IBSC Southern Africa Conference
March 5 – 7, 2025
St. Alban's College
Pretoria, South Africa
Inkunzi Isematholeni: The Future Bull Is Among the Calves
Featured Breakout Sessions
Wednesday
10:15 – 11:15 AM
Aspiring to Senior Leadership in Boys’ Schools
Tom Batty
Audience: Aspiring Senior Leaders
From classroom to head’s chair, across the rich, broad spectrum of school life, leadership determines individual experiences and a school’s capacity to flourish. Through reflection on the nature of leadership and the purpose of education, ponder your own philosophy of education and gain insight into how it can manifest across all settings, through school culture, organization, and physical environment in pursuit of school values and the best outcomes for the boys we serve.
Tom Batty
Educated in the United Kingdom and after a flirtation with financial services, Tom Batty headed south to start teaching in New Zealand at Thames High School. He commenced his career in boys’ education at St Patrick’s College, Wellington (New Zealand) before heading to Australia above the Bondi waves at Waverley College (Australia).
Returning to the UK, Batty taught mathematics and served as a house master at Eton College (United Kingdom) before his appointment as the ninth principal of Scotch College, Melbourne (Australia) in 2008.
While at Eton he was introduced to the work of IBSC through Roxbury Latin School (United States) former Headmaster Tony Jarvis. Batty attended his first IBSC Annual Conference at Lindisfarne College (New Zealand) in 2009, and Scotch College hosted the 2012 IBSC Annual Conference. After the conference Batty joined the IBSC Board of Trustees, serving as chair from 2018-21.
Of his 35 years in education, he has spent 32 in boys’ schools. Across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK, as teacher and most recently principal, and through courses, conferences, trips, tours, and friendships in the United States, South Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, Batty has observed different cultural and systemic approaches to the common thread of growing good men.
He believes that by connecting boys’ schools and their teachers to all it has to offer, IBSC connects schools, teachers, and boys to each other, advancing the cause of boys’ schools and those they serve.
Batty is interested in the relationship between the micro and the macro, the judgement that rests between awareness and action, the interface between social and economic enterprise and parallels to mathematical pattern in the social world. He is married to Lee and they have two daughters, Poppy and Anna, both of whom, to differing degree, share his lifelong passion for Brentford Football Club.
Batty started his tenure as IBSC executive director in 2022.
Beyond Safeguarding Policies: Auditing School Safety Through Pupil Engagement
Lisa Dancaster and Elwyn van den Aardweg
Audience: Heads and Senior Leaders in Boys’ Schools
Designed for heads and senior management, this breakout explores a proven method for encouraging students to report unsafe practices in schools, including grooming, bullying, and racism, through small-scale surveys. It outlines the value of these surveys for principals in engaging parents, teachers, and students to create safer school environments. Join us to examine the research protocols and practical steps needed to build trust and rapport, enabling students to disclose unsafe practices. Take this opportunity to discuss challenging safeguarding issues you have encountered. Use case studies to explore gathering and assessing evidence for disciplinary hearings, handling "low-level" unsafe practices, and creating a culture of disclosure.
Lisa Dancaster
Lisa Dancaster has a combination of legal, dispute resolution, research, and school governance expertise. Her academic qualifications include a master of laws from University of KwaZulu-Natal and a PhD from Sydney University. Dancaster has been an academic and a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration commissioner for over 25 years and has published widely on various aspects of labor law. She has served on school boards and conducted a number of investigations and disciplinary hearings for schools. Dancaster also worked in human resources at Wilderness School in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Elwyn van den Aardweg
Elwyn van den Aardweg has 38 years of teaching and management experience in South African state and independent boarding schools, including nine years as senior housemaster of a state boys’ boarding house and 22 years as headmaster of an independent boys’ boarding school. His academic qualifications include a bachelor of arts from the University of Pretoria and geography honors, a higher diploma of education, and bachelor of education obtained from Natal University. He is also the coauthor of a Dictionary of Educational Psychology prescribed for postgraduate diploma in education (PGCE) and graduate-level students.
Attempting to Develop a Future Generation of Non-Anxious Bulls: Two Case Studies
Sanele Majola and Frank Rumboll
Audience: Teachers and Leaders in Boys’ Schools
Explore the growing issue of anxiety among young people, drawing on research from Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation. Two school heads share insights from the book, contextualizing the rapid decline in children's mental health. Video testimonials from boys at The Ridge School and St. Stithians Boys' Prep School offer firsthand accounts of anxiety-inducing experiences. Hear about specific initiatives and approaches designed to mitigate unnecessary anxiety within these two schools. Then pair up with someone from a different school to discuss current strategies for addressing anxiety in your own context. Share your key discussion points with the wider group and learn from their experiences.
Sanele Majola
Sanele Majola, currently head of school at St. Stithians Boys' Prep (South Africa), has extensive experience in education, including multiple leadership positions. He earned his teaching degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and furthered his leadership development at Wits Business School. Majola's career spans various roles, from teacher and head of department to deputy principal and headmaster, demonstrating a commitment to educational leadership.
Frank Rumboll
Frank Rumboll, currently the head of The Ridge School (South Africa), has been executive head of three schools, spanning the last 23 years. He holds an MA in English education (Wits), is the Independent Examination Board’s (IEB) national moderator for further studies English, and has presented at several IEB, Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa, and IBSC conferences.
When Online Harms Enter the Classroom: Combatting the Unholy Trinity of Pornography, Sexual Abuse, and Addiction
Robyn Wolfson Vorster
Audience: Teachers and Leaders in Boys’ Schools
Address the growing challenge of online harms infiltrating the classroom, focusing on the interconnected issues of pornography, sexual abuse, and addiction. Designed for teachers and leaders in boys' schools, the session explores the impact of these online harms on students and provides practical strategies for educators to recognize, address, and mitigate these risks within the school environment. Gain insights into current trends, effective intervention techniques, and resources available to support both students and the wider school community.
Robyn Wolfson Vorster
Robyn Wolfson Vorster is a child protection activist, researcher, and writer. With a background in social sciences, strategic consulting, and communication, Wolfson Vorster left the corporate world 12 years ago to advocate for children’s rights. Since then, she has written more than 80 articles, mostly for the Daily Maverick, around myriad child protection issues ranging from trafficking to child abuse, from sexting to suicide.
She is coauthor of South African Children and Pornography, written to help practitioners deal with children’s exposure to pornography, and provided expert content for MNET’s 2024 documentary School Ties, which highlighted the sexual abuse of boys at school. Through her nonprofit For the Voiceless, Wolfson Vorster amplifies the voices of vulnerable children; consults to and educates schools, communities, families, and decision-makers about how to keep them safer; and lobbies those in authority for changes in policy. Areas of expertise in her school workshops and consulting service include duty of care and safeguarding, crisis management—designed to prepare leaders for how to respond when things go wrong—and educator, learner, and parent workshops on grooming, exposure to pornography, and sexting and sextortion.