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| Overview: |
This face-to-face workshop invites educators and leaders to deepen their understanding of documentation as a reflective, research-driven practice that reveals the richness of children’s thinking and relationships. Moving beyond record-keeping, we will explore how documentation fosters curiosity, critical reflection, and collaborative meaning-making among educators, children, and families.
Through interactive dialogue, practical tools, and collaborative analysis of real examples, participants will examine how the analysis of documentation uncovers the deeper conceptual threads in children’s play and how these insights can guide planning to extend and enrich children’s inquiry. Together, we will investigate how to develp pedagogical documentation alongside record keeping and how leaders can cultivate a culture where documentation serves as a shared inquiry process and a driver of professional growth.
Participants will leave with strategies for creating systems, structures and dispositions that support the art of documenting learning, protocols to revisit the traces of children’s thinking and strategies for building shared purpose across their teams. |
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| Objectives |
By the end of the workshop series, participants will:
- Articulate the distinction between documentation and record-keeping, and explain how documentation enriches understanding of children’s competencies, inquiry processes, creativity, and social relationships.
- Know how to analyze traces of children’s learning to uncover deeper conceptual dimensions and plan for experiences that extend children’s inquiries.
- Identify strategies to embed documentation as a shared, dialogic practice within teams.
- Develop approaches for leaders and educators to foster a reflective culture of documentation, including systems, roles, and structures that sustain collaborative reflection and professional growth.
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| About Anne Van Dam |
Child centred learning has been Anne's passion for more than 25 years. Anne has worked in schools in the Netherlands, China, Singapore and Switzerland, where she took on various positions such as team leader, PYP coordinator and director. Anne used to work at the Canadian International School (Singapore) where she was part of the team that took the school to IB authorisation. Anne has been an IB workshop leader since 2005, sharing her passion for young children and play with educators in international schools.
Anne joined Eton House International Pre-School in August 2007, drawn to the school for its vision to establish early childhood education centred on young children's competencies in making meaning and building relationships. At Eton House, she first combined teaching with the responsibilities of the PYP coordinator. In June 2008, Anne became the Director of this school.
In August 2011, Anne moved back to Europe and took on the responsibility of Assistant Principal at the International School of Zug and Luzern (ISZL). At ISZL, she supported the development of a new vision for learning and teaching in the early years. This direction places a strong emphasis on relationships, play, learning spaces (both inside and outside) and on making learning visible to others.
Anne moved back to the Netherlands in 2015. This has given her the opportunity to collaborate for two years with the PYP development team at the IB regional office in The Hague. She has been working on the IB PYP review focusing on learner agency, early years, inquiry and several aspects of 'the learning community'. Anne still works for the IB workshop leader and collaborates with international schools as an independent educational consultant. From May 2019 to May 2022, Anne has worked alongside 4 and 5-year-olds at an inner city, IB PYP school in her hometown The Hague. She recently joined a new PYP candidate school as the PYP coordinator and vice principal. |
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| Venue: |
| Shanghai American School |
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| Timings: |
8.30 am to 3.30 pm
Registration at 8:00 am on the 17th January 2026 |
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| Investment |
USD 850 Closing Date 1st January 2026
USD 750 Early Bird Offer Till 15th November 2025
Includes: Certificate of Participation for 16 Professional Development Hours, Lunch and Coffee Breaks. |
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