The ‘Leadership Lounge’ is an initiative from the ILA to provide opportunities to discuss current and interesting leadership, management and/or education materials/texts in an informal environment. It is an early evening social event in The Hague designed to provide an opportunity to meet and share experiences and your thoughts with international school colleagues in a friendly and fun evening.

Who is this programme for?

This book club is for aspiring, new and current leaders in education.  This includes teaching and learning staff as well as those in support roles.  Please read the information below to find out more about the text to consider how this may relate to your role.

What’s Involved?

This book is being published for International Women's Day 2019. All particpants will receive a copy of the book during the evening, with the session offering an opportunity to explore the key themes with the 'International Perspectives' Chapter author, Liz Free, and contributior team from the Netherlands. Each session is facilitated by a school leader/s.

What is the Text?

#LeadershipLounge ‘10% Braver: Inspiring Women to Lead Education' by Porritt, V. and Featherstone, K. (eds.), facilitated by Liz Free, Sue Aspinall and Sandra de Bresser

Text Overview

Facilitated by the @WomenEdNL national leaders, this session in the week of International Women's Day will explore the new @WomenEd book (publishing February 2018).    Liz Free is the author of the 'International Perspectives' chapter of the book which includes contributions from #WomenEd countries throughout the world, as well as a chapter case study from the Netherlands @WomenEdNL team.

Developing leadership capacity for the future global need is the greatest challenge we face. Globally, the education profession is dominated by women (OECD 2013). Over two thirds are women and yet women in education leadership account for less than half of school leadership. This demonstrates a significant global gender disparity from women in teaching to women in education leadership. So… what does this mean and why is it important to increase gender representation from the teaching profession into education leadership?

 Apart from the substantial political, social and moral imperative for gender equality, we quite simply cannot meet the future and expected demand for education without harnessing the potential for education leadership from within the education workforce. Current estimates indicate that roughly 83 million people are being added to the world’s population every year. This challenges the fundamental principles behind education entitlement and the economic potential that is predicated on educated societies. Do we have the education leadership capacity in place to respond to these increasing needs?

This #LeadershipLounge session will explore some of the challenges faced by our teachers, and our school leaders. It will take a snapshot view of the global landscape with Liz Free, chapter author of the ‘International Perspectives’ chapter in the new Womened book '10% Braver: Inspiring Women to Lead Education' supported by Co-Leader @WomenEdNL, Sue Aspinall. The evidence based session will provide provocation for dialogue with and between teachers, leaders and researchers leading to recommendations that we will then share with the global #WomenEd Community of over 25,000 people. How will we tackle the education leadership gender divide global epidemic to ensure we utilise the full potential of the profession in ensuring leadership capacity for the growing world population?

Session Facilitator/s

Liz Free, Director, International Leadership Academy @lizAMfree; Sue Aspinall, Head Teacher, Junior School Vlaskamp, The British School in the Netherlands @aspinall_sue; Sandra de Bresser, Head, BSN Language Centre @SandradeB.