Mary Langford is a US/UK dual national who moved abroad at the age of two and then attended eight schools in three languages before finishing secondary education. She has over 35 years’ experience in almost every area of international school life: administration and personnel, admissions, alumni, public relations and communications, teaching (EAL and Spanish), as Principal and as a Head in European-based boarding and day schools offering US, UK, IB, Spanish and Saudi curricula.  She later earned an MA in International Education from the University of Bath; her graduate research focused on how international schools serve internationally-mobile students.

As Deputy Executive Director of the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) from 2007-2011, she was responsible for ECIS professional development programmes for school boards (SISG), leaders (ILMP), and 32 professional committees. As manager of the ECIS International Teacher Certificate (ITC) in collaboration with University of Cambridge International Exams, she served as an instructor at the ITC Institutes addressing the areas of language issues (second language learners, multilingualism, mother tongue), mobility and transition. She also led the process to have the ECIS ITC recognised by the IB as the only non-university pathway to the IB Educator Certificate.        

Mary’s articles have been published internationally; she was a contributing author in International Education: Principles and Practice (Sage) and The Essential Guide for International School Teachers (John Catt). She is also a consulting editor for The Good Schools Guide and The Good Schools Guide International (online). She has written reviews about books about trilingualism, teaching EAL, international teacher education, teaching assistants in international schools, women’s higher education and Third Culture Kids for Multilingual Matters (publishers), the Journal of Research in International Education, IS Magazine,  Expatriate Guide to Living in the UK. She has done pre-publication reviews for C. Sears’ Second Language Students in English-Medium Classrooms (2015) and KH Kim’s The Creativity Challenge:  How We can Recapture American Innovation (2016).  Mary has spoken internationally and has been interviewed for international expat blogs and podcasts, newspapers, radio and television on the subject of international education, the International Baccalaureate Programmes, and the effects of international mobility on children and families. and the Parents League Review (New York).  She has presented on a variety of topics at conferences for ECIS, the IBO, Nordic Network of Schools, Swiss Group of International Schools, London International Schools Association, English Language Schools Association (France), and ECIS Committee Conferences:  Librarians and Media Specialists (Istanbul),  Early Childhood  (Brussels), Maths Quest (Brussels), EAL and Mother Tongue (Geneva and Dusseldorf), at ITC Institutes in London, Cambridge, Atlanta, Brussels, Pattaya, Havana, Cairo, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro, at SISG Workshops in London and Vienna; and at ILMP Institutes in Brussels and London, amongst others.  She has led presentations and workshops for Parent Associations in Istanbul, Brussels, Havana and London, and she has served on 15 accreditation teams for ECIS, CIS, NEASC, MSA, IB visiting schools in Germany, Switzerland, Chile, Panama, USA, Denmark, Belgium, Hungary, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Now the Director of Admissions for Dwight School London, an IB World School, Mary continues to do independent educational consultancy projects and also serves as a Visiting Lecturer with the international teacher training programme at University College Zealand in Denmark.