Thank you to everyone who took part in the conference!
Recordings will be sent to all participants shorty.

For more information about the Activities Network in general
please to go that section of the website
HERE.

Wednesday December 1st, 2021

Online from 9:00 to 14:00 CET

Activities are things like Speech & Debate and Robotics for MS/HS students, ASA programs for ES students or anything else in between and we are excited to have a separate conference to focus on this side of our students lives.

This free conference is organized by Nick DeForest, Erin Marsh (IS Brussels) and Gil Grant (Copenhagen IS)
Click HERE for the pdf conference schedule

Opening and Closing Sessions

Alan Hayes - 9:00

Online Class Starters for ZOOM


How do you get that sleepy student excited about a ZOOM class? How can you engage your students as soon as they turn on their ZOOM? How can running around the house or playing a game help engagement? This session will focus on beginning activities which will help engage your students and prepare them for your lesson. We’ll be playing, chatting, and sharing during this session.

Dan Schuster - 13:00

Importance of Co-Curricular Activities
Dan Schuster is the Director of Educational Services for the NFHS (National Federation of High Schools)
He will talk about the importance of Co-Curricular Activities and how NFHS Learn is not just for athletics.https://nfhslearn.com/

10:00am Sessions

Cindy Adair

Maximizing Engagement with External Activity Providers This presentation will share our journey at Bangkok Patana School in Thailand to formalize our relationships with our ECA Providers to ensure they are vetted and checked annually, partake in bespoke safeguarding and induction training and are provided with timely feedback to allow them to improve their delivery. We run over 500 extra-curricular activities a week and currently engage almost 50 companies and sole traders to help us deliver a diverse offering which aligns with our three core values of Learning, Well-being and Global Citizenship. This session will explore the systems we have put in place to forge strong and mutually beneficial working relationships with these important service providers.


John Bertken

What is the future of virtual activities
A round table discussion on how in the time of COVID, schools have created virtual events to act as school related activities and as we move back to an in-person environment what will the role of virtual activities play?

Covid has literally separated us from our local school communities, but has at the same time opened doors for students to come together in a much larger community with virtual activities. Have these activities been as valuable as we had hoped for? What is the future of virtual activities as we move closer to in-person environments? We will discuss the impact that virtual activities have now and the potential impact in the future, and how these activities would be accessed by our global community.

Craig Wislang

Activity Program Selections: First come, first served vs Allocation Content: During this session we will explore the different solutions being used by International Schools and have a discussion based around the positives and negatives of each method. I will share my experience with platforms to handle registrations from an off the shelf option to a totally bespoke internally developed system. If you want a definitive answer on what is best, this is not the session for this. Please come willing to share your ideas and experiences.


11:00am Sessions

Michael Sawczynec

Leading Effective Clubs and Activities in a Boarding Program
In this session, we will dig into what makes clubs and activities effective in a boarding program. We will discuss how to organize weekend clubs, dorm trips, house events, and pastoral care activities within a boarding program.

Joseph Leonetti

Student Led Clubs and CAS Projects: Discussion
A round table discussion that will focus on including student led clubs and CAS projects into after-school activities. How are they organized and managed? Supervision and responsibilities? Stipends for advisors/chaperones? If you are interested in this topic or have experience in implementing similar opportunities in your school please join us for the discussion.

Tom Scott & Vicki Close

Ensemble work vs teamwork: Inclusive collaboration & engagement
The International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA)

12:00pm Sessions

James Butterfield

Developing Buy-in: Earning trust, building relationships, and resolving conflict. Great communicators achieve buy-in by understanding the drives, desires, and beliefs of the people they work with. In addition, leaders should work to understand their own selves, so that they can connect with others genuinely and constructively. As an international community, we also should understand what the cultural differences in our workplace are, and use this understanding to improve the effectiveness of our communication. This talk will explore the science and application of building buy-in. We will learn ways to better understand ourselves and those we work with, as well as discuss communication tactics to help to change people's attitudes and behaviors.


Jen Crocker

Why Speech and Debate is SUCH a good activity for your students!
Every student who comes to speech and debate seems to want one of two things - Students who have done it before want to debate with as many people as possible!OrThey come because they want to improve their public speaking skills. I will share what we do to make sure both of these things happen!
So what do we do? - we are part of a League entitled NESDA ( New European Speech, Debate and Acting Association.) As such we work towards competitions in the following events: Debate, Impromptu Speaking, Original Oratory, Oral interpretation of literature and Duet Acting.During the pandemic we have managed to host two full virtual tournaments and for this year we are looking at ways of developing skills across all the events and hoping to culminate in a big celebration across all the schools in the Spring.


Thomas Mathews

Co-Curricular Partners in the Community
At Shekou International School, we are fortunate to be situated in a young, vibrant city with lots to offer (Shenzhen, China). Instead of just walking past the STEM training facility or the go-karting track, we decided to tap into these companies and partner with them to offer an amazing After School Activity program. The ultimate goal is to assure that our students have rich and diverse experiences in co-curriculars and that we meet the needs of every student in our school. The purpose of this session is to share some information, experiences, and tools that will hopefully lead you and your school to do something even better than what we have at SIS.