Academic excellence with Cambridge Examinations

Education leaders and experts from across the world gathered in Johannesburg for the prestigious Cambridge Schools Conference.

It is the first time the global conference has been held in South Africa, which was chosen this year due to the growing number of schools in Sub-Saharan Africa taking up Cambridge qualifications and programmes.

Focused on ‘leading learning’, the two-day conference at St John’s College was attended by more than 200 delegates from Cambridge schools based in 27 different countries around the world. During the conference, delegates and education experts looked at how successful schools not only developed strong leadership within their principal and senior management teams but also within their teachers and pupils.

Through a series of keynote speeches, workshops and breakout sessions, delegates explored how good schools and teachers can develop pupils who are independent learners, equipped and able to get on at university and in the workplace, as well as being able to achieve high grades.

They looked at how the teacher’s role is fundamental to leading innovation in their school, as well as improving its professional practice and how pupils need to be leaders of their own learning and build resilience to adapt and evolve.

Speakers included Prof. Cheryl de la Rey, vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria; Dr Tristian Stobie, director of education at Cambridge International Examinations; and Prof. Guy Claxton, visiting professor at Kings College London.

Juan Visser, regional director of Sub-Saharan Africa, said “Cambridge International Examinations is a part of Cambridge University and our department has been around for about 150 years offering exams globally. We have about 10 000 schools in 166 countries that make use of our services.”

Visser added that Cambridge pupils were highly sought after by universities. “The general feedback that we get from universities is that our students are far better prepared than students who went through the standard schooling programme.”

Details:+27 12 762 2500; visser.j@cie.org.uk