I have been at the ISTD for 11 months and cannot believe how the time has flown by. I have had the pleasure of dealing with members and teachers from many countries around the world where ISTD examinations are established and thriving.

I receive many queries from countries in which we do not currently hold examinations and this is very encouraging news and certainly shows that the word of the ISTD is reaching all four corners! If you are wondering whether examinations can be arranged within your particular country, please contact me on international@istd.org so we can discuss it further.

There have been many examination tours in 2003 and the countries represented so far are:

Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, China, Cyprus, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago and USA. There are many more tours happening before the year is out and if you do not have an Organiser within your country and would like an application form, please email internationalassistant@istd.org and we will forward the appropriate information to you.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members and teachers for their continued support of the ISTD. We are keen to improve the service given to teachers and consequently are looking at the administrative procedures in place with regards to the setting up of examination sessions and the production of certificates. We feel there are improvements which can be made and over the coming months these improvements will come into effect.

The improvements are designed to eliminate spelling mistakes on report forms and certificates and to create a candidate history. Wherever possible I will be encouraging the use of email as for many teachers outside of the UK it is the main tool of communication. In the future I would like to look towards greater use of the internet to facilitate our examination procedure and as soon as this is established I shall inform all teachers. For the time being email will be the way to go!

Since the end of 2002 all teachers who have received certificates from examination sessions will also have received a computerised result sheet. These sheets are the equivalent of the triplicate paper timetable and contain the candidates' results as well as a pin number. If you have retained these sheets, please keep them in a safe place as they will be useful with regards to the new administration procedures.

Full details regarding the procedures will be listed and it will affect all examination tours from January 2004 will be posted in the New Year. I will be informing any teachers or organisers who have tours arranged for January or February personally so everything will be in place for the examinations. It's an exciting time and I hope all teachers will appreciate our move towards making the administration procedures for ISTD examinations more effective.

Claire Skelton
Head of International Examinations

More information on International Exams