Principals' Foundations Program 2023

Dr. Anne Davies and Linda Inglis are excited to be your guides for this online event.  The Connect2Learning Team is excited to announce our second foundational program for novice principals and others new to leadership positions, with a set of live webinars taking place on July 24, 25, 26, and 27, 2023 at 1:00 ET. 

These live sessions are bundled with valuable resources that are available immediately and throughout the 2023-2024 school years.

Dear School Leaders,

Much is expected of new principals, but what resources do they need to succeed? 

New principals are called to lead while facing many challenges from their very first day. To be successful, they need to reframe those challenges into opportunities and hold a clear picture of the school’s aspirations and goals in mind.

To support new principals, Dr. Anne Davies and Linda Inglis of Connect2Learning have created a  targeted and focused high-level leadership class consisting of  four live webinars on July 24, 25, 26, 27, 2023. These live online sessions are bundled with an in-depth library of valuable resources that will support new leaders to engage and develop deep insights into leadership, teaching, classroom assessment, grading, and reporting.

The Principals’ Foundations Program is designed to help novice leaders deeply understand a framework of assessment for learning in theory and practice, along with additional key concepts and best practices required of every new or aspiring principal in their work with colleagues and students.

Who Is This For?

The Principals’ Foundations Program is for principals who are just starting out in their positions. 

Early in career principals, who just completed the 2021-22 school year, will also benefit as the program can provide them with perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that they encountered in their first year and offer them a framework for success in year two!

It will also be of great value to those in supporting leadership roles such as vice-principals and those who are aspiring leaders.

For district leaders, enroll your new principals in this program; the frameworks, perspectives and resources they receive will ensure they have a strong start to their first year and this new stage in their careers. 

The course will also provide district leaders the  opportunity to experience a shared vision of leadership with new leaders, one that will serve to establish a strong connection in your work supporting them as new school leaders. New principals will thank you for years to come!

Four 75-Minute Webinars 

• July 24, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET

We will begin by considering your leadership beliefs, and understanding how principles of assessment for learning, the fostering of professional learning relationships can inform your actions and support your leadership work in the service of student learning.

• July 25, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET

This session will focus on ways your instructional leadership can engage teachers  to think about and implement classroom practices that have the most impact on student learning.

• July 26, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET 

Reflecting on and understanding practices that are working and ones that may need some attention.Ideas to support achieving the instructional leadership goal of creating a school learning community that supports everyone in their learning. 

• July 27, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET 

Preparing to be a successful principal includes being ready to build a powerful professional learning environment. As a new principal, you want to both recognize existing high yield strategies and build in a feedback protocol cycle that supports improvement. Linda Inglis will share the Instructional Talk Through approach and invite participants to consider how they might begin in their new school.

These live webinars will be facilitated by Dr. Anne Davies, top educational consultant leading author and voice worldwide on assessment and instruction, and Linda Inglis, successful principal, district leader,  assessment for learning coach and facilitator (kindergarten to high school) and author. 

Note: Each live webinar is recorded and made available until August 2024 in your resource library.

Bonus Resources

• Access to an online resource library with recordings of the live webinars and other resources, such as PDFs, handouts, articles, chapters, examples, and more for leaders to use in their own schools! Access until August 2024.
• Access to over twenty in-depth online courses in the Connect2Learning course platform on classroom assessment, grading, reporting, teaching, learning, and leadership (more detail below). Access until August 2024.
• Immediate receipt of TWO valuable e-books to support your leadership journey: 
  • Book One: Leading the Way to Assessment for Learning: A Practical Guide by Anne Davies, Sandra Herbst & Beth Parrott Reynolds AND 
  • Book Two: Instructional Talk Throughs: Powerful Assessment and Professional Practice by Linda Inglis, Maria Michailides, and Dean Michailides

Note: Participants will be able to mine these resources for ideas, concepts, practical how-to information, and valuable content to support their own leadership.

Note: Taxes not included

Early Bird: Get 20% off your purchase when you order by July 3, 2023

“No Risk” Money Back Guarantee: If unsatisfied for any reason, let us know by July 24, 2023

This program is an extraordinary value; the list price for the online courses, books, and other resources totals over $2,000, without even including the live webinars facilitated by two top professional development leaders!

Your Guides: Deeply Experienced Educators and Consultants with a Track Record of Helping Transform Schools and Systems

Anne Davies, Ph.D. - President

Anne is an acclaimed educator, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. Working alongside and encouraging people to achieve their goals – by truly making a difference in the lives of learners – has led to Anne Davies’ distinguished and internationally-recognized career in Education Leadership and Assessment.

With extensive classroom and consultation experience with education leaders, Anne uses her depth of knowledge and innovative mindset to help educators realize their own potential for positive impact in the classroom and beyond. Anne has also headed a variety of research projects and was Canada’s Team Lead at the International Assessment Symposium in Fredericton, NB (2014). Her work has helped to shape provincial and national educational policy changes and she continues to be a highly sought-after resource for both government and private-sector educational institutions.

Over her distinguished career, Anne has garnered high-profile accolades including the Hilroy Fellowship for outstanding innovation in education and a nomination for the Canadian Education Association’s Whitworth Research Award. Anne is the author and co-author of more than 30 books and multimedia resources, including the best seller, Making Classroom Assessment Work, now in its fourth edition.

Linda Inglis -Associate

Linda Inglis has had many rich and varied experiences as an educator. Her work as a teacher, school principal, district leader, instructional coach and facilitator has focused on student learning and creating strong learning communities for everyone. 

She brings an energy to her work, collaborating with and supporting colleagues in realizing success in the service of student learning. Linda’s leadership experiences, in a variety of roles in education, have provided her with the background to offer colleagues opportunities to create learning communities that support informed practice and enhanced student learning. Linda works alongside her colleagues, building relationships that foster a supportive working context by ensuring colleagues have ownership of their professional learning journey.

She has worked with school district leaders and in schools with teams of  leaders and teachers establishing their Assessment for Learning Plans. Linda has had many years of experience working as an Instructional Leadership coach/facilitator in schools and classrooms alongside school leaders and teachers. Linda grounds her work in Assessment for Learning guiding leaders to experience it in their leadership practice and teachers in their instructional practice.

Linda co-authored - “Powerful Assessment and Professional Practice - Instructional Talk Throughs” which captures  her work with colleagues using Assessment for Learning to ground and guide their leadership practice.

Bonus Books Included with this Program

Book One - Leading the Way to Assessment for Learning: A Practical Guide

Authors: Sandra Herbst, Anne Davies,Beth Parrott Reynolds

Based on the third edition of Making Classroom Assessment Work, the popular guidebook for teachers, Leading the Way to Assessment for Learning: A Practical Guide (the second edition of Leading the Way to Making Classroom Assessment Work) is designed to help school administrators, district leaders (or personnel), and superintendents support educators and students in the assessment process.

Book Two: Instructional Talk Throughs: Powerful Assessment and Professional Practice

Authors: Linda Inglis, Maria Michailides, and Dean Michailides.

Instructional Talk Throughs: Powerful Assessment and Professional Practice describes the approach to instructional leadership and professional learning developed by three school principals. These authors and the professional staff they worked alongside set a course that used assessment for learning as both the content and process to create a model focused on learning for all.

This guide describes indicators of successful assessment practice and ways of supporting teachers in the classroom, as well as examples of how leaders have modeled assessment for learning to colleagues and students in their school communities. It also offers a practical approach to the challenges of meeting traditional evaluation standards, while assessing learning in many other ways. This book also features a collection of pertinent research summaries, as well as reproducibles to help implement the ideas into practice.

Online Bonus Courses Included

In addition to the live webinar sessions and the other resources, the New Principals’ Foundations Program includes access to TWENTY in-depth courses on key concepts. Individual teachers and/or professional learning groups can access these courses for actionable information to help fully grasp the concepts behind successful instruction and how to apply them to classroom practice. 

These courses have been created by Dr. Anne Davies, Sandra Herbst, and the Connect2Learning team and offer the latest research-based information to help teachers succeed!

The list below provides a brief overview of each course (please click the plus sign to reveal the full description of any particular course):

Who We Are and the Results of Our Work

Connect2Learning, an organization founded by Anne Davies and Stewart Duncan, has served over 500,000 educators and touched the lives of millions of students in various parts of the globe over the past twenty-five years. The overarching theme behind Connect2Learning’s work has centered on formative assessment, which is also known as assessment for learning. 

Our team members have worked as academics, educators, researchers, classroom leaders, school leaders, system leaders, and consultants. Through our experiences, we have each come to realize that students thrive, educators are re-energized, and schools transform when the principles and practices of formative assessment are deeply integrated into schools and classrooms. 

Teachers, schools, and systems that work with us often come back year after year to continue the work and deepen the transformation. Why is that? Because they see how the processes and pragmatic steps we introduce, backed by peer-reviewed research studies and our own decades of experience and reflection, make an immediate difference to students, educators, and leaders.

In most instances, student learners become more engaged and develop greater self-confidence and more enthusiasm for the subjects being taught. This leads to better grades and higher graduation rates. Students who struggle and are at risk often see the greatest turnaround. Educators and school leaders report that these students move to new and unexpected levels of success. 

For teachers, it is transformative to their careers when this begins to happen in their own classrooms, and they see learners begin to blossom out in new ways and new directions. Educators find it so gratifying to see the positive changes and they themselves are renewed to do their work of changing lives.