Sekolah Bogor Raya

After a dismal cocktail party Thursday night, the Forum redeemed itself with the first speaker. John McBryde with more than 20 years in national plus and international schools, spoke on 21st century schools. According to John, Sinarmas World Academy, his latest triumph, can be replicated. And not just as a new school. It is possible with a little color, some furniture, decorative plants, etc to begin making over any building. (which gives me an idea…). A couple other takeaways from John’s talk; front of house IT support, or don’t hide your IT Dept., and kids explore those taboo internet sites out of curiosity, so what’s so wrong about that? And finally, John demonstrated that technology is great when it works.

I followed John McBryde with Daryl Forde talking about what makes a real international school, as opposed to the many new upstart international schools. Daryl cautioned everyone to think long and hard before applying for international status. According to Daryl, a most important thing is relationships; and also according to Daryl the two Sampoerna schools have the best relationships of any school in Indonesia. His comparison may not be entirely fair as these schools are 100% free, boarding establishments. Daryl’s session was very well received.

Greg De Rosa and Susan Winderlich then described the 21st century classroom, comparing features of traditional and modern education. It was a good general presentatioin, but there was little new stuff for me, until they talked briefly about personal experiences, ie. giving children longterm partners, and also their buddy system where older kids mentor younger ones.

So far the Forum has talked mostly about IT and internationalism. But since I come from a technologically advanced school, most of the tech talk was a matter of preaching to the converted in my case. That part of the Forum on internationalizing schools was what I had come for, and the Panel Discussion so ably moderated by Ibu Harumdah, was worth the price of admission. One aspect that was not covered was marketing, specifically the impact on enrolment of becoming an international school.

My final session for the day, Keith Goatman on data management, was also an outstanding value for me, because we are presently in the market for a school MIS. And it sounds like Keith’s product will do everything we need. And hopefully, with the double discounts for ANPS members and for accredited schools we might be able to afford it.