Cambridge East Asia Conference at SCIE
The East Asia Schools Conference is to create a platform and opportunities for Cambridge International schools in the region to share, reflected, and learned together as a community.
Around 400 school representatives from 250 Cambridge schools in the East Asia region gathered to share, reflect and explore ‘Creating a positive environment for learning’ at the 2023 East Asia Schools Conference in Shenzhen, China in June.
Shenzhen College of International Education is a flagship school of Cambridge International in China, which opened the door to the community and hosted the conference this year.
The conference highlight was six experienced Cambridge school principals sharing their best practices on school management, teaching and learning, student lives, etc. and 30+ school leaders shared their experience in the breakout sessions during the two days. In the Cambridge schools in the spotlight session, 24 Cambridge schools and Cambridge PDQ (professional development qualifications) centres shared three keywords that best represent their characteristics in implementing Cambridge Pathway and Cambridge PDQs through designed posters. The feedback from both participating schools and the delegates was quite positive.
Though the event is for practitioners in the international education industry, three Cambridge learners from SCIE have been invited to have an interactive dialogue with the participants and guest speakers at the conference.
The conference was concluded with well-organised school tours led by teachers and students from SCIE.
As Cambridge International, we hope to build a strong school community. Peer support and best practices sharing is the master key to coping with all kinds of challenges.
Jamie Jin
Senior Manager, East Asia
Cambridge Assessment International Education
Nicola Howard
Head of Subject-Drama
It was a great opportunity to attend the Cambridge Teachers’ Conference. Though we teach the Edexcel syllabus in Drama, I was sure there would be exciting opportunities to hear motivating speakers and meet other teachers.
The most engaging part of the conference was the breakout sessions on the second day. I chose the session on Teaching and Learning since a former colleague was giving a talk. I was interested to hear from Dr Mostafa Ibrahim of Beijing Foreign Studies University.
His speech focused mainly on criteria from appraisal and referenced some books that I later suggested for our SCIE library.
Donnie Xia, the IGCSE coordinator and exams officer at AIC in Guangzhou, gave a talk that really went to the heart of what we mean to do as teachers: encourage thinking. He illustrated how questioning can lead students to the correct answers and gave us several prompts to help us reflect on our teaching style.
I wish there could have been more breakout sessions. There was too little opportunity to engage and ask questions in the theatre when all delegates were together.
After the conference, I waited in the drama studio for teachers who had joined the tour. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet more people and talk to them about SCIE.
His speech focused mainly on criteria from appraisal and referenced some books that I later suggested for our SCIE library.
Donnie Xia, the IGCSE coordinator and exams officer at AIC in Guangzhou, gave a talk that really went to the heart of what we mean to do as teachers: encourage thinking. He illustrated how questioning can lead students to the correct answers and gave us several prompts to help us reflect on our teaching style.
I wish there could have been more breakout sessions. There was too little opportunity to engage and ask questions in the theatre when all delegates were together.
After the conference, I waited in the drama studio for teachers who had joined the tour. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet more people and talk to them about SCIE.
Ting Kang
Teacher of Mathematics
Attending the East Asia School Conference 2023 as a mere teacher was humbling and inspiring, both for the same reason that I sat amongst giants within the profession: not just Principals and Academic/Pastoral Heads, but those who have been teachers and leaders for decades, or who have spent years researching within the sphere of education, or who have achieved great things against significant odds. To spend two days at the end of another tough but satisfying year with such people was uplifting and reinvigorating.
Professor David Cardwell of the University of Cambridge spoke about an immense challenge: ‘The Future of Global Universities’. This seemed like an impossible circle to square given the number of competing factors: the difference in pre-university courses; the differences between Eastern and Western values in education; the budgets involved, just to name a few. But Professor Cardwell almost couched the challenge in terms of our survival: the world’s top universities need to work together with one another and with schools in order to raise up generations of young people who can shape an uncertain future. Lofty stuff!
Neil Mobsby began by posing an interesting and crucial question: how is your school different from an exam factory, cramming school, or exam training centre? He then went on to answer the question with specific reference to SCIE: learning, student life, themed weeks, and teacher CPD. I teach at the school with immense pleasure. The breadth of Gifted and Talented provision, the sheer range of clubs and societies hosted by teachers and, significantly, students (230+!!), and the numerous CPD opportunities wow me on a daily basis.
Richard Driscoll gave an overview of the planning of a professional development cycle. That cycle might span a year but the necessary planning started way in advance. Also, the repercussions continue well beyond in terms of evaluation: such evaluation is not simply what the teachers thought of the CPD, but how it impacted the pupils and how it can be related to future cycles of professional development.
Emmanuel Barthalomew from Ulink College of Shanghai spoke of the interplay between Professional Learning and Professional Development and introduced to us a new word: andragogy, how adult learners can self-learn. The story of how Ulink developed its systems of andragogy since 2017 was interesting. What was required could not be instituted with immediate effect; rather, it needed gradual but purposeful increments of change.
Fascinating lectures, interesting small-group discussions, and the chance to meet with motivated and forward-looking school leaders was a thrilling way to end the school year. But as the new school year comes around, I feel proud to be a part of this profession; I might not have the answers to the world’s problems, but hopefully, I am helping to equip those who might.
