New Standing Committee elected

A new standing committee and chair was elected following the annual general meeting held at the 20th annual AAIBS conference at Prince Alfred College, Adelaide in April 2009.

Chris Rebbeck, MYP co-ordinator at Blackwood high school, Adelaide continues as chair.

Briony Morath (DP) from MLC School, Sydney, continues as secretary of the association, with Chris Taylor (DP) of St Peter’s college, Adelaide continues as treasurer.  Antony Mayrhofer (DP, MYP, PYP) of St Paul’s Grammar school, Sydney, continues the role of immediate past chair.

The other elected standing committee members are: Christine Buist (dip), diocesan girls school, Auckland, NZ, Amy Lee (DP), international school Suva, Fiji, Catherine Alcock (DP, MYP) Monte Sant’ Angelo college, Sydney, Ross Featherstone, (DP), Geelong grammar school, Richard Burford (DP, PYP), Prince Alfred college, Adelaide, Marilyn Copland (DP), St Margaret’s college, Wellington, NZ.

There are two co-opted members: Kathy Saville (PYP) glen Waverley campus, Wesley college, Melbourne, and Kay Margetts  (university of Melbourne)

Further information can be found about members of standing committee below.

Chair, Chris Rebbeck has been teaching for over 30 years and involved with the MYP since its introduction into Australia in 1997. He is currently the ibmyp co-ordinator at Blackwood high school, which is part of the Mitcham hills cluster in south Australia. This cluster is the largest in the world, as it comprises a high school and 6 partner primary schools. In his role at Blackwood high Chris teaches science and mathematics and is part of the team responsible for the implementation of the myp across the cluster. Chris has coordinated the authorisation and evaluation processes of the ibmyp at two schools; the most recent evaluation was in 2008. He has previously held the position of ibmyp co-ordinator at two other schools, Stradbroke primary and norwood-morialta high school. Chris is an accredited IB mathematics workshop leader and has presented at numerous ibmyp workshops throughout the Asia pacific as well as at state, national and international conferences. He has presented whole school ibmyp preauthorisation training and has been part of evaluation and authorisation teams nationally and internationally. Chris is currently a member of the personal project curriculum review committee meeting in Cardiff. Chris was the convener of the organising committee for the recent aaibs annual conference held in April in Adelaide.  In south Australia Chris is a member of sassipa, (south Australia state schools international baccalaureate principals’ association) and the secretary of the samyp coordinator group. The samyp group meets regularly to plan and provide sharing good practice and job-a-like sessions and builds support networks for teachers and schools.

Treasurer, Chris Taylor has been at St Peter’s college, Adelaide since 1973, and has been a member of the Australian college of educators for about 20 years. In the years before the diploma program his responsibilities have included acting deputy head, head of department, head of house and responsibility for various student interest activities.  He was also involved in syllabus writing and public examination marking. As director of studies he introduced the diploma programme at the school in 1998.  His current role is head of sace and IB, and he has also run athletics for his whole time at the school, recently assumed responsibility for chess and still enjoys teaching economics. After authorization training in 2006 he has been involved in two visits, and enjoys offering support to schools new to the diploma programme whenever asked.

Catherine Alcock is currently Principal of Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney.  Prior to her appointment in 2004, she was Principal of Mercedes College, Springfield and two government schools in Adelaide.  Mercedes is a long-standing IB DP school, and was the first school in Australasia to be authorized to teach all three programmes of the IB. Monte Sant’ Angelo is now the first (and only) Catholic school in NSW to be authorized to be IB authorized: the DP in 2006 and the MYP in 2008. Catherine has been involved with the IB and international education for over 10 years.  In 2004, she was invited to Chair the MYP Management Committee in Cardiff.  She currently co-ordinates the NSW/ACT IB Principals group.  Monte Sant’ Angelo hosted the  AAIBS Annual Conference and Regional Workshops in April 2008.  She has also been extensively involved in international accreditation; serving both as a team member and Co-Chair of ECIS/CIS accreditation visits for schools in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.  Her wider educational involement includes educational policy, curriculum change, quality assurance and more recently, school design.  She is a member of AHISA, the Australian Institute of Management, the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council for Educational Leaders.

Amy Lee is currently the Diploma programme coordinator at the international school Suva – a role she started in 2008. Prior to that and continuing now, her involvement has been with her subject of chemistry and science as a whole as well as with community service programmes. She is the CAS (dp) and community and service (myp) coordinator as well as the head of science. She has coordinated the curriculum sections of the IB myp and wasc accreditation visits. As one of the two ib schools in Fiji, she works with the science department at international school Nadi but would like to forge closer links with the rest of the Australasia / pacific region. Prior to working in Fiji, Amy coordinated chemistry at DP level in the British school of Costa Rica. Going further back she reveals her British roots teaching in both the Channel Islands and Scotland in national systems and community service programmes.

Ross Featherstone has been teaching IB history for 9 years at both Carey grammar school and Geelong grammar school. Currently he is the IB diploma coordinator and head of the humanities faculty at Geelong grammar school. He is an assistant examiner for IB diploma history and lectures on IB diploma history for oxford study courses and the history teachers association of Victoria. Ross also teaches IB theory of knowledge at Geelong grammar school. He has been trained by the university of Pennsylvania staff on positive psychology, which has many similarities to the composition of the IB learner profile. Ross is head rowing coach at Geelong grammar school and spearheaded the Lorne 160, Geelong grammar’s schools unique service activity, raising over $125,000 over last four years for local Geelong charities. He is married with three young children.

Immediate past chair, Antony Mayrhofer, is the Director of International Baccalaureate (P-12), Diploma Programme Co-ordinator and head of theory of knowledge at St Paul’s grammar school, Sydney (a three programme school). Antony has just finished a five-year term as deputy chief examiner of Biology in the Diploma programme for the IB and as such was, and continues to be, involved in curriculum design and assessment for the IB.  He has led teacher-training workshops for the IB throughout the Asia-pacific region since 2000 and online workshops since 2009.  He is a visiting lecturer in education for the university of Sydney in international education and has articles published on aspects of the international baccalaureate organization’s educational programmes.  Antony has also had considerable experience with the IB, most recently as a member of the writing team that produced the Diploma Programme From Principles into Practice document.

Kay Margetts is associate professor in early childhood and primary teacher education and assistant dean (international) in the Melbourne graduate school of education at the university of Melbourne. She also coordinates postgraduate international baccalaureate teacher education programs and together with staff from Wesley college instate was instrumental in the university being the first in the world to introduce a postgraduate course in IB education linked the IB teacher award. Kay teaches across a range of subjects at undergraduate and master level including child development, curriculum, learning and teaching, and professional practice. She has extensive practical teaching experience in the early years, has written and produced children’s television programs, and is the recipient of a number of awards for excellence in tertiary teaching. Kay’s research interests have a particular focus on children’s transition, social, behavioural and academic adjustment, and progress in primary school, as well as teacher education, and the use of information technologies in tertiary teaching.

Dr Chris White has been involved in education and professional development for just under twenty years in the secondary and tertiary sectors including a period in the commercial sector. He has been a teacher in both national and international schools in Asia and Australia. He is currently IB Diploma Coordinator and teacher of TOK, Philosophy and Asian History at The Friends’ School in Hobart, Tasmania having recently completed a contract at the United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) in Singapore, one of the region’s leading international schools. While at UWCSEA, he was the Head of Philosophy and Head of Global Perspectives. Chris has enjoyed a varied career although each involvement has been focused on education and professional development. Chris has worked for the International Baccalaureate (IB) as a Professional Development Manager at the IB’s Curriculum and Assessment Centre in Cardiff, Wales, where amongst other projects he initiated and supervised teacher professional development projects including the online conference “Communities in the Future” and the design, development and implementation of the first IB online professional development workshop. Recently, he completed writing the first fully online and interactive TOK Textbook through Triple A Learning, a leading provider of online textbooks and professional development experience for the IB. He is also an experienced examiner in Philosophy and History (both Paper 1), Extended Essay (Philosophy and History) and Theory of Knowledge (TOK). As a trained IB workshop leader in TOK, Philosophy and History, he has led numerous teacher professional development workshops for the IB in Europe, Asia, and Australasia, including in Singapore, Thailand, China, Australia, and Germany. He has extensive experience as an in school consultant in supporting the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge. He has a particular interest in the development of whole school learning pathways that promote critical, evaluative and creative thinking (CEC) in the IB Diploma and contribute to life-long learning of the students. On this topic, he has participated in conferences and seminars in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific on the themes of CEC thinking and the role of ICT in promoting its development in student thinking. During his time at UWCSEA, as a Head of Department, he developed a course, Global Perspectives, which was accredited by Cambridge International Examinations and designed to promote international mindedness and interconnected thinking assessed using inquiry-based teaching and assessed through student portfolios (with external moderation). He has been educated at the University of Adelaide, Flinders University of South Australia, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, City University of London, and Georgetown University, Washington, USA. He has tutored and lectured at the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia in the areas of philosophy, politics, history, and social anthropology. During this time he became involved in a Federal funded initiative aimed at revising the learning experience of the first year Arts in order to promote skills development and effective assessment strategies and participated in the development of a number of new Arts courses in Politics and Philosophy. From this experience, he gained his teaching qualifications from the University of Adelaide while completing his PhD on Hannah Arendt’s concepts of love, temporality and judgement (and one of these qualifications has earnt him a lot more money that the other!).  A fortuitous teaching placement drew his interest to the IB and determined his future role in education.

Marilyn Copland is the Deputy Principal Academic at St Margaret’s College, Christchurch, New Zealand, a position she has held since 2000. In this role she is responsible for the administration of both the National Certificate of Educational Achievement and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme which has been offered at the College since 2001. She teaches the Theory of Knowledge component of the IB course.Marilyn has taken part in Authorization training and was part of the team for the authorization of Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland. She was also responsible for the setting up of the NZ International Baccalaureate Co-ordinators group, a support network which meets twice yearly at different host schools throughout the country.Marilyn was formerly a member of the AAIBS Committee in 2006/2007.

Richard Bruford is currently Dean of Studies at Prince Alfred College with responsibility for both the IB Diploma and South Australian Certificate of Education programs. Originally from the UK, Richard has been in Australia 11 years. His association with the IB began as Head of Geography at SCECGS Redlands in Sydney back in 1999. Richard is also an experienced Assistant Examiner for Geography in the Diploma Programme. With a passion for pedagogical leadership, Richard’s work has recently been published in the Australian Educational Leader Magazine and in September this year will present a paper on 21st Century Learners at the Australian Council for Educational Leaders annual conference in Darwin. He will complete his Masters in Educational Leadership at the end of this year with his thesis focusing on the role of the Principal in teacher learning and development.