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Allan Kjær Andersen

Principal

Ørestad Gymnasium

Copenhagen, Denmark

Andy Raymer

former Head of School Matthew Moss High School

Vega Schools Board Member

Rochsdale, UK

Barbara Cavanagh

Principal

Albany Senior High School

Auckland, New Zealand

Lene Jensby Lange

Head

Global Schools' Alliance

Roskilde, Denmark

Mahesh Prasad

GSA Guest

Noida, India

Melissa Daniels

Founding Director

High Tech Middle Chula Vista

Chula Vista, USA

Ni Putu Tirka Widanti (Ika)

President

Yayasan Kul Kul

(Green School)

Bali, Indonesia

Pawan Gupta

Board Member

Vega Schools

Dehradun, India

Sandy Hooda

Co-founder

Vega Schools

New Delhi, India

Jeffrey Holte

Learning Coordinator

Liger Learning Center

Phnomh Penh, Cambodia

Muriel Summers

Principal

A. B. Combs Elementary School

Raleigh, USA

Oct 14: Welcome, introduction and presentations from GSA schools

9-12h: Morning session: Getting to the core

  • Vision, mission and principles, membership criteria, and organizational structure

  • Action plan: Setting ambitious yet realistic goals for our future collaboration

    • What is our next step: The one project all schools will commit to doing together

    • When will we meet next?

    • Scheduling GSA's How We Learn event in October 2016

12-14h: Lunch
14-17h: Press conference and preparation for the evening event
19-22h: Vega School's parents' session: Co-creating the world’s best schools

  • GSA heads and Vega School's parents will meet for a large group session highlighting and debating the change needed in education as well as showcasing inspiring examples and philosophies from the GSA schools. School presentations by GSA schools will be followed by a facilitated panel discussion with GSA heads about the future of education.

  • The evening will continue with informal conversations with Indian parents over dinner.

22h: Goodbye drinks for GSA participants

Participants still in India will travel together to Agra to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site.

A large part of the first day of the Global School Alliance was spent with the members getting to know each other. Each of the members introduced themselves and their schools. Although each school hailed from a different corner of the globe, operating within its own unique socio-cultural and economic context, they shared a vision of working together to unlock the power of innovative education.

 

Innovative education takes on various forms and there is little consensus on what education should look like, even amongst these like-minded catalysts of change. For example, the Green School in Bali - founded by Peter Hattie, focuses on fostering and building green thinking. On the other hand, the Liger Learning Center only has one goal - to create change agents within their own country of Cambodia. Their methodologies vary as well, from the 100-minute classes implemented by the Albany Senior High School to the digital learning sessions at Ørestad Gymnasium. While Freemans Bay School is a public school operating in New Zealand to engage, enrich, and empower its students, High Tech High is a group of charter schools (including High Tech Middle Chula Vista) based out of San Diego, USA that focuses on the power of what the students can achieve today. 

 

Despite these differences, there is a deeper understanding of working towards the betterment of students and the community at large. There is a shared awe for each other's work and a deep pool of inspiration that the participants continue to draw from each other. Finally, and most importantly, there is a passion to keep going. As Ika from Green School said, "Education, for me, is a process, it's never ending." The Global School Alliance Symposium 2015 is a space for the members to learn from each other and continue their own education.

Participants began the day reviewing accomplishments from the previous day. They examined a diagram representing the common threads between their schools and reflected on what they could take away from it.

 

Participants voted on the agenda and the remainder of the day was spent selecting and discussing three major questions. They broke into small groups who each focused on one question. After a 30 minute group discussion, participant returned to the group at large to facilitate dialogue around the ideas they felt were most important for the larger group to address.


Initial discussions were directed at determining what GSA can enable member schools to do. Takeaways included the creation of structures by GSA members to support one another as well as the establishment of an advocacy network for the betterment of learning globally.

 

Secondary discussions answered the question how GSA can further teacher/student/school leader collaborations. There were a variety of ideas discussed, such as schools visits, leveraging social media, and creating thought partners/critique buddies for stakeholders.

 

Finally, the group discussed what makes a person successful in life. The philosophical debate centered around how to teach students how to reflect and become critical thinkers and problem solvers in the real world. 

Global Schools' Alliance International Symposium 2015

14-16 October 2015

New Delhi, India

 

Vega Schools in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, hosted Global Schools' Alliance's 2015 annual meeting. Principals, Heads of School, Founders, and School Leaders converged in Delhi for a three day conference packed with inspiring company, energizing conversations about the future of education and GSA members' roles in it. During this time members shared updates on their schools, discussed how every school could benefit and learn more from the Alliance, led sessions on the future of GSA and the organization's next steps, and had a panel discussion open to Indian parents who were interested in learning more about how the Alliance would benefit their child's education at Vega Schools. Participants met their counterparts from other countries, shared research, planned international projects for their students in coordination with other attendees, and explored Incredible India! The program was inspired by the input received from you, our members. It is our hope that these days spent in India will contribute to strong relationships between schools, see the implementation of the powerful action plan created of exciting opportunities for all of our schools, faculty, staff, and students, and take GSA to the next level.

PARTICIPANTS

FULL AGENDA

Sandra Jenkins

Principal

Freemans Bay School

Auckland, New Zealand

Natalie See

Principal

Hilltop Road Public School

Merrylands, Australia

Dr. Steven Edwards

Co-founder

Vega Schools

Washington D.C., USA

Sugandha Mathur Anand

Head of School

Vega Schools

Gurgaon, India

Oct 15: Exploring the potential of GSA

Oct 16: Vision and action plan, press conference, and parents event

Oct 17: Taj Mahal trip

11-13h: Welcome lunch
13-17h: Getting acquainted

  • GSA history

  • School presentations and discussion

  • 10 to 15 minutes presentation by each partipant:

    • Vision and how it translates into practice

    • Showcasing an examplar project

    • ’Sublime & Ridiculous’: three brilliant and two awful things you have done as a school

    • Challenges and next steps

    • Showcasing what makes your school stand out in particular

    • Why are you here?

  • Discussion:

    • Where will the world be in 10-15 years?

    • What makes a human being truly successful in life?

    • How can we set a really high bar in education?

    • Initial hopes and aspirations for GSA: stepping stones for building a shared vision

    • Thoughts and ideas on how students can form peer-learning communities across the schools, considering languages, time zones, curriculum overlaps, etc.

19h: Dinner

10-12h: Brainstorming session - Diving deeper: The potential of GSA

Small group breakout sessions to prepare the afternoons’ discussions

  • What can GSA enable us to do together?

  • What could educations’ approach to global citizenship and developing the skills needed to take on global challenges look like through a GSA lens?

  • Which ideas could be worth pursuing?

  • Crazy ideas we should give some thought?

  • What would the idea of ONE informal global school look like?

  • How can we be a true strength to each other?

  • How do we institutionalize the network in our schools and in GSA?

  • What should the membership criteria be?

12-14h: Lunch
14-18h: Afternoon session

  • Discussions facilitated by participants on morning session's topics

  • The common thread in our ideas: Initial discussion of a shared vision, mission, and principles for GSA

  • Planning the final parent event to be held on Day 3

20h: Dinner

Virtual

Attendance

Virtual

Attendance

DAY 1 SYNOPSIS

DAY 2 SYNOPSIS

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