By the Chairman

THE N Issue No. 1, Term 2014/2015 WELCOME BY THE CHAIRMAN FOBISIA EVENTS Dear Colleagues and All Friends of the Federation, Welcome by the 1- 2 Chairman The first edition of this academic year’s FOBISIAN comes to you as we move toward the end of what has been an extremely busy period of time in all of Update by FOBISIA 3 your schools and for the federation as a whole. I do hope that you might find a Executive Officer gentle reading of the news and information that follows an informative but FOBISIA Heads’ & Senior Managers’ 4 welcome break from your normal hectic schedules. Relax, read on, and I hope you will all enjoy Conference 2014 the wonderful news from our contributors that rightly reflects how very much there is to cele- elc Int. School at the brate in all of our schools. FOBISIA Music Festival 5 Tanglin hosts the New members are like new life and it is always a joy to embrace both. This year see’s us welcome Inaugural Student 6 into membership The British School of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, The British Vietnamese Leadership Conference International School, HCMC, Vietnam, and the North London Collegiate School, Jeju, Korea. As a FOB Language Perfect result of the normal application procedure, the due diligence of those existing member Heads Competition 7 who then conducted visits and the resultant positive voting amongst the whole membership, we The ABC Int. School, - Winners of the were able to welcome Janet Brock, Paul Hoylome, and Paul Friend to introduce their schools to Language Perfect 8 us at the recent Business Meeting that followed our annual conference. I would also, and in a Competition similar spirit, like to welcome our new Affiliate Members: Titus Learning, the British Council Sin- FOB Gymnastics Invitational 9 gapore, Boardworks Ltd, Eteach International and Optimus Education. I look forward to the fed- Competition eration benefitting from all that you have to share with us but also to the federation being able FOB Group C U15 to return this compliment by way of it collegial support for all of you. Games—Traill Int. 10 School My final welcomes which most definitely fall in to the category of “last but not least” are to the My FOBISIA Experience 11 new Heads to our region and to a lady who has already impressed her presence upon all of our electronic Inboxes. Daphne Wong joined Tania in the Bangkok office in August 2014 and has Everest Base Camp— 12 More than a track up quickly made herself part of the organisational furniture. Welcome on board Daphne and thank FOB Schools sup- 13 you for all the sterling work that you have already done in your role as CPD coordinator. port to Typhoon — Yolanda recovery 14 A year ago and at this time everyone was talking of the 2013 conference being “the best ever,” Alice Smith Welcomes New 15 and everyone was left wondering just how Matt and his team at Patana could hope to follow the HOS and Head of John Jones double act (Sir and standard Welsh version) in Penang. It is also perhaps indicative of Secondary the inspiration that Matt Mills so quietly instils in all that he works with, that whilst we may have Thank you to 16 Affiliate Members - wondered I don’t think any of us ever worried……….. Of course, our most recent conference so 17 successfully hosted in wonderful style by Bangkok Patana was to see us all charismatically taken under control by the students. Continued next page/= Continued from “Chairman’s Welcome”/= This was both novel and inspirational in concept and, married with a fantastic programme of outstanding speakers supported by our loyal exhibitors and sponsors, gave a result that was a WIN! WIN! WIN! experience for all. Matt; please accept and share with your team, our warm gratitude, appreciation and applause for once again “raising the professional bar.” So what next? …………Good Luck for 2015 Peter. You have never been averse to accepting a challenge and we are all now expectantly looking forward to joining you at Tanglin to “ Be Inspired…………” As is often the case in any introduction that which is most important lends itself well to mention in the concluding paragraph: The last two years have given me the privilege of working alongside and for two quite outstanding leaders and ambassadors for our Federation. Shaun Williams has been unfailing in his determination as our most recent Chairman, former Vice-Chairman and Secretary to ensure that our healthy growth in membership has been equally matched by solid operational structures that have protected the services we continue offer to all members. As is the case in any growing organisation this has not always been easy or comfortable and has required enormous dedication and hard work on his part, much of which has been done invisibly and without public acknowledgement. In Peter Derby -Crook who is standing down as Second Vice-Chair, Shaun has enjoyed the support of a wise and ever calm colleague who unfailingly exudes good common-sense values and has always found it possible to bring humour into all situations. Individually they are both power-houses of leadership. Collectively, they will be sorely missed as members of the Exec. Com. Thankfully for us all; I am confident that their voices and wise counsel will still be available to us from their new seats on “the back benches.” THANK YOU BOTH FOR ALL THAT YOU HAVE DONE.. You are going to be a very difficult act that I shall not attempt to emulate but will do my best to follow…… The season of goodwill to all human kind will soon be upon us and so I want to end this introduction with an open invite to any and all of you to write to me directly with any input that you care to share, by sending my sincere and heartfelt best wishes to you all, and, with a hearty Ho! Ho! Ho! to hopefully embrace the tremendous spirit that is so much at the heart of our federation. I am as ever, Gary D. Benfield. (November 2014). Headmaster of The ABC International School, HCMC, Vietnam & current Chairman of FOBISIA. Page 2 UPDATE FROM THE FOBISIA EXECUTIVE OFFICER Dear Member, It has been another fabulously busy term. We had a new staff member join our team. Daphne Wong began working full time as FOBISIA’s CPD Coordinator. A big thank you to Julia Cope for her time with FOBISIA and the great work she did before her move to South Korea. Daphne was able to meet with many of our CPD colleagues at the CPD Leader Con- ference hosted at Tanglin Trust School in September. A huge thanks to Lisa Cannell and her team for the great programme. The feedback from the participants regarding the JAWS CPD sessions was incredibly positive. The term also started with FOBISIA launching its new website on the 16th September. All events whether they be student based or for our teaching staff are now listed on the site under the calendar. With the launch of the website, FOBISIA also included social media marketing. If you prefer keeping up with events and news with short, sharp pieces of information, please follow FOBISIA on Twitter. #FOBISIA or message @FOBISIA1 FOBISIA now has Facebook page. This medium has already proven to be popular amongst students. In the future we hope to see our students interacting and sharing their own experiences when part of FOBISIA student activities. Fobisia - Click Like. November is always a busy month for FOBISIA activities. There were 24 student and teacher events conducted in November alone. You’ll see inside an article on the Heads’ and Senior Leaders’ Conference recently hosted by Bangkok Patana School. An amazing conference that was different to many past ones and certainly fit the theme of “thinking outside the box”. Thank you to all host schools of U15 Games. All teams have once again shown an excellent level of sportsmanship and competitiveness. Gymnastics, MUN, DT Competition & Languages Competition are more events that have taken place this month – thank you to all for making the effort to give our students these wonderful opportunities. For the teachers, there were 8 Job Alike Workshops conducted throughout the membership and JAWS remain to be the best forum of sharing best practice within our region. We hope that you have an enjoyable few weeks before the term breaks and that you have time to relax and spend time with family and friends over the Christmas and New Year holiday. Happy Holidays & take care. Tania Page 3 FOBISIA HEADS’ AND SENIOR MANAGER’ CONFERENCE 2014 - hosted by Bangkok Patana School Bangkok Patana School- was pleased to host the 2014 FOBISIA Heads’ and Senior Leaders’ Conference from 7th to 10th November. The Conference was attended by about 220 delegates, which included the heads the FOBISIA member schools along with senior leaders, exhibitors and presenters. The theme, “Thinking Out- side the Box”, was echoed through more than 30 professional development workshops and keynote speeches. Khun Mechai Viravaidya, the first keynote speaker, captivated his audience by talking about how he and his teams have had to come up with innovative ideas to deal with social challenges such as promoting birth control, preventing the spread of AIDS, improving rural schooling and reducing poverty. Other speakers at the conference included Bambi Betts, the CEO for the Academy for International School Heads and a revered practitioner who has worked with over 100 international schools; Andy Hinds who is renowned for supported heads and senior teachers in improving the quality of learning for students; professional coach Clive Leach and Fran Paffard, who is a senior lecturer in Early Years at the University of Cumbria, UK.

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