Mr Foyle with some of the student ambassadors from the Bangkok Patana School, saying Happy Birthday to BISS Puxi by making the sign for 10 in Chinese!
However we are not just a member of one big community of schools. We are also proud members of FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia, which is, as the name suggests, a federation of schools that are primarily British in terms of the curriculum that they deliver and their approach to education. Membership of this group gives us a number of benefits. Most self- evident and high profile are the sporting, educational and cultural events that they offer to us. The Under 15 FOBISIA Games held last weekend at BISS Puxi was a truly memorable event providing an opportunity for our students to greet, compete and meet with students from other schools from across the region. We are also proudly hosting the FOBISIA Maths Challenge in the first week of March 2015. These events provide our students with many opportunities in terms of hosting the event and learning how to communicate and deliver a warm welcome. They also provide a memorable and exciting experience and the chance for students to test themselves and develop their own personal best performances against other talented students.
We will also be attending musical, sporting and cultural FOBISIA events again this year at other schools, thus again delivering more opportunities to learn about other FOBISIA schools, cultures and cities across Asia.
From a personal perspective, this weekend I have just spent in Bangkok attending the annual FOBISIA Senior Leaders’ Conference hosted by Bangkok Patana School was an invaluable experience. It was a very well structured and organised Continuous Professional Development (CPD) event. It was made up of a mixture of keynote speeches and smaller specialist sessions as well as opportunities to see another high quality school in action and to have the opportunity to discuss informally, with the nearly 300 delegates, (school heads and principals) matters of mutual interest and concern.
We have a lot to be proud of and the way the staff and students rose to the challenge of hosting the FOBISIA Games is another example of that, but our membership of FOBISIA also keeps us engaged with the school communities in the region and grounded, as we listen and learn from other highly successful school communities which are on their own learning and development journey.
I hope you all enjoy the long weekend and the well-deserved opportunity it provides for us all to rest and reflect on what has been a busy and successful start to the school’s tenth anniversary year.
- Kevin Foyle, Principal