Topics
The Symposium will focus on four fundamental domains of action to lead the schools in disadvantaged contexts.
We challenge school leadership teams to explore paths towards developing all dimensions of our students’ personalities throughout their time in school.
These four themes will be the four units of the Symposium, and will serve as spaces for working together and exchanging dialogue that bring us closer to developing leadership committed to justice, social inclusion, and equal opportunities.
We are now anticipating suggestions, questions, and ideas from our attendees to enrich the perspective of each unit and prepare discussions in advance.
We will take into account every submission, integrate them into our preparations, and present them in Madrid. Our experts will help guide your ideas in the right path.
WRITE AND SUBMIT YOUR SUGGESTION
Thank you for your participation. Our experts will take your message into account.
WCDL’S VISION AND PRINCIPLES
Where do we want our schools to be in the coming years? What do we want to achieve?
Scientific literature consistently points to the effects of certain forms of educational leadership on schools of higher complexity, whose student body, families, and teachers have diverse necessities. Understanding the multitude of factors — cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and those originating from poverty and violence — reflecting on them, and integrating this wide-ranging reality into school life are the responsibilities of administrative teams committed to systemic leadership.
DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP: HOW TO MAKE AN ORGANIZATION SUSTAINABLE
How can we help those involved carry out their tasks and achieve their goals?
In creating whole child development programs for disadvantaged communities, schools face the fundamental challenge of designing an organizational solution that takes into account the unique structure of each school, particular models of equity and inclusive participation, the effective use of time and resources, and the development of educational teams that work together, exchange experiences, monitor performance, and, for ethical imperatives, pursue the well-being of all. Only under these principles that create a distributed leadership can we embark on the right path towards the establishment of the school vision project, open spaces for inquiry and participation, and incentivize a sense of responsibility for professional performance in schools.
THE ACQUISITION OF KEY COMPETENCIES UNDER A CURRICULUM FOR WHOLE CHILD DEVELOPMENT
How do we create a concrete pedagogical and curricular structure that brings to life a new school culture and also redefines educational action?
Schools motivated by whole child development leadership are equipped with an innovative curriculum that is enriched through the school vision project, whose purpose is to motivate students and teachers. This project is built around certain criteria, but is not predetermined by an external agent. It should be flexible, capable of adapting to a school’s particular context. Nevertheless, the WCDL program highlights certain differentiating attributes that affect schools facing special difficulties. These attributes are more aligned with the concept of whole child development, which focuses on varied learning styles, respects differences, and prioritizes the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities relevant to students.
AN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY IN MOVEMENT
Is it possible for the collaboration, participation, discussion, and learning provided by other perspectives to form a part of daily school life?
Whole child development leadership builds relationships with each member of the educational community: with families — respecting boundaries and justifying who does what, while still permeating spaces —; with teachers — reevaluating their professional competency and roles as transmitters of culture and knowledge and as tools for the promotion of whole child development —; and with students — whose educational development is multidimensional. Consequently, this leadership considers schools as communities, as spaces for civic learning.
NETWORKING GOOD PRACTICES, “REIMAGINING SCHOOLS”
This “networking” will contribute new evidence to school leadership policies on systemic education models and interventions, transferable to other education systems.
The organizing committee of the Symposium promotes a space for exchanging, inquiring, and commenting about successful leadership experiences and methods that reflect how the ideas above do in fact communicate a true vision: how a school organization with distributed roles and intermediate leaders (counselors, tutors) in a friendly and healthy learning environment generates mutual confidence and good performance; how faith in pedagogical autonomy under a competency-based approach facilitates the development of all facets of a student’s character; and how the active presence of families in school life and the participation of teachers, students, and personal administrators in a common project create educational communities of great potential.