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ABOUT ECIS
The Educational Collaborative for International Schools
Founded in 1965, ECIS (the Educational Collaborative for International Schools) is a non-profit, global membership organisation for internationally minded schools and partners. We are a vibrant network representing 500+ communities and 50,000+ passionate educators in 85 countries on six continents.
ECIS provides culturally sensitive professional development, led by outstanding educational facilitators, and thought leaders. Our global educational community provides access to a multitude of resources aimed at enhancing a school’s vision and mission, as well as innovative projects that can help shape and improve the future of learning.
ECIS is focused on skill development, application of understandings and creating a culture of lifelong learning. We want to ensure that all students at ECIS member schools know they can become a force for good in this world. We believe that quality education should be personalised, immersive, connected, evolutionary, and diverse.
Through the power of commonality and inclusion, we are committed to social justice and equity through diversity, inclusion and intercultural understanding. All of our work is guided by our commitment to social justice and equity as an essential component to a meaningful and lasting international education for all students.
The ECIS Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct is fundamental to our values, and therefore essential to achieving our mission to impact lives through international education. We invite you to read through our ethics booklet here.
Member school image: Swiss International Scientific School, Dubai
The ECIS team
Kam Chohan - Executive Director
Kam Chohan joined ECIS in February 2018 as Chief Operating Officer and became Executive Director in August 2020.
With a background in education and leadership, Kam is a learning leader and brings insight, wisdom, and compassion to the role. She has demonstrated the ability to build meaningful, lasting relationships that contribute to personal and organisational development and improvement.
Kam is a passionate educator and has enjoyed lecturing in mathematics and business in previous roles. As an example of her commitment to student learning, Kam worked with the UK Government’s Behaviour Insights Team to apply the Nudge Theory to improve student outcomes on a national level. This highlights her innovative approach to education and her commitment to making a positive impact.
Notably, Kam Chohan received the 1885 NEASC Award for Exemplary Service to Education in December 2022. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of education, further confirming Kam’s dedication and excellence in her work.
Kam is committed to social justice and equity through diversity, inclusion, and intercultural understanding in international education.
Mohammed Chaudhry - IT & Data Manager
Mohammed graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Information Technology from Kingston Business School an eternity ago! Having early on pursued an interest in advertising – inspired by the legendary David Ogilvy, he successfully secured an internship at Ogilvy & Mather in New York, before moving into IT, then Digital, and now Salesforce.
As an IT and Knowledge Management Consultant, he worked on the Madinah eGovernment project in Saudi Arabia, before being approached by a local investor to setup his own digital services agency. Upon his return to the UK he sought work within the third sector, and to-date has worked at Cancer Research, Internews Europe, VSO, Global Action Plan, Changing Faces and now ECIS.
In his spare time, Mohammed works as designated chauffeur to his 4 children – who share his creative interest in art and design, but cringe at his taste in vintage fashion, not to mention his Le Corbusier-inspired glasses!
Mohammed enjoys watching Grand Designs, chicken tikka and the occasional Sunday morning “stroll” from Marble Arch to Mile End – but not necessarily in that order.
Aby Canright - Executive Assistant
Abigail (Aby) is a graduate of the University of Bristol with an MSc in Global Wildlife Health and Conservation. She joined ECIS in July 2021 and provides assistance to our Executive Director and Head of Events.
Aby has worked five years in the outdoor education industry, specialising in experiential education in rock climbing and backpacking. Aby was known for leadership skills both inside and outside of the classroom. Working previously at Indiana University Outdoor Adventures and Acadia Mountain Guides, Aby has years of experience with a diverse range of outdoor events. Including week-long summer camps, weekend rock climbing adventures with large groups, and private day rock guiding for families.
She has recently had an article published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education titled “Evaluation of a 3D Computer Model of the Equine Paranasal Sinuses as a Tool for Veterinary Anatomy Education”.
In her spare time, Aby enjoys rock climbing, walking, cooking, exercising and gaming.
Caroline Davis - Office Manager
After working as a pharmacy assistant, Caroline began her ECIS career as part of the Teacher Placements team and spent a year with CIS (Council of International Schools), until the lure of working on ECIS conferences became too much, and she returned to the ECIS fold as an Events Assistant.
During her time at ECIS, Caroline has enjoyed various roles such as Teacher Placements Assistant, Administrative Assistant, Executive Assistant, and is currently the Office Manager. In her spare time, Caroline enjoys theatre, yoga, boxing and going to the gym.
Sarah Kupke - Head of Professional Learning
Until recently, Sarah Kupke was the Head of the Sindelfingen Campus at the International School of Stuttgart. Before moving to Germany in 1990, she taught in primary, secondary and special education as well as teaching undergraduate education at the Froebel College in London, UK. Sarah has worked with Debra Rader, to lead Intercultural Understanding institutes since 2019. Passionate about the learning process, Sarah believes that intercultural understanding is vital to our appreciation of one another. Mutual respect, a genuine interest in each other, the ability to empathise and show compassion are attitudes and values that we continue to learn throughout our lives and need to be intentionally taught in schools as well as in the home.
Helen Morgan - Head of International Consultancy
Helen has worked extensively as an independent Educational Consultant with a range of UK and International schools and organisations to develop their effectiveness. She is an accredited Senior Practitioner Coach with the European Coaching and Mentoring Council, empowering executive leaders to drive improvement. Her portfolio is underpinned by her experience of working as a Teacher, School Leader, and National Strategies Consultant.
Nancy Lhoest-Squicciarini - Lead Facilitator & Trainer
Nancy is the Lead Facilitator and Trainer for ECIS, and the facilitator for the soon-to-be-launched ECIS Loft, which provides professional learning opportunities for international educators. She is a trainer for the Principals’ Training Center and the ECIS Middle Leaders Certificate Programme with a true passion for supporting the development of teacher leadership. Nancy is one of the network leaders for @WomenEdBeLux, a global grassroots movement that connects aspiring and existing women leaders in education and is also the Chair of the ECIS “Women in Education” special interest group. Her previous roles include the Head of Community Relations at the International School of Luxembourg, Assistant Principal responsible for Teaching and Learning, Chair of ECIS Curriculum and Assessment Committee, and a Middle School teacher for 24 years. Her approach to developing a positive school climate is building and supporting strong relationships between all the school’s stakeholders.
Joanne Whitson - Head of Events
Jo Whitson is Head of Events at ECIS. ECIS (The Educational Collaborative for International Schools) is a not-for-profit global membership organisation that supports schools in the areas of teacher development, leadership development, recruitment, human resources, governance, and risk, complemented by grants and awards. Jo has over 10 years of experience working on a diverse range of events from mass participation sports events and elite competitions, to corporate dinners and international conferences. In her current role at ECIS, Jo leads the Events team and is responsible for end-to-end event and project management, strategy to execution, including working collaboratively with legal, risk, procurement, and brand.
James Wren - Design and Communications
James is based in Graz and responsible for all communications, design, and branding. He has a background in both design and education, having previously worked for creative agencies in Vienna and Berlin as a Conceptual Designer and Copywriter for global brands including Ebay, Opel, and Mastercard, plus freelance work for a range of clients in Europe and the Middle East. James has also worked for St. Gilgen International School as a teacher of Communication Design, as well as running a boarding house. He designed a new curriculum for grades 5-9 and set up a student-managed creative agency with real clients. James is the author of People, Pens, & Paper, a book of creative ideas for teachers. Outside of work, he is an experienced voice artist having worked with a range of clients throughout the world, including for motion pictures and advertising. He is currently writing a book about Hong Kong and enjoys designing retro airline maps and making ’80s videos.
Governance
The work of ECIS is guided by a board of trustees comprising official representatives from ECIS Member Schools.
- Tim Kelley, Head of School, International School of Stuttgart (Chair)
- Richard Parker, Head of School, International School of London
- Kathryn Miner, Director, American International School Vienna
- Peggy Pelonis, President, ACS Athens
- Tom Egerton, Head of School, Beijing City International School
- Dahi Al-Fadhli, Head of School, American Creativity Academy, Kuwait
- LaTyia Rolle, American Elementary School Principal, John F. Kennedy School, Berlin
- Courtney Lowe, Director, American School of The Hague
- Rachel Hovington, Head of School, Benjamin Franklin International School, Barcelona
- Pascale Hertay, BEPS International School
- Dr. Christine L. Brown, Regional Education Officer, Office of Overseas Schools, United States Department of State
We would like to thank The Office of Overseas Schools, United States Department of State, for their continued support of ECIS.
History
The first gathering of those who felt it prudent to pursue the formation of a group of linked international schools within Europe was held at a bar in Beirut in the autumn of 1962 during the International Schools Foundation conference, an annual gathering for heads of American and International schools.
That initial seed soon took root as the putative Council of European Schools Serving American Students (CESSAS), and there was talk of formalising the organisation. Later, just one year before it was to incorporate officially, there was a meeting in Brussels at which the earliest form of the Office of Overseas Schools—then called the Overseas Schools Policies Committee—was announced as having been established by the US Department of State, and so began an affiliation between the two organisations ab initio.
The historic meeting that resulted in the official formation of the association was held at the Collège du Léman in Switzerland in March 1965, and, since those earliest days, the organisation we now know as ECIS has grown from a core group of prescient schools to a worldwide organisation that spans myriad cultures, curricular models, and organisational designs.
ECIS owes its existence to a group of passionate and visionary educational leaders who exercised their resolve, and their names echo loudly in the halls of international education, from Mary Crist Fleming (The American School in Switzerland) to Arthur Denyer (International School of Brussels) to Francis Clivaz (Collège du Léman) to John Chapman (The American School of Paris), among others whose numbers grew rapidly in those early years.
Corporate Identity and Nomenclature
ECIS has had four corporate identities in its first fifty years.
The first incorporation was in 1966 as a Swiss non-profit, the second in 1974 as an American Foundation (Delaware), the third in 1983 as an American 501(c)(3) Delaware non-profit corporation, and the fourth (and current) in 2012 as a UK non-profit.
Alongside incorporation is the matter of nomenclature. When it was resolved to form the organisation in 1965, it was given the name European Council of International Schools, and its core membership was international schools within Europe, although the idea had had its genesis in Beirut. Over the years, as membership parameters were revisited and expanded to permit membership of non-European schools, the ECIS base grew to include members on six continents. When ECIS relocated its offices to London in 2011 and was granted UK charitable status the following year, the name of the organisation changed to ECI Schools, as the utilisation of ‘European Council’ was not permitted on account of EU regulations on that combination.
In January 2016, the ECIS Board of Trustees voted to change the name behind the acronym to the Educational Collaborative for International Schools, emphasising the organisation’s collaborative nature and removing geographical limitations from its name. In many ways, this development was inevitable and perhaps somewhat overdue, given the association’s truly global membership. Yet the use of the acronym ‘ECIS’ will long remain a positive nod toward and suitable reminder of its nascent membership in Europe, which remains the organisation’s core market.
Related closely to corporate identity and nomenclature is the leadership provided to ECIS by its executive directors over the years. While every executive director has served the organisation loyally and with skill, it is fitting to highlight an extraordinary leadership period of 29 years provided by Gray Mattern and his successor, Michael Maybury, each of whom led the organisation during years of rapid growth, both in terms of schools served and programmes undertaken.
To Accredit or Not to Accredit?
ECIS began to accredit schools some seven years after its inception, even though the subject had been broached in 1965, as a way to acknowledge that international schools (not just American schools, but the growing number of different kinds of international schools) differed from the kinds of schools being accredited by Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools—the primary accrediting agency at that time. The first school to be accredited was Antwerp International School in 1971, and it marked the beginning of a long and fruitful period of accreditation by ECIS. Schools that soon followed were Copenhagen International School(1972), Stavanger American School(1974), and the International School of Hamburg (1975), with many more to come after these first ten years of existence.
The Collège du Léman became the first member school to undergo what we now term ‘dual accreditation’ in 1978, with the two agencies being ECIS and Middle States, although the processes were not as coordinated as they are now. In that same year, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) announced that they would begin offering accreditation services in Europe and would be prepared to conduct dual accreditation with ECIS. The International School of Belgrade and the Anglo-American School of Moscow were the first schools to complete this joint process in 1981.
Accreditation carried on in this fashion until the start of the new millennium, when a decision was reached to separate the accreditation portfolio from the rest of the business operations of ECIS. The legal separation occurred in 2003, with the birth of the Council of International Schools (CIS) as the entity to handle accreditation as well as recruitment services.
Professional Learning
The ECIS conferences grew from a combination of regular meetings and serendipity. From the inception of the idea in Beirut through the earliest days of ECIS, there were European springtime meetings. The spring of 1967 saw a more formalised structure offered, and what we now know as the leadership conference ensued.
It should be noted, though, that the first ten years of ECIS conferences were attended largely by directors and administrators, most notably college counsellors, even at the autumnal gathering. As the organisation began its second decade, however, it was recognised that the needs of teachers could be met by ECIS, specifically by means of offering a conference where ideas could be shared and networks created or expanded—and so the Special Interest Group conferences, focusing on specific disciplines, became a mainstay event for teachers professional development.
In 2020, with Global Pandemic of COVID19, the ECIS Leadership Conference was scheduled for April at UCJC in Madrid. Recognised for their innovation and agility, rather than cancel the conference completely, ECIS took the courageous step of converting the entire face to face conference to virtual with five weeks’ notice. As a result, nearly 1000 leaders internationally accessed the conference. ECIS were also able to offer extended, and therefore, embedded professional development for their International Leaders, by extending the conference content accessibility for sixty days after the conference, on-demand.
ECIS conferences, and their suite of digital and face to face professional development, continue to evolve and are rooted in evidence around effective professional learning, and shows ECIS’ commitment to delivering professional learning that is flexible, innovative and creates impact to their International School Community.
Professional Development Offerings
ECIS had run conferences during its early years, and, as schools grew and more staff had more need of professional development opportunities, it made sense to carve out an area within the organisation that would devote itself to discovery and implementation of programmes of action to enhance the performance of professional staff in member schools; thus was launched School Services.
By the summer of 1982, ECIS was organising face to face training workshops for teachers. The growth of these workshops can be seen in today’s offering of ECIS professional development. ECIS now have both digital, blended, and face to face professional development which is both asynchronous and synchronous. In addition, we now have training for the entire International School Communities, from students, support staff through to governors and owners. In many ways, “school services” are very much alive and well, and they continue to evolve to meet the times and needs of members as well as non-members.
As a result, ECIS are delighted to collaborate with The International Classroom Partnership and to offer our first Virtual recruitment Fair in January 2021 to widen our school services and the support we provide to the entire International School Community.
The Move to London
Although ECIS had moved from Switzerland in the 1970s to be housed in London at the newly-built American School of London, its growth soon required a move to larger office spaces, which the organisation found in Surrey, in the southern suburbs of London.
ECIS continued to grow in membership and in staff, and, just several years later, the offices were moved again, this time to more spacious accommodations in Petersfield, a market town just north of Portsmouth. Petersfield proved a beneficial location for some time, and, even when ECIS and CIS were distinctly separate beginning in 2003, it remained the home of both until 2011, when ECIS moved to its headquarters to London on Buckingham Palace Road, where we remained until moving to Greville St in 2018.
International Task Force for Child Protection
In 2014, the International Taskforce on Child Protection (ITFCP) was formed by its members. This was following a serious Child Protection case which impacted many International Schools, and shocked the International Schools community. The taskforce’s members recognised that the International Associations and Organisations needed to work collaboratively to set clear guidelines, support and professional training within the international school community.
ECIS is proud to be a Founding Member of the International Task Force for Child Protection (ITFCP), and we uphold the group’s standards for child protection. Alongside the other founding members:
- Academy of International School Heads
- Association for the Advancement of International Education
- Council of British International Schools
- Council of International Schools
- International Schools Services
- U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Schools
The ITFCP now meets regularly to discuss and share quality standards, raise awareness of the challenges facing the international school community in this area, and to help schools to meet these challenges. ECIS have developed their Child Protection Certificate, now available for the entire International School Community and available in four languages to support raising awareness and training of individuals Child Protection responsibilities.
