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Irish Boarding Conference
- Date: Tuesday 22 November 2022
- Time: 09:00 – 16:15
- Cost: Full BSA Member – £99, Additional Full BSA Member – £50, Affiliate Member – £150, Additional Affiliate Member – £75 Non-Member – £198,
- Audience: Head, Deputy Head, Head of Boarding, Marketing, Admissions, Medical, Pastoral staff.
- Venue: The King’s Hospital School, Dublin
Running for the fifth consecutive year, the BSA Irish boarding conference again invites practitioners from across Ireland and Northern Ireland to come together to consider the latest themes, topics and trends relating specifically to the Irish boarding market.
We are delighted that this year’s conference is hosted by Mark Ronan, Headmaster, The King’s Hospital School, Dublin.
Topics will include:
- Impacts of Covid-19 on Leadership and Culture in Organisations
- Gender Identity
- Chatta and impact on Student Learning
- Child Protection and Safeguarding update.
Programme:
09:00 – 09:20
Registration and welcome refreshments
Location: Brooklawn
09:20 – 09:30
Welcome
- Caroline Nixon, International and Membership Director, BSA Group and Director, BAISIS
- Mark Ronan, Headmaster, The King’s Hospital School
09:30 – 10:00
Chaplaincy and Boarding Schools
- Rev Canon Peter Campion, Chaplain, The King’s Hospital School
10:00 – 11:00
Impacts of Covid-19 on Leadership and Culture in Organisations
- Chair: Mark Ronan, Headmaster, The King’s Hospital School
- Speaker: Kirsty Bashforth, expert in organisational culture and change management, and author, Culture Shift
11:00 – 11:30
Break
11:30 – 12:30
Gender Identity
- Chair: Caroline Nixon, International and Membership Director, BSA Group and Director, BAISIS
- Speaker: Jonathan Charlesworth, Executive Director, Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH)
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch
13:30 – 14:30
Chatta and impact on Student Learning
- Chair: Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA Group
- Speaker: Chris Williams, former teacher and founder of the ‘Chatta’ teaching approach
14:30 – 15:00
Break
15:00 – 16:00
Child Protection and Safeguarding update
A discussion of current safeguarding trends and concerns, including online safety. There will also be a reflection on ‘lessons learned’ from the IICSA inquiry report in England.
- Chair: Mark Ronan, Headmaster, The King’s Hospital School
- Speaker: Dale Wilkins, Director of Safeguarding, Professional Development and Accreditation, BSA Group
16:00 – 16:15
Closing remarks and conference close
Speakers:
Caroline Nixon, International and Membership Director, BSA Group and Director, BAISIS
Caroline has worked in international education for 30 years. As Caroline Nixon Education, she has worked on many successful projects including helping UK schools to establish new overseas branches, advising an international school opening in the UK, assisting an educational group to set up a guardianship agency, and advising schools on academic and pastoral provision for their international students. Before becoming a consultant, Caroline was Principal of Taunton School International and set up a new school for international children aged 8-14. She was also responsible for the international marketing of, and admissions into, Taunton School. Caroline is also Director, BAISIS (British Association of Independent Schools with International Students), a member of the British Council International Education Advisory Group, and a member of the advisory group to the British Government’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Students.
Mark Ronan, Headmaster, The King’s Hospital School
Rev Canon Peter Campion, Chaplain, The King’s Hospital School
Kirsty Bashforth, expert in organisational culture and change management, and author, Culture Shift
Kirsty is an expert in organisational culture and change management, and the author of Culture Shift (Bloomsbury 2019). She spent 24 years at bp PLC in commercial leadership roles based in UK, Belgium, Denmark and the US, culminating in her role as Group Head of Organisational Effectiveness where she led the reset of the company’s global culture following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. From 2016-2020 she ran her own corporate advisory business providing support to a variety of global organisations in the areas of leadership, culture and change management. Today, as Diaverum AB’s Chief Business Officer Kirsty acts as Deputy CEO, leading the collective agenda on organic growth capability, start-up digital ventures, operating model, culture and all stakeholder communications. The company is based in Malmö, Sweden and conducts renal dialysis across 24 countries. She has been a non-executive board director for a variety of global corporates since 2014 and currently sits on the boards of Serco Group plc (where she chairs the Corporate Responsibility Committee) and PZ Cussons plc (where she chairs the Remuneration Committee). Kirsty holds an MA (Cantab) in Economics from the University of Cambridge.
John Charlesworth, Executive Director, Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH)
Jonathan Charlesworth is Executive Director of the multi-award-winning charity EACH – Educational Action Challenging Homophobia – with over 30 years’ experience in consultancy, training delivery and resources on homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. In 2019 he co-developed Wales’s statutory anti-bullying guidance for its Government’s schools and is the writer of national guidances to schools for the Department for Education.
Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA Group
Dale joined the BSA during Summer 2017 with responsibility for safeguarding and standards. In July 2019 he also assumed responsibility for the BSA’s training programme, including both day seminars and accredited training courses. Dale leads on all safeguarding and inspection matters for the BSA, including managing the Commitment to Care Charter, the annual Safeguarding Conference, the Safeguarding Forum. He has also developed a process of BSA Accreditation for our overseas members.
For 31 years Dale was a boarding practitioner. After boarding positions at Norwich School and Tettenhall College, Dale became a Housemaster at Old Swinford Hospital in 1992, and was promoted to Deputy Head in 2007, and subsequently also DSL. He has also been a multi-agency trainer for the Dudley Safeguarding Children’s Board and has been closely involved in inspection in state and independent boarding since 2002. Dale had previously been a BSA course tutor since 1998 and developed the BSA Self-Assessment Toolkit.
Chris Williams, former teacher and founder of the ‘Chatta’ teaching approach
Chris Williams is a former special schoolteacher from Yorkshire, England, who designed the ‘Chatta’ teaching approach. Chatta is a simple classroom method which links images with spoken language in a way which helps strengthen students’ working memory, sequencing, and processing skills. Chatta has been voted one of the world’s most impactful education innovations for 2019, 2020 and 2021 by Finnish education charity HundrED and Chris has demonstrated the method in schools, trained teachers and presented at conferences in the USA, Spain, Malaysia, Finland, Ireland and the UK.
