The BAISIS programme of webinars provides a flexible solution to accessing our CPD programme. Our webinars provide the opportunity to engage with training in short bursts and without travel. It is also possible to access the webinars as a recording, enabling the chance for CPD on your schedule.
The broad range of topics addressed in our webinars include; immigration, marketing boarding, safeguarding, mental health, guardianship, gambling addiction and emotional crisis management to name a few.
For more information on pricing please email us on the links below and for information about our upcoming webinars, please visit our main events calendar.
2023-24 Archive
SUMMER 2024
In today’s multicultural and multilingual educational landscape, international students often face challenges when it comes to acquiring subject-specific vocabulary. However, it is not just the technical terms that matter; the development of vocabulary and oracy skills more generally play a pivotal role in students’ overall language proficiency. This webinar aims to empower practitioners by equipping them with practical strategies to enhance students’ vocabulary acquisitions across the whole curriculum and help them develop the language skills they need to thrive academically.
Recorded: July 03, 2024
This training is designed to empower practitioners with essential tools and strategies to create a truly inclusive environment for international students. Together, delegates will explore how an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) lens can enhance your practice and provide equitable support to students from diverse cultural backgrounds. An EDI lens can be applied to academic and pastoral support and indeed across all practices and support provided to students. Join this webinar to explore how to become a catalyst for meaningful positive development within your school community.
Recorded: June 28, 2024
During this one-hour webinar, we will explore the opportunity to help international students make the most of their time in boarding and the challenges that can come with this. The webinar will include real-life examples of successful initiatives and activities that have resulted in high engagement with positive social, cultural and academic benefits for our international boarders. Joining a boarding school in Britain should offer international students so much more than academic progress: we want to encourage and empower our boarders to embrace the opportunities presented to them to create lasting friendships, try new things and explore new cultures, both that of the local area of the school, British culture and the different cultures within their boarding House and boarding community.
Recorded: June 26, 2024
Don’t miss this valuable opportunity to expand your knowledge and skills in supporting your international students’ health and wellbeing. This webinar aims to enhance your understanding of the diverse cultural backgrounds and unique dietary and fitness experiences and needs of your international students, empowering you to provide effective support and promote their overall wellbeing whilst being respectful of cultural beliefs and boundaries.
Recorded: June 19, 2024
This webinar will consider areas to cover within the induction and beyond for staff new to working with international students, by looking at ways staff can help students settle in, as well as how to adapt their practices in the classroom to cater for international students. The session is designed to be a practical walk through of how to help new staff quickly become au fait with the international students they will have, by providing suggestions on:
- Induction process – some key focus areas to cover off
- Practical tips to share with new staff as to how they can help those with English as a second (at least!) language in the classroom or boarding house
- Guidance on how to help staff settle quickly into an environment with a number of nationalities and cultures, so that they can help students do the same.
Recorded: June 17, 2024
We understand how challenging it might be to have international students from different language backgrounds and with different language needs in the classroom. This webinar will focus on how to improve reading skills for EAL (English as an Additional Language) learners and how to identify potential barriers for them when they are learning to read in English. This webinar will equip you with essential strategies to support EAL learners with their reading skills.
Recorded: June 07, 2024
This conference will enable delegates to hear directly from the experts on the latest in visas and immigration relevant to the education sector. The summer update will address key issues from members at a crucial time of year for international student recruitment.
BSA will facilitate questions directly from members to our experts throughout the day, including Home Office representatives.
Recorded: May 21, 2024
This conference will enable delegates to hear directly from the experts on the latest in visas and immigration relevant to the education sector. The summer update will address key issues from members at a crucial time of year for international student recruitment.
BSA will facilitate questions directly from members to our experts throughout the day, including Home Office representatives.
Recorded: May 21, 2024
This comprehensive session will equip attendees with essential knowledge and practical strategies to effectively assess and track English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners. Knowing how to assess, track and tailor support for EAL learners is essential for the demonstration of progress and, crucially, will also make a lasting positive impact on your students’ educational journey
Recorded: May 15, 2024
SPRING 2024
We want anyone joining our schools to feel welcomed, valued and included, irrespective of how long they are joining us for, or at what point in the year they join. In this informative webinar, we will explore the challenges faced by students arriving in our schools outside the traditional start of year intake and provide effective strategies and systems to ensure a seamless integration of new arrivals throughout the year.
Recorded: April 29, 2024
Safeguarding international students remains a complex and challenging area of work. It is important to recognise the vulnerabilities of international students studying, and indeed living, away from home. This conference brings together expert speakers with specialist knowledge and experience who work with international students.
It aims to inform and support colleagues managing safeguarding in international contexts and focusses on emerging themes and concerns including mental health, online safety and navigating cultural norms.
We will facilitate questions directly from members to our experts throughout the day and encourage delegates to come prepared with questions for our panels.
Recorded: April 24, 2024
This webinar aims to provide practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the admissions process and how it plays a crucial role in successfully integrating international students into their new schools. We all want to support our students in having a smooth transition into their new setting and, by focusing on a holistic, whole-school approach, this webinar will equip you with essential strategies and techniques to support these students throughout their transition journey.
Recorded: April 17, 2024
This comprehensive webinar will address the unique challenges and potential vulnerabilities faced by EAL students in the context of safeguarding and will provide valuable insights and practical strategies to ensure their safety and wellbeing. We all want to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all our students so understanding the specific safeguarding needs of EAL students and learning how to work collaboratively to achieve this goal is essential for all practitioners working with EAL students.
Recorded: March 20, 2024
Each year, BSA and BAISIS undertake a survey of over 2000 educational agents globally to find out their thoughts on the UK boarding school market. The present market and predictions about the future are considered in the survey and agents’ answers are then collated and analysed.
The results give an up to date picture of the market for British boarding schools across the world from those who know best what is happening now and what is likely to happen.
This session will share and discuss, hot off the press, the findings from our 2023 survey, with a focus on the market outlook for our specific sector.
Caroline Nixon will be joined by two educational agents to consider how the results could be interpreted and utilised in our schools, informing planning and practice for the future.
Recorded: March 18, 2024
The international market is ever-changing, so it is important to stay ahead of the curve to ensure your international students continue to receive the very best support and that your school remains compliant with regulations. The benefits of international students in our boarding houses and classrooms for all involved are significant and impactful; all the more reason to ensure you are doing the best you can to deliver the best care, education and experience possible.
At this year’s Supporting international students conference on Wednesday, March 06 2024, we will be discussing everything from international trends to language diversity, good governance and sponsor requirements to engaging with prospective international families, and the latest in providing the best and most effective welcome and induction for international students. We will hear from a range of experienced practitioners throughout the day to share best practice and respond to delegate questions.
Recorded: March 06, 2024
Join us as we delve into the world of marketing considerations for international families and consider how schools can stay ahead of the curve and connect with the global community of international families looking to benefit from a British education for their child(ren). This webinar will provide valuable strategies and approaches to engage with prospective parents and students in today’s competitive landscape.
Recorded: February 27, 2024
This webinar will consider how repurposing and extending learning and knowledge gained across existing curricula, for tasks that foster presentational and discursive skills, can develop oracy and support integrated language acquisition – by enabling learners to:
- create and deliver presentations and discussions that further their ability to convey information systematically and coherently
- explore and develop their vocabulary in relation to subject areas they have pre-existing interests and knowledge in
- extend and build-upon the breadth and depth of knowledge gained in other parts of the curriculum.
Recorded: February 21, 2024
Students who travel internationally for their education are vulnerable and merit specific thought when considering and developing safeguarding and child protection policies within schools. Safeguarding concerns and vulnerabilities can range from cultural differences and parental expectations, to corresponding with an overseas agency or struggling to get support from local agencies. The development of a specific audit considering the care you provide for international students is a robust and considered way to ensure you are supporting international students in the best way you can.
Recorded: February 9, 2024
We understand the unique challenges faced by practitioners when it comes to supporting the mental health of all young people, but particularly the mental health of international students. This webinar will delve into the crucial topic of mental health support for international students, addressing the additional stressors often faced by our international students: cultural adjustment, language barriers, being away from home. This webinar will equip you with practical strategies and insights to better understanding and address their mental health needs.
Recorded: January 17, 2024
AUTUMN 2023
EAL students, just like English as a first language students, may have additional educational needs. For practitioners, these needs can be harder to identify without fluency in English established. There are a number of factors that can affect progress. This webinar will discuss methods to assess and identify EAL learners with language disorders and additional learning needs.
Recorded: December 06, 2023
Provision for EAL learners varies from school to school. Many make additional, tailored provision but much learning continues in the mainstream curriculum and therefore requires clear communication and teamwork from different staff across a school. The role of EAL coordinator is, at first glance, to manage the additional provision, including additional specialist staff, and promote EAL learning needs across the mainstream curriculum, providing support, updates and training to relevant colleagues. This broad role can often be misunderstood; this webinar will establish best practice recommendations for an integrated and comprehensive EAL coordinator role in mainstream education.
Recorded: November 22, 2023
Schools use a variety of baseline data to assess the academic competency of their learners. However, for EAL students, finding suitable tests can be problematic, and interpreting the data needs careful handling. This webinar looks at how to use baseline data to develop child-focused learning approaches, with particular reference to the EAL learner.
Recorded: November 15, 2023
Most schools’ statutory responsibility is to update their EAL policies annually. Our policies are important to establish the framework of values and activities your school is committed to providing and defining these both internally across our teams and externally to students, parents and other stakeholders.
This webinar, led by BAISIS Chair and Head, Mill Hill International, Sarah Bellotti, gives practical advice on what to include in your school’s EAL policy and how to ensure you deliver.
Recorded: November 10, 2023
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language by an individual or group of speakers. For education, current research focuses on the benefits to learning outcomes if schools encourage multilingualism. This webinar looks at what this looks like in practice in classrooms where there are multilingual learners and considers the benefits and possible challenges to encouraging multilingualism.
Recorded: October 18, 2023
For schools who sponsor international students, keeping up to date with an ever-changing immigration law landscape whilst navigating complex sponsor licence requirements can be burdensome. Our autumn BSA and BAISIS Visa and Immigration conference brings delegates the latest in visas and immigration relevant to the education sector, direct from the experts.
Addressing key issues from our members including changes to the Student and Child Student visa route, Student Sponsor Licence best practice, key CAS considerations and what to expect from Home Office (UKVI) inspections, select sessions combine to provide a holistic, sector-specific update. Delegates will hear from a host of experts and practitioners to develop wider knowledge, understanding and best practice around this critical area of compliance.
BSA and BAISIS will facilitate questions directly from members to our experts, including Home Office representatives, throughout the day and encourage delegates to come prepared with questions for our panels.
Recorded: October 10, 2023
As educators, we sometimes take for granted the impact that high mobility across cultures may have on our students. These experiences are a positive, additive experience; however, it can also bring disenfranchised grief and loss if the transitions are not manged well. In this webinar, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Gabriela Santacruz, explores through the lens of attachment theory, the challenges and benefits our international students experience, and how we might harness the benefits of having cross-cultural students in our schools.
Recorded: September 28, 2023
The event addresses feedback from international pupils at BSA schools on their concerns about entering university and is aimed at Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 international students as well as Heads of Careers, HE advisors and Heads of EAL. The day is completely free of charge and schools may send as many members of staff and students as they wish.
Recorded: September 27, 2023
If EAL students are to make good progress academically, it is the responsibility of every teacher to address the needs of the EAL learner. This can be a daunting prospect for teachers who have not been trained in teaching EAL learners. This webinar seeks to give practical tips for the busy classroom teacher in how to accommodate the linguistic needs of the EAL learner so that they can fully access the curriculum alongside their classmates.
Recorded: September 20, 2023
2021-22 Archive
SUMMER 2022
In all stages of education, vocabulary is central to learning content. Yet knowing which words to teach and how to teach them can feel overwhelming and time-consuming for many subject teachers. This session began by helping those teachers to identify words that require explicit instruction. It then explored strategies to develop vocabulary teaching in both depth and breadth. The webinar concluded with activities focused on developing students as autonomous learners of vocabulary.
This seminar provided an overview of the statutory obligations which may influence a range of school policies which are relevant to students for whom English is an additional language, including an EAL policy. It explored key considerations when developing a robust EAL policy and linked these to best practice examples from a range of different school contexts.
Early identification of additional learning needs is important if pupils are going to be effectively supported in their academic studies. However, it is widely recognised that it can be difficult to distinguish between concerns that arise because of a language learning need and those whose root is a specific learning difficulty. This webinar is aimed at identifying and evaluating approaches to identification and assessment of additional learning needs in EAL pupils.
SPRING 2022
This seminar gave schools and pastoral leaders practical ideas relating to mental health and wellbeing in relation to international students looking at specific ideas for both the school day and more specificly to their boarding lives too.
This webinar explained how culture has been defined and how it is being redefined. It provided some tools to evaluate your school culture, developed an awareness of critical perspectives on culture and identity and demonstrated how to develop a school-wide culture where international students can build positive identities
AUTUMN 2021
This webinar focused on the importance of oracy for the international student and explored the links between meaningful talk and academic writing, cognitive gains, enhanced self-esteem and civic engagement and empowerment.
This webinar explored the concepts of BIC and CALP. It considered why students need CALP and provided resources & strategies to help students move from BICS to CALP.
This was a practical course which helped delegates to consider how to support their pupils with both language acquisition and concept development in the mainstream classroom.
Understanding an international pupil’s level of English language proficiency and whether they will be able to fully participate academically and socially impacts everyone, from the learner themselves, to their classroom peers and teachers, through pastoral, administrative and support staff. Making sure your school is in the best position to help your international learners thrive depends on being EAL aware – right from the moment the pupil and parent engage with your marketing materials and admissions teams. This session is aimed to equip you with the basic knowledge required to become an ‘EAL informed’ community.
