welcome many visitors to our school from all over the world to see the Primary Years Programme in practice.”