Valuing Locally Based Staff

Cindy Adair, Assistant Principal, Bangkok Patana School

Nothing prompts a bit of healthy introspection like a Global Pandemic. As a Senior Leader in a vibrant, high-performing International School, we often look outwards to other schools in the region and throughout the world to emulate best practice, recruit the best staff and source opportunities for our students. Enter border restrictions, lock-downs and an almost complete halt to International travel as we know it…

One of my key reflections on this time, is now more than ever I have been afforded the time to invest in our locally hired staff and in doing so, build stronger relationships and better mutual understanding across cultures. Many international schools thrive, not because of their senior leaders or expatriate staff (although both of these 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 hard-working staff who are passionate and highly-qualified, help us create the unique international school experience that many of our students and their parents truly value. The immaculate grounds, the tasty, international buffet lunches, the door-to-door transport and the safe and secure campus are all thanks to their daily dedication and service. Not just that but they help us; their clumsy and at times gormless expatriate colleagues navigate the red tape associated with living abroad, smoothing the edges when we slip up or fail to understand the nuances of culture. I have been filled with gratitude over and over as our local staff have helped me navigate getting a new passport in a pandemic, helped a colleague with back pain obtain a more suitable chair for their home office while delivering online learning and phoned to check on another colleague in a field hospital (asymptomatic but very scared) every single day for two weeks until they came home safely.

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 your shoes inside?” They also felt safe to ask more challenging questions like, “Why are the attacks on Asians happening in your home country?” which was a chance for us to unpick racism, violence and stereotyping.

I have been reminded that my admin team are holders of Master degrees, small business owners, pet lovers, parents, fitness enthusiasts and we’ve connected on a deeper level thanks to the pandemic. Doubtless if this world event had not occurred we would have been busy hosting events, planning fixtures, attending meetings and writing risk assessments for trips and excursions and probably would not have paused to share in the learning we’ve done together.

As we emerge from this pandemic (and we will) I am determined to continue to invest time, and energy in my local team in a more consistent manner.