102. Designing Learning Spaces and Change Leadership (Liz Free)

In the beautiful Swiss Alps, the International School Rheintal has just finished building a completely new campus. It is rare for an established school to build its campus from scratch, which offers a unique opportunity to design a building that reinforces the school's learning philosophy. In this episode, I speak with the CEO of the school, a phenomenal leader who led a collaborative design process to include students, teachers, and staff in the new design. We discuss ways of making spaces conducive to learning as well as strategies to leading an organization through major transformations.

Liz Free is CEO and Director of the International School Rheintal, an IB continuum school in Switzerland. She is a globally recognised educator with expertise leading some of the world's most successful schools and in leading teacher professional learning at OUP, Oxford University and as founding Director of the International Leadership Academy in The Hague.

Alongside this work, Liz is a founding trustee of the global charity WomenEd and board member for the Swiss Group of International Schools (SGIS) and TES Global. Liz is a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and Fellow of RSA. She has authored many publications including the ‘International Perspectives’ chapter of the Amazon number one bestseller ‘10% Braver: Inspiring Women to Lead Education’ book published by Sage (2019) and ‘Being 10% Braver’ (2021) and has also written for education publications such as TES, Schools Week, International Schools Magazine and Independent Schools Magazine. Liz has been identified as a global influencer in international education by ISC in 2021 and 2022. As a visible school leader, Liz advocates for the profession and speaks around the world on the theme of leadership development, realising the potential of the profession and the global school workforce.

International School of Rheintal: https://www.isr.ch/

Liz Free’s writing: https://lizfree.com