The first day of the Aspire For Education II conference brought together 200 local and international education experts at Aspire Academy.
Ivan Bravo, director-general of Aspire Academy, officially welcomed guests to the event that focuses on “Academic Support: Collaboration for Success”.
“We are proud to welcome you to the second edition of this conference and your participation shows the dedication and passion in the Qatari community for education. Teachers like you shape the future of the young people who hopefully will lead this country one day,” Bravo said in his opening speech and stressed the important role of the focus of the conference. “A single curriculum does not apply to every student, because everyone has a special way of learning and therefore it is important to find ways to engage each one of them.”
Dr Kathy Perez, professor of Education at Saint Mary’s College of California (US) and award-winning classroom teacher, administrator and author, kicked off the event with a presentation on “Classroom Cures: Instructional Adaptations for Student Success”, stressing the important role of teachers.
“The real magic in the classrooms lies in each and every one of you and in your passion to help students succeed. All students are gifted; some just open their gifts earlier than others. Our goal as teachers is to meet all students at their starting point and support the diverse needs of each of them,” she said.
Her speech was followed by a panel discussion on the ways of including students with learning challenges, involving Dr Gad Elbeheri (Australian College, Kuwait), Dr Batoul Khalifa (Qatar University), Dr Imad Hassan (Qatar Academy) and Layla Darwish (Supreme Education Council).  
Day 1 also offered several other presentations and specialised workshops to raise awareness of students with learning difficulties and offered participants a number of practical solutions.
In this sense, the topics followed another point raised by the Aspire Academy director-general earlier: “The world is evolving so quickly and therefore we always need to question the way we do things in order to get the best results possible.”