What Stays the Same When Everything Changes?

WHAT STAYS THE SAME WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES?

Thomas Banyard Headmaster, King's College International School Bangkok

The global pandemic has been a challenge for all of us. Yet, where there is challenge there is growth and the difficulties have helped us grow in so many areas.

At King’s College International School, Bangkok we had to welcome over 350 new students, induct new staff and build a community when we couldn’t be physically together during a 6 month period of working remotely. We had to find ways to make things work and we have come out of the other side much stronger. However, during this period I have reflected on the things which haven’t changed, because we must never forget these things if we want to build ” outstanding schools.

Sometimes in education we can try and do too many things and end up achieving none of them. We need to remember the key things that everything else must be built around. The first of these things is community.

Despite the fact that we were remote, we realised the importance of keeping people connected. This was done through a number of things such as social registration calls every morning to bring the classes together, calling staff to check in on them and arranging virtual events like yoga, mocktail making and cooking. A Harvard study recently showed that people who were feeling isolated reported feeling burnt out; if we can’t connect and we can’t learn or do our jobs effectively. Community is at the heart of building strong relationships and knitting a net which supports us all.

The second important thing for us was pastoral care. Whilst we had to change the systems for online learning, we didn’t change the principle that the wellbeing of our staff and our students sits at the centre of every decision we make. Part of this was linked to building a community, but it also related to how we speak to each other and how we communicate information in times of difficulty. We ensured that the students were meeting with their tutors each week, that we did wellbeing surveys and helped new students make friends through team-building events.

The third, and perhaps the most important thing that never changed was our focus on kindness. Kindness builds the character of our community and reinforces the work we do on pastoral care. However, it goes beyond that and also tells us how to treat others and how to treat ourselves. It is easy to be kind to others when everything is going well, you only truly test your school in times of challenge. It is easy to tell yourself that things are fine during the good times, but you need to truly practise self-kindness during times of change or challenge. During this global pandemic kindness is needed more than ever.

So whilst this era of change has made us learn new things, it has helped move on our use of technology and it has helped us show our adaptability, it has not changed our focus on kindness, pastoral care and building a community. When we returned to campus after 6 months online we quickly saw the benefits of keeping ourselves focussed on these things: we had happy confident children ready to learn helped by staff who had looked after each other and (hopefully!) feel supported by their school. No matter what happens in the future we will never change our focus on these three things.