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BSA/BAISIS – Supporting international students conference

8 March 2023 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm


  • Date: 08 March 2023
  • Time: 09:00 – 17:00
  • Cost: Full BSA/BAISIS Member – £195, Additional Full BSA/BAISIS Member – £100, Affiliate Member – £295, Additional Affiliate Member – £130, Non-member – £390, Full BSA / BAISIS Member Whole School Rate – £450
  • Audience: SMT/SLT, EAL, Marketing/admissions, Agents, Guardians
  • Platform: Zoom

The international market is ever-changing so it’s important to stay ahead of the curve to ensure your international students continue to receive the very best support and that your school remains compliant with regulations. At this year’s International Conference on Wednesday, March 8 2023 we’ll be discussing everything from conflict management to biliteracy, social media use to vocabulary development, and the latest visa and immigration headlines.

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Speakers:

Sarah Bellotti, Chair BAISIS and Head Mill Hill International

Sarah was elected BAISIS Chair in January 2022, having served as Deputy Chair since November 2020.
Sarah started her career in education at an international school in Rome, Italy and then returned to the UK to take up a post at King’s Ely where she later became Director of King’s Ely International. Since 2014, Sarah has worked at The Mount, Mill Hill International as the founding Headteacher.


Caroline Nixon M.A. (Oxon.), M. Ed., FTIOB, BSA International & Membership Director, Director BAISIS

Caroline has worked in international education for over 30 years.  She is International & Membership Director at Boarding Schools’ Association, Director of British Association of Independent Schools with International Students and Director of Caroline Nixon Education Ltd., as well as a member of the advisory group to the British Government’s All Party Parliamentary Group for international students.

Caroline set up and runs the BSA educational agent certification scheme and is involved with the BSA’s accreditation of international schools.  Her background is in international education marketing and she also set up and ran a leading international school in the UK.  She has helped several UK schools to establish new overseas branches, advised an international school opening in the UK, set up a guardianship agency for an educational group, and advises schools on international marketing and academic and pastoral provision for their international students.


Bethan Waddington, Programme Director BSA Group, incoming Director BAISIS

Bethan Waddington joined the BSA team as Training Manager in September 2017. Bethan has worked in two independent boarding schools in the UK and Switzerland, the latter as Housemistress to 36 pupils. Following her time in Switzerland, she was a Pastoral Manager for an inner-city state academy before working in the charity sector for Debrett’s running the ‘Debrett’s Foundation’ training programme.

In her role, Bethan plans and manages all Day Seminars, Conferences, INSET and Consultancy. She believes boarding can be a positive force for young people and in order to fully support their needs staff can never learn too much. As such she is passionate about the CPD BSA delivers to our pastoral communities in the UK and worldwide.


Yordan Demirov, Head of Y2 (U6), UWC Atlantic College

Yordan works closely with the Head of Tutors and Student Affairs and the other Head of Year to support the wellbeing of students throughout their journey at UWC Atlantic College. He also supports the tutors in coordinating their responsibilities, allowing them to support their tutees in all aspects of college life. In addition to his role as Head of Year, Yordan teaches History and is leading a Changemaker course on oracy.

Prior to joining UWC Atlantic, Yordan taught history and English at Zlatarski International School in Sofia and, before that, he worked with underprivileged children through the Teach for Bulgaria program. He holds a B.A. in Modern European History and a B.A. in English Language and Literature.


Dr. Helen Wood, Head of School Partnerships, Password English Language Testing

Helen’s career began as a language teacher. While following a bi-lingual postgraduate at Geneva University she discovered passion for EAP and CLIL methodologies. This led to twenty years in the independent school sector working in support of international students, first as Head of EAL and later a senior leader involved in CPD, curriculum development, pupil progress tracking and school improvement. Helen joined Password in 2018 to promote the use of appropriate assessment tools for EAL learners in the school sector.


Hamish Chalmers, Course Director MSc. Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching, University of Oxford

Hamish Chalmers started professional life as a primary school teacher in the UK, in 1997. He moved to Thailand in 2001 where he taught in the international sector for more than a decade, latterly as Director of English as an Additional Language (EAL) for a large British Curriculum International School in Bangkok. He returned to the UK in 2013 to study for a Masters in TESOL, then a PhD in Educational Applied Linguistics. He now works at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, lecturing in Applied Linguistics and researching in the field of EAL. He was Vice-Chair of NALDIC, the UK’s subject association for EAL, from 2019 to 2022. He is committed to facilitating stakeholder’s engagement in educational research, to ensure that it reflects what is meaningful, feasible and useful for teachers and learners.


Jane Xu, Co-founder EduKnow, a leading media platform for international schools

Jane Xu is the co-founder of EduKnow, a leading new media platform for international education institutions and schools.  EduKnow has over 1.5 million parent subscribers on WeChat and Douyin (WeChat ID: EduKnow 留学全知道 and Readfirst阅读第一).

EduKnow has developed into an influential hub connecting parents and educational service providers.

Poirier to EduKnow, Jane was the Marketing and Communication Director of Underwriters’ Laboratory Greater China. She also served as a management consultant at A.T.Kearney.

Jane was born and raised in Shanghai. She received her BA degree in Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and her master’s degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jane currently lives in Shanghai; she has two kids aged 13 and 17.


John Zhang, Managing Director Connexcel, BSA agent and guardian

John Zhang has lived in the UK for 20 years. Graduating from the University of Leeds with a master’s degree in Finance, he was employed by two FTSE 100 international companies as a procurement director before starting his own business. Since establishing Connexcel, he has devoted himself to helping elite private schools in China and the UK form partnerships through sister schools and cultural exchanges. John has supported schools in China with setting up new curriculums in collaboration with UK partners and training senior education personnel. He also acts a consultant for UK schools seeking advice on expanding their brand within the China. Through his consultancy work, John has built an extensive network within the Chinese Education Bureau along with schools in the UK and China, always taking the needs of each school to best allocate resources to support them.


Joanna Norton, Founder Keywords English

A firm believer in the work of Paulo Freire, Joanna has taught literacy to children, young people and adults in both resource-rich and resource-limited contexts. She is currently teaching in Higher Education with students from foundation to postgraduate level. Her current project Keywords English, aims to connect the language of school to global innovations.


Kate Hollyer, Legal Director, BSA Group

Kate is Legal Director of BSA Group and Director of BSA Legal Services Ltd. As a qualified solicitor with more than 10 years’ experience advising clients on UK immigration law, Kate assists members with all immigration and safeguarding legal matters. Prior to joining BSA in 2022 Kate was Partner and Head of Department at a leading full-service UK law firm. Having resided in state, preparatory and senior school boarding houses since 2014 with her Housemaster husband, Kate has a unique perspective of boarding life.


Dr. Eowyn Crisfield, Author and Senior Lecturer on Language Development at Oxford Brookes University’

Eowyn Crisfield is a Canadian-educated specialist in languages across the curriculum, including EAL, home languages, bilingual and immersion education, super-diverse schools and translanguaging. Her focus is on equal access to learning and language development for all students and on enhancing approaches to linguistic diversity in schools.  She is author of the recent book ‘Bilingual Families: A practical language planning guide (2021) and co-author of “Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools: The Languages Challenge” (2018 with Jane Spiro).  She is also a Senior Lecturer in English Language and TESOL at Oxford Brookes University, and a member of the NALDIC Executive committee.


Lord Karan Bilimoria, CBE, DL

Lord Bilimoria is the founder of Cobra Beer, Founding Chairman of the UK India Business Council, a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, a former Chancellor of the University of West London, one of the first two visiting entrepreneurs at the University of Cambridge, a founding member of the Prime Minister of India’s Global Advisory Council, an honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School, Cambridge University.

Details

Date:
8 March 2023
Time:
9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Event Category:

Organisers

The Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA)
British Association of Independent Schools with International Students (BAISIS)

Venue

Virtual – Zoom
United Kingdom + Google Map