A US-UK Education Symposium:

Lessons Learned from Across the Pond

As the afterschool network for New Jersey, we are delighted to welcome you to a high profile symposium with strategic leaders, school principals and designers from the UK and leading policy makers and strategic leaders from New Jersey to share learning, knowledge and practice from across the pond.

For the past ten years, the British Council for School Environments (the UK’s leading not for profit organization in education and design www.bcse.uk.net) and NJSACC have been sharing knowledge and thinking about the parallel developments in both countries. In 2010 there is now such close connection between policy and practice in the UK and US that both Secretaries of State for Education (Michael Gove and Arne Duncan) met on November 3rd in London to discuss shared agendas and the Guardian Newspaper recently ran an article with the title: American and British Education: Who Is Copying Whom?

The symposium focuses on sharing knowledge between the UK and USA on a number of key themes: School Improvement, Extended Services, Extended Day, Summer Learning and School Design – all of which have close connections across the pond. Twelve leading educators, principals and designers will be available to share thinking and knowledge through a mixture of presentations, workshops and roundtable discussions. The symposium will end with the launch of a UK-US network that will lead to practical collaboration on all of these issues, hosted by the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) and US partners.

Key speakers from the UK will include:

• Ty Goddard & Ian Fordham, Directors of the BCSE and Co-founders of the Centre for School Design (www.thecentreforschooldesign.org)
• Bob Mitchell, Vice Principal, Beauchamp College and the UK’s leading expert on Extended Services
• Bill Jordan CBE, Principal, Dyke House Sports and Technology College and recently honored educator
• Rachel Jones, former Principal of a turnaround school, Head of Education at leading UK technology firm Steljes & Chair of the BCSE

Key speakers from the US will include:

• Dr. Michael Searson, Executive Director, School for Global Education & Innovation at Kean University
• Dr. Paul Young, President and CEO, National Afterschool Association
• Carlos Perez, NJ Charter Schools Association
• New Jersey Department of Education

The symposium is hosted in partnership between NJSACC: The Network for New Jersey's Afteschool Communities and  the School for Global Education & Innovation at Kean University . The UK delegation is part of a week long study tour of New Jersey and New York.

A boxed lunch will be provided. 

Please note that this event is FREE but registration is REQUIRED.  Please click below to register or email lee@njsacc.org.