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Letter for heads from the Chair of the IB Heads Council

Dear Head of IB World School,

I am writing to thank you for responding generously to the Heads Standing Association constitutional changes sent in January 2017.

All of your responses were discussed at our most recent Heads Council meeting conducted in March 2017 and the changes were unanimously approved and then ratified at the IB Board of Governors meeting in April 2017. Your feedback was positive. You gave constructive advice on Heads Council representation and the benefits and possible pitfalls of appointments.

Some of you suggested more appointments, none of you suggested less. A good number of you asked if it was possible to read the process for appointments to the Heads Council. We’ve posted the appointment process here and also on the new Heads Engage online community that launches this week for heads of schools.

We feel comfortable working with our Heads Council appointment process at this stage. There is no doubt that we will continue to refine the process as we learn more about how to ensure excellent representation for Heads across such a diverse range of schools, countries and systems. The election process has served us well and the combination of elections and appointments should support us further.

Over the coming weeks you will hear a great deal about the new IB World Schools (IBWS) department and the new Heads Engage online community that will allow all IB Heads and groups of Heads to communicate. From the Heads Council perspective, these are two initiatives that we have encouraged wholeheartedly. The new IBWS department aims to know schools better and respond to that knowledge in sophisticated and supportive ways. Heads will deliberately be engaged. The Heads Engage community will rely on your patronage but it is a flexible, easy to navigate online tool that aims to connect us globally in ways we have not seen previously.

Both initiatives and their accompanying aims directly seek to meet the often-stated concerns from Heads around the world that communication and engagement from the IB could be improved. The IB is attempting just that.

I wish you well as you progress through the year and look forward to meeting with you, if not in person or at the IB Heads World Conference in Singapore in March 2018, then perhaps online through Heads Engage.

Wishing you well and all the best,

Luke Thomson

Chair of the IB Heads Council