Growing Together | TIE Newsletter 9 September 2026 | The International Educator (TIE Online)

9 September 2026

In this featured collection, you’ll find practical ideas for building classrooms where students can connect, see themselves reflected, navigate transitions, and develop a stronger sense of belonging... more

Five Ways International Schools Can Improve Staff Onboarding

By Mark Symmonds

Strong onboarding comes down to something quite simple: helping people feel heard, feel valued, and be recognized as part of the team from the beginning... more

INCLUSION BY DESIGN

Designing for Variability

By Dr. Zachary Berezowski

Universal Design for Learning helps international schools remove barriers proactively, using flexible instruction, assessment, and collaboration to support diverse learners... more

The World Cup Lessons We Didn't Expect

By Conny Brock

Watching the World Cup with her son sparked meaningful lessons about learning, global citizenship, and teamwork that she hopes to bring back into her classroom... more

It's Okay Not to Know Yet

By Aindra Aung, Grade 8 student

This student essay explores how growing up does not require having all the answers; embracing curiosity, creativity, and exploration can help students discover where their paths lead... more

Rethinking Growth & Appraisal

With Scott Jackson and Lianne Dominguez

What if teacher appraisal could move beyond compliance? Hear how leaders are rethinking instructional supervision to create meaningful, differentiated systems for teacher growth... more

PEARLS OF WISDOM

Rising Higher

By Anthony Perry

Leading with vulnerability through grief created space for others to be human, build trust, and turn loss into lasting action… more

STRIKING A BALANCE

When the Machine Won’t Give the Answers

By Jacob LaPlante, Jason Boll, Andrew Cajina, and Manuela Penalosa

Classroom examples show how intentional AI design can deepen student thinking, maintain academic rigor, and strengthen learning across subjects and contexts... more

Before Writing the Next Chapter

By Leticia Daza

A practical framework helps new school leaders slow down, read the community, question assumptions, and understand what to preserve before deciding what to change... more

Why PD Is an Operational Lifeline, Not a Resume Booster

By Nico Gysbers

Good leadership professional development counters burnout, renews purpose, inspires aspiration, and models the culture of continuous growth leaders seek across their schools... more

Experience to Expertise

By Nathan Haines

The CoRe protocol helps teachers make their pedagogical reasoning explicit, encouraging deliberate reflection that strengthens professional knowledge and instructional practice... more

More Looking Up in a Digital World

By Matthew Piercy

Ten days in Patagonia. No scroll. Pure joy. This summer I led a student trip to the furthest southern point of the Americas and students did not have their phones. This meant no notifications. None of the thoughtless, default checks when there was a pause. And no endless tech dips into the little dopamine wells that have become so easy to access… more

When Worlds Collide

By Paul Magnuson

Sometimes the juxtaposition of two ways of thinking makes you sit up really straight or feel that you’ve skipped a heartbeat or two. The feeling of worlds colliding, and in my case this past week, bouncing off each other. Some of the LinkedIn posts I’m seeing are messing with me. Really… more

Back to School 2026 Toolkit

By Shwetangna Chakrabarty

What Belongs in Our Learning Toolkit in the Age of AI? As students and teachers return to classrooms for the 2026–27 school year, the usual back-to-school toolkit looks a little different. Alongside iPads, laptops, lesson plans and freshly sharpened pencils sits something far more powerful and far more complicated: artificial intelligence (AI)... more

Hopes and Fears at the Start of the School Year

By Nicholas Alchin

The start of the school year brings several thousand children back onto our Campuses over an exciting few days, with many hundreds of them arriving for the first time. It’s hard not to feel the energy – new students and their families meeting teachers, everyone seeking out friends, all of them exploring what’s ahead. Mostly it is smiles and laughter, but there is also a very understandable nervousness: for some, a first day in an unfamiliar place; for others, a new year group and a teacher they have heard about but not yet met... more

Be Who You Needed

By Daniel Kerr

So we’re about to start the new school year with kids and it feels great. The first couple of weeks sets the tone for the year in so many ways, and getting off to a positive start is so important when framing the attitude and experience of both teachers and students as the weeks begin to roll on. I spent a lot of time over the past 10 days thinking about what it is that I truly love about the beginning of a new year, and I came up with a quick top 5 list that I would like to share… more

Global Book Recommendations

By Margriet Ruurs

Usually I review and recommend children’s books in this monthly column. However, during the summer months I like to also throw in some favourite titles for adult reading. And since you likely work at an International School and enjoy traveling (like me!) you might enjoy these books I recently discovered and loved… more