My IBSC Journey - The Application

When my headmaster, Rob Macaulay, returned from the 2017 IBSC Annual Conference at The Boys' Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, he reported back on the Action Research Programme. He was very excited about the programme and told the staff that anybody interested in doing action research would be given the opportunity to apply for the 2018/2019 Action Research Programme.

I jumped at the invitation and immediately went to the IBSC website to find out exactly what the Action Research Programme involved. I discovered that the topic for the 2018/2019 Action Research Programme was to be announced in September 2017 and applications were to be submitted in November 2017. 

Boys and Stories: Pathways to Learning was announced as the topic for the 2018/2019 Action Research Programme. I began to brainstorm ideas. My husband pointed out that the "My Story" meetings St Peter's had introduced in 2016, in an attempt to break down barriers and provide a platform for parents and staff to understand and really get to know each other, lent itself perfectly to this topic. South Africa has been described as a Rainbow Nation with a diverse population. This diversity provides opportunity as well as challenge. The “My Story” meetings are ongoing and give stakeholders the opportunity to share “their stories”. My initial research idea was to build on this initiative by adapting “My Story” meetings to include the boys.

When I shared my idea with my headmaster, Rob Macaulay, he was very supportive and mentioned the idea at the next "My Story" meeting. After the meeting, Catherine Steenhoff, my Deputy Head and Director of Academics approached me and asked whether we could form a partnership and apply to do the action research together as a team. I readily accepted and we began working on our application. Our application was successful and at the end of November 2017, we joined the 2018/2019 Action Research Cohort.