Orbital Education Senior Leaders' Conference, May 2024

This May we held our annual Senior Leadership Conference in sunny Manchester, UK and we’re pleased to announce that we refer to ‘sunny Manchester’ without a hint of irony.The weather was glorious. This was an unexpected delight for our Principals and Operational leads who flew in from across the globe to join members of Orbital Education’s central team.

We host this conference every year for several reasons.

Firstly, getting the senior team together for a couple of days gives us time and space to set the strategic direction for the group. It also enables us to share successes from individual schools more widely and to hold workshop ideas on continually improving what we offer our students and teachers.

But without fail one of the main benefits we see year after year is the collaboration opportunities that develop post-conference. The conference allows senior leaders to share ideas through several structured workshops and informal conversations over the coffee machine. From this, new ideas start to sprout.

It was at our last conference that Mel Hitchcocks, Principal of British International School Ljubljana, Neil McGarry, Principal of Britannica International School, Budapest and Mirlinda Boshnjaku, CEO of World Academy of Tirana started a conversation that blossomed into a Model UN event hosted in Tirana. And that Britt Academy in Mexico, and Britannica International School Budapest, started a student letter exchange that is still thriving today.

Throughout the conference, we discussed some critical topics including the role of Artificial Education within education, the importance of well-being for both students and teachers and how we give our students a true voice. But the true benefit of the relationships strengthened through this two-day, face-to-face meeting will come to fruition between now and our next conference.