Ahmer.online

Last July and again this December I took the chance to be in landscapes large in rock, sea and sky, which for me always seem to provide a sense of scale in time and space; a sense that can elude me in school term time. Climbing a mountain and gazing …

We have had a great start to the year, getting to know 60 talented and enthusiastic new teachers from a diverse range of backgrounds, and introducing them to UWCSEA. The energy across the initial weeks has been palpable, and the challenge has been to balance the necessary induction (who we …

The start of the school year always brings many hundreds of new children onto our Campuses over an exciting few days.  It’s hard not to feel the energy when our enrolling students and their families meet their new teachers, seek out new friends, and get to explore the options ahead.  …

Welcome everyone to the United World College of SE Asia, Dover Campus for two days at Finalsite University.  As part of a global network of 18 Schools and Colleges, we know full well how important it is to share ideas, perspectives, to be prompted from our usual ways of thinking …

Excerpt from High School Assembly at start of the year, Fri 23rd August: Today’s message it’s a bit different to the usual start of year message – I don’t feel the need to be entirely upbeat, after doing that for so many years.  I think there is already a positive …

There’s a story told by a writer, trying working from home, who was so distracted by the noise from kids playing joyfully in the park by his house that he couldn’t concentrate. As a keen student of human nature, he decided to tell them that he loved their noise, and …

Leadership is one of those words that means a lot of different things to different people.  Even within the field of educational leadership, we find the terms transformational leadership, transactional leadership, servant leadership, pedagogical leadership, charismatic leadership, authentic leadership, influential leadership, participative and task-oriented leadership.  On a bad day I …

Celebrating 50 years in Singapore this year means celebrating the past while also looking to the future, as reflected in the title of our recent spectacular 50th Forum Learning to Shape the Future (videos of all sessions here). There were two contrasting themes, which underlie a lot of what educators …

Assessing students’ work can be a difficult business.  It is, of course, a critically important piece of what schools do – both formatively to help the students improve, and summatively to assign an attainment level.  Like many aspects of most professions, it sounds quite easy until you look hard at …

When I was a student I used to trampoline a bit.  When I got to the stage of twisting somersaults, I used to get a bit lost up there in the air, and land in rather distressing ways (to both me and anyone watching).  Our guru, the wonderfully elegant and …