Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Our teachers are also encouraged to develop their competences by undertaking formal courses and taking part in our training programmes. We have designed tailor-made training programmes under our continuous professional development, to cater to the training needs of our teachers.

Professional development with Mark Church

Mark Church works with educators throughout the world striving to create cultures of thinking in their classrooms and schools. Mark challenges teachers to foster thinking dispositions in students in service of deep understanding. He invites teachers to promote a discourse of thinking in their classrooms that communicates value for student sense-making. Mark encourages teachers to make their classroom environments rich with the documents of student thinking processes.

Mark is currently a consultant with Harvard Project Zero’s Making Thinking Visible and Cultures of Thinking initiatives worldwide, drawing upon his own classroom teaching experience and from the perspectives he has gained working with educators throughout North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. Mark enjoys helping teachers examine opportunities for student thoughtfulness, use thinking routines as supports and scaffolds, interact with students in ways that demonstrate interest in and respect for students’ thinking, and send clear expectations about the importance and value of thinking in learning.

Together with Ron Ritchhart and Karin Morrison, Mark is co-author of the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

During the week of November 25th, OSC was excited to welcome Mark Church for a 3-day, whole school workshop focused on “Cultures of Thinking”. The visit kicked off with all staff in a full-day workshop and Mr Church took them through a number of interactive sessions and build a framework around the Cultures of Thinking, The following two days were set-up as “snapshot” sessions, whereby teachers observed other colleagues at work and followed a set of professional protocols to examine the eight Cultures of Thinking areas. Following on from the observations, teacher discussion, feedback, reflection, and praise were highlighted sections of the protocol that enabled teacher growth.

Whole school professional development is invaluable when looking to bring an initiative forward in a sustainable fashion. Today, most of our students will be able to explain a “visible thinking routine” as it has now become a part of the OSC culture and teacher toolbox.

PYP

Last year, all primary school teachers attended IB PYP category workshops, focused on different areas of pedagogy. We also hosted maths consultant Katy Romero for a school workshop.

MYP/DP

Secondary teachers attended IB DP and MYP Category workshops, Subject Specific Seminars or workshops that focused on areas of pedagogy to ensure that our faculty are fully prepared to deliver the curricula.

There was also CPR/First Aid training conducted for teachers and students.