VALUING LOCALLY BASED STAFF
groups are integral) but also because of the army of locally hired teacher assistants, sports instructors, cleaning and grounds staff, catering staff, transport staff, security and more! These loyal and Cindy Adair hard-working staff who are Assistant Principal, Bangkok Patana passionate and highly-qualified, School help us create the unique international school experience that many of our students and their parents truly value. The othing prompts a bit of immaculate grounds, the tasty, healthy introspection international buffet lunches, like a Global Pandemic. As a Senior Leader in a vibrant, the door-to-door transport and high-performing International the safe and secure campus are all thanks to their daily School, we often look outwards to other schools in dedication and service. Not just that but they help us; their the region and throughout clumsy and at times gormless the world to emulate best practice, recruit the best staff expatriate colleagues navigate and source opportunities for the red tape associated with living abroad, smoothing the our students. Enter border edges when we slip up or fail restrictions, lock-downs and to understand the nuances an almost complete halt to of culture. I have been filled International travel as we with gratitude over and over know it… as our local staff have helped One of my key reflections on this me navigate getting a new passport in a pandemic, helped time, is now more than ever I have been afforded the time to a colleague with back pain obtain a more suitable chair invest in our locally hired staff and in doing so, build stronger for their home office while relationships and better mutual delivering online learning and understanding across cultures. phoned to check on another colleague in a field hospital Many international schools (asymptomatic but very scared) thrive, not because of their every single day for two weeks senior leaders or expatriate until they came home safely. staff (although both of these
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Often professional learning is not always offered to these staff on a consistent basis and in my own office team we have taken the opportunity to meet once a week for a dedicated hour of learning. The team brainstormed the topics they wanted to cover and then we have prepared bespoke bilingual workshops. We have covered Safeguarding, English for Emailing, Risk Management, Event Management, Google Docs and Cross Cultural Understanding – the latter topic resulting in a fascinating discussion filled with giggles, as we explored different cultural norms within our Thai and nonThai team members. The staff had the chance to ask questions they’ve always wanted to know but been to afraid to raise. Like, “Why don’t you eat very much rice?” and “Why do you wear 48
