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The annual Council of British International Schools (COBIS) Conference has drawn to a close after three action-packed days in London. Tes was on the ground throughout the main conference, attending talks and chatting to delegates.

As ever, there was a raft of interesting discussions, debates, insights and ideas shared - from the small-scale practical ways leaders are tackling issues to thematic concepts shaping future decisions and directions in the sector.

Here is a round-up of some of the key insights for those unable to make it - or for attendees who would like a recap of all that was said.

1. Growth of the international schools sector

The ongoing growth of the international schools market has reached another milestone, with Leigh Webb, chief executive of ISC Research, saying that the organisation’s latest data shows there are now more than 15,000 international schools.

Overall, this represents a 45 per cent increase over the past 10 years, with Asia and West Africa driving much of this growth. However, the expansion of the sector in South America and Western Europe has slowed.

2. Pupil insights

Throughout the conference students from international schools in locations including Venezuela, Croatia, Myanmar, India and Nigeria spoke to the room of over 600 delegates, setting provocations on everything from how to harness their creativity in learning to the importance of belonging and wellbeing.

Not only were their public speaking skills a testament to why oracy is seen by so many as such an important skill, but their honesty in numerous areas offered a good insight into young’s people’s perspectives on school life.

• On artificial intelligence: “I use it for 80 per cent of my work...but I know it’s not always right.”
• On wellbeing and bullying: “School can be a really brutal place.”
• On global citizenship: “I learned so much from those conversations,” said one student, saying that teachers should encourage discussions between pupils who have experienced social issues in their home country.
• On career choices: “Help us understand what it’s really like working in a certain job - bring people into school to tell us their daily realities.”

3. The dangers of an overreliance on AI

Don’t let AI write children’s destinies, warned Dr Jonnie Penn, an associate teaching professor of AI ethics and society at the University of Cambridge.

He described AI as “pattern recognition on steroids” and warned it could “foreclose” possibilities if data on a child was used to predict what is actually impossible to know: whether they will succeed at school.

“What AI cannot do is make judgements when there’s no right answer, when there are equal answers that we have to choose between. That is a human competency that cannot be emulated,” he said.

In short, he said that teachers and the work they do can change trajectories and have an impact that a technology like AI can never quantify.

4. Inspection debates

While not mentioning the company by name, COBIS chief executive Colin Bell acknowledged that international schools may have been perturbed by the Ofsted report on Penta, one of the three inspecting organisations for the British Schools Overseas (BSO) scheme.

“In relation to the BSO inspection scheme, in February of this year Ofsted published its quality assurance reports on each of the three BSO inspectorates,” he said in a plenary talk.

“We recognise that some BSO-inspected schools may have concerns about the content of the published reports, and with elements of the BSO inspections, particularly in relation to 51����.”

Discussion around the issue threw up some interesting perspectives, including from one leader who said Ofsted’s remit in overseeing an international accreditation system was itself questionable because the inspectorate lacks the knowledge required to truly understand the realities of running an international school and the decisions that have to be taken.

Another leader said the situation raised questions about the Department for Education’s unwillingness to consider recognising the COBIS Accreditation and Compliance scheme as a route to BSO.

5. Further 51���� development

A new 51���� code of conduct that schools within seven organisations are expected to follow marked a notable development from the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition (BISSC).

Emily Konstantas, chair of BISSC and CEO of The Safeguarding Alliance, said having a clear set of expectations should help with safer recruitment across the sector. “We have to start raising our standard so it becomes consistent in how we recruit safely,” she added.

While BISSC is no doubt hoping that schools proactively follow the code’s requirements, the fact that schools could lose membership of their associations if they are found not to adhere to them may prove a incentive.

6. Shout out to the clerks, but is their title too medieval?

A session on the role of governance in international schools contained plenty of interesting ideas and viewpoints, not least from one delegate who issued a “shout out to the clerks”. Clerks are integral to the smooth running of a board, far beyond just taking minutes, and are “invaluable” to board’s work, the delegate said.

Diana Vernon, a governor at Kellett School in Hong Kong, and Robert Guthrie, a governor at St George’s British International School in Rome, both agreed with the point and offered their own praise for clerks.

The discussion then moved on to why the role is overlooked, with some suggesting that the name “clerk” is almost “medieval” and needs a change. Some suggested the title “governance professional” could more accurately reflect the role’s importance and encourage more people to get involved in governance.

7. Global citizenship work needs to go deeper

Global citizenship was a constant theme at the conference this year, but one headline speaker said that if schools are really serious about it, they may have to shake up their practice.

Isolated, tokenistic classroom displays of flags, food and culture are no use, advised Estelle Baroung Hughes, secondary principal at the International School of Dakar in Senegal and the director of - an NGO that strives for high-quality education on the continent.

She argued that you can’t talk seriously about global citizenship in schools unless that outward-looking concept is reflected in a truly interdisciplinary approach to learning. “Some global citizenship can reduce our horizons rather than broaden them,” she told delegates.

Hughes said she is guided by the philosophy of Ubuntu, which emphasises interconnectedness and shared responsibility, and she suggested a new term that binds communities near and far - “glocal citizenship”.

8. Good communication is kindness

We’ve all felt frustration at politicians who talk in riddles or documents with reams of deliberately impenetrable legalese. So Joanna Povall really struck a chord when she said that clear communication is a form of kindness.

The principal of Wales International School, in Abu Dhabi, underlined the difference between being nice and being kind: the former is an outward display of flattery or manners that may mask an agenda of self-interest; the latter is about genuine empathy and consideration of others, even at times when that is hard.

In schools, the most fraught situations require the clearest of communications, she said. To have to explain to a family why their child is being removed from a school, for example, may not be nice for anyone involved. But, as Povall made clear, it can be done clearly, calmly and without inflicting shame - in short, with kindness.

9. Will parents accept that the school-university pipeline is drying up?

There has traditionally been a very clear, linear path for high-flying students: work hard at school, get good exam grades and then it’s on to university and the well-paid career that makes up for all the debt accrued during that elongated period of education.

But things are changing fast, showed journalist Jenny Anderson, co-author of The Disengaged Teen: helping kids learn better, feel better and live better, after an audience member asked how international schools can get parents to be more flexible and realise that university may no longer be the best destination for their child.

Anderson cited US data showing that 87 per cent of young people in university in 2013 were happy with their degree, but that figure has since plummeted to 40 per cent. And if that trend continues, parents will be “forced into seeing alternative pathways” that are “exploding” around the world - and are not as “prohibitively expensive” as university.

10. Are pupils passengers or education explorers?

Another interesting point from Anderson’s session related to the premise in her book that there are four learning modes that students switch between during school: passenger mode (coasting), resistor mode (withdrawn and acting out), achiever mode (aiming for perfection) and explorer mode (“the pinnacle of the engagement mountain”, when their own interests and curiosity drive them).

The categories (based on a survey of 65,000 young people and 2,000 parents) are fluid, with students moving in and out of them, but Anderson said “kids that spend too much time in achiever mode, typically, are very fragile learners” because they struggle if they are faced with a challenge they cannot overcome or tasks where there is not a clear path to a right answer.

This means they often have the worst mental health outcomes, too. Meanwhile, fewer than 4 per cent of secondary students reported getting the opportunity to be in explorer mode in school. “It’s a pretty damning stat,” said Anderson.

11. The inevitability of flexible working

It’s no longer a question of whether your school should embrace flexible working, but - given that flexible working is on its way, whether we like it or not - what you are going to do about it.

That was the message at a packed session looking at new models for schools in “the age of working from home”, with speakers including Mark Steed, an education consultant and headteacher who has led schools in Hong Kong and Dubai, and Kai Vacher, principal of the British School Muscat in Oman.

Global trends are fuelling this rapid change, delegates heard, including economic difficulties, teacher recruitment crises and a generation that is entering the workplace with the mindset that jobs requiring Monday-to-Friday commutes are not for them.

“Schools will have to embrace flexible approaches,” said Steed.

Vacher explained how a smaller, more remote school where he is also principal - the British School Salalah - had met parental demand to allow students to stay on at the school until they are older in order to take exams. It has recruited on a “hybrid” basis, meaning that a teacher will largely work remotely but must travel to the school three times a year - including a week at the start of the year, so that they can build a rapport with students.

But it was conceded that the full ramifications of this have still not been fathomed, whether on pedagogy, school-building design or the feasibility of offering practical subjects.

12. Minding the cultural and linguistic gaps

The pitfalls around cultural misunderstandings in international schools are many and varied. Just ask Martin van der Linde, head of The British School Manila, who generously shared tales of his own faux pas, prompting nods of recognition from fellow school leaders from around the globe.

The key to avoiding them, he counselled, is to do plenty of homework. A school social occasion, for example, may not initially seem fraught with jeopardy, but what are you going to wear, how will you greet colleagues, what gifts (if any) should you take, and what is the etiquette around the food and drink on offer?

One top tip from van der Linde was to learn at least some key phrases in the local language - it’s seen as an act of respect and generosity and can make up for all manner of cultural and social missteps.

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