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44 International Schooling: The Teacher’s Guide, by Denry Machin and Stephen Whitehead reviewed by David Wilkinson
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There are many badges available for educators, which include Common Sense, Seesaw and Kahoot, in addition to the ‘big players’ of Microsoft, Apple and Google. Let’s delve into some detail:
There are many badges available for educators, which include Common Sense, Seesaw and Kahoot, in addition to the ‘big players’
Common Sense ( recognition-educatorscommonsense.org/education/www. ) offers a free citizenship curriculum to help students take ownership of their digital lives, and a digital badge can be earned for your résumé by learning about the curriculum, teaching lessons, engaging families and reflecting on your practice. All of this can be achieved in a few hours, and will start to set you apart from your competitor educators. Also, if you are looking to lead
Badge, accreditation, honour, award –however they might be obtained, they encourage confidence that the school or educator is able to provide a level of service to an independently recognised
What’sArtist in a badge?
EdTech badges for educators
here are many badges available for many reasons. You might have picked up a badge when you were in the Cub Scouts or Brownies, or achieved Bronze, Silver or Gold in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. If you are older, you might have been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (a Japanese decoration for distinguished contributions to society), or the British Empire Medal (a British award for meritorious service worthy of recognition). Your school probably has a logo on their website, or the logo might be at the bottom of
letter-headed stationery, and perhaps at the entrance to the school. You might be accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) or the Council of International Schools (CIS), or be a member of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA), or East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS).
By Anthony
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standard. Some are easier to obtain than others, but the message is the same: a stamp of approval and tangible evidence of interest in this subject.
4 | International School | Autumn 2022
Anthony Artist is Coordinator of Digital Teaching and Learning at ACS Cobham International School, Surrey, UK. ✉ aartist@acs-schools.com
Autumn 2022 | International School | 5 Features
Microsoftwell. ( en-us/resource/18485a7beducation.microsoft.com/ ) offers a sliding scale of badges to choose from. They start with the Microsoft Innovative Educator, which can be completed in two hours, through to Trainer and Expert levels which require a much higher personal and professional commitment. Just like Google, the top-level Expert badge is aimed at fervent and creative educators who thrive on change and pursueAppleexcellence.alsooffers a range of free professional development options.
Google (edu.google.com/teachercenter/certifications/) offers a range of options which start with mastery and integration of tools in the classroom (Educator levels 1 and 2), through to programs that are intended to make a much bigger impact in your school with Certified Trainer, Coach and Innovator options. Training is free, but there is a small fee for the examinations. Yes –examinations! The exams are not that difficult, and the training materials prepare you
However, the pinnacle badge of honour is the Apple Distinguished Educator award, where you must explain how you have transformed learning in your school. Applications open at different times for different geographical areas, so you should register your interest if you would like to be part of the next cohort ( apple-distinguished-educator/www.apple.com/uk/education/k12/ ).
the goal of achieving that lofty status by June 2022. We have had 1:1 iPads deployed across our school from Pre-K to Grade 8 for a few years now, and we have been working on improving faculty proficiency using iPads for the last couple of years. We need to ensure that 75% of teachers and administrators have Apple Teacher status, and that is no small feat as we have a large and diverse faculty with wide-ranging technology skills. This is still a work in progress for us, but we are optimistic we will get there.
You might be passionate about using technology in teaching and learning, and you might have filled your résumé with badges for yourself, but what about your school? If you really want to transform teaching and learning, and embed technology into your classrooms, then
Time to get started! So, what are you waiting for? Set aside an hour (or two) to start with and give it a go. Show your interest in technology. Earn the badge. Earn the recognition. From there, aim to learn more and share your success. Promote skills, growth, and technology. Lead positive change in your school. ◆
Common Sense, Google and Microsoft all offer school-wide badges. Each organisation sets its own criteria, but the common theme is school-wide implementation with a dedication and commitment to using their products in a manner that transforms education, is measurable, and has a positive impact on student growth.
Here at ACS weInternationalCobhamSchool,startedthejourneytobecomeanAppleDistinguishedSchool...
Apple Teacher (www.apple.com/uk/ education/k12/apple-teacher) is the entry level badge and focuses on iPad and Mac skills that directly apply to activities with your students. The newly-introduced Apple Teacher Portfolio is the next step, and asks you to design or re-design your lessons around three central ideas: activate (start using technology), explore (use Apple tools more frequently) and apply (show mastery). You then submit a portfolio of evidence.
We also need to show that we have integrated and used apps in our daily practice. Teachers and students across the school are broadly familiar with Apple’s productivity and other creativity tools such as Clips, Keynote, GarageBand and Book Creator. Our students have also been using innovative augmented reality tools recently; most notably, testing their knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia in a virtual escape room! The final part of the process is perhaps the easiest: we simply document our success and forward details to Apple.
Here at ACS Cobham International School, we started the journey to become an Apple Distinguished k12/apple-distinguished-schools/),(https://www.apple.com/uk/education/Schoolwith
EdTech badges for schools
take a breath and dive into organisational level change. Be warned though: to make changes on this level you will need buy-in and endorsement from the leaders of your school. School level EdTech badges of approval will require significant investment in infrastructure and/or teacher skills development. Software licences and iPads cost money, and teacher professional development time is often at a premium and competing with other demands such as professional goals, involvement in professional learning communities, or quite simply keeping up to date with safeguarding and other important compliance measures.
training sessions and write expert articles, you might be invited to become an ambassador. By the way, it is free!
his is the second article in a series examining the future of international schools (see Summer 2022 issue of IS magazine for the first). In this second article, I argue that two key trends affecting the educational environment and two other trends within our international schools are converging to create one major change: the differences between international schools and traditional, independent schools are dissolving. However, before we dive into the topic and discuss why this change matters, let’s
External environment changes
Are international schools becoming just another type of independent school?
first make the obligatory statement that we do not have a universally agreed definition for international schools (or international education, for that matter). Nevertheless, for the sake of this argument, let’s agree that many lists include items such as an international curriculum, a degree of diversity in the student and teacher community, and a community oriented toward internationalism and cultural understanding.
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future. – John F Kennedy
Trend 1: Other school types offering an international education Listing these possible criteria is important, as they get to the heart of the first trend that is changing international schools: today many schools without the label of international school are delivering elements of an international education. Evidence of this trend is the adoption of an international curriculum
T
By James MacDonald
6 | International School | Autumn 2022 Features
• ‘host country nationals’ (host country passport holders, long-term stayers, private payers)
This type of data is often held closely within marketing departments, and is normally not aggregated and shared openly. So I can’t make the case for this trend by citing external data as I have for the first three trends. However, in my
• ‘local foreigner family’ (at least one parent foreign passport, long-term stayers, private payers). The use of personas can support enrollment decisions, inform educational provision, and provide clarity to marketing messages.
Trend 3: Growth of private international schools catering to local populations As I highlighted in the previous article, almost all the recent growth of international schools is driven by schools catering to primarily a local market. I won’t rehash this trend in detail here, but suffice it to say that traditional international schools used to cater to highly mobile expatriates, whereas most of the new international schools cater to host country nationals with global aspirations for their children. I would even argue that, at least in
The competitiveness of college admissions is another major, well-documented trend happening o international school campuses but impacting international schools.
This trend has an acute effect on international school parents, as many see international schools as a direct route to leading global universities, and more international schools are under pressure (like other private, independent schools) to deliver on this promise. Anecdotally, many college counselor colleagues report local private fee-paying parents to be some of the most demanding. From these parents, we hear variations of the theme ‘I have paid all this money. I expect you to get my child into a top university.’ These are driven and motivated parents, and it is also not uncommon for these groups to seek influence on leadership and governance in order to increase the school’s competitiveness in this domain. It is a change in the external environment, but one that is affecting our schools.
some locations (such as Thailand), international schools have become something of the default independent school network. Data highlighting this trend is readily available through sources including ISC Research.
Features
This trend is reflected in both new and established international schools alike. It matters because international schools can no longer claim uniqueness in providing an international education. The good news is that international education is deemed so important that many other types of schools around the world have embraced it; the bad news is that international schools are not that special anymore. This is a great example of how an environment can evolve, and even if the subject being studied hasn’t changed, the new environment affects the subject nonetheless. As other schools move toward international education, international schools look more like mainstream schools.
Trend 2: Increasingly selective college admissions The competitiveness of college admissions is another major, well-documented trend happening off international school campuses but impacting international schools. Over the past two decades, admissions rates at elite universities have plummeted. The numbers are pretty stunning, and I often share with parents that if they applied today to their university alma mater with the grades and profile they had coming out of high school, they almost certainly wouldn’t be accepted.
outside of schools with the title ‘international school’. Data provided by the International Baccalaureate (IB) perhaps illustrates the trend most markedly, and shows dramatic growth over the past few decades.
Internal changes
Trend 4: Traditional international school populations localizing Another trend I have observed is that communities within traditional, well-established international schools are catering more to local parents than expatriates. Unlike the first three trends, this one is difficult to show through data. Part of the problem is, what do I mean by ‘local?’ Families rarely fit into neat categories of local or expat. To help address issues in a practical manner, some schools employ a technique called ‘personas’, creating fictional profiles to describe and summarize the key characteristics of a specific subaudience. For example, some common personas are:
• ‘expatriate family’ (both parents foreign passport holders, short-term stayers, company sponsors fees)
All of this matters because, as we see through the use of personas, local families can have different priorities and expectations from those of expatriates. The international school’s unspoken promise of ‘Your child will not fall behind academically while overseas and will have an amazing experience in the meantime’ is changing to ‘Your child will be attending one of the world’s best schools and will have a world of opportunity available after graduation.’ This is where all four trends converge: the promise of international schools is changing, for better or worse. As this promise continues to move closer to that of main private schools (and there are 35,000 independent private schools in the US alone), international schools will be absorbed into this broader category in the minds of many. There is no way around it: international schools are localizing and becoming more akin to traditional private, independent schools.
As a result, families who plan to stay long-term play more important roles in these communities. It follows that leadership needs to, at least to some degree, respond to the needs and priorities of these local parents. Inevitably, governance will be shaped by these influences, either through the appointment of board members or by parents lobbying owners. We should not be surprised if we also start to see a growing trend toward more teachers staying long-term, especially in stable settings with competitive packages. I wouldn’t be surprised if teacher turnover in these schools moved from 15-20% per year to under 10% (in line with leading private schools). Localization could mean
✉
Change happens. Evolution is not a bad thing per se, but it strikes me that much of the change described in these trends is not happening by choice. I think we need to find fresh approaches to make our international schools stand out from the crowd. ◆
25 years, and speaking with colleagues at other wellestablished international schools (those initially founded for expatriates), there seems to be a clear downward trend in the proportion of highly mobile expatriates. I am not saying that it is necessarily the case that the number of expatriates worldwide is dropping in real terms, as data is mixed in this regard. This observation within individual schools could be because expatriates are dispersed across a number of different schools in a certain location whereas there was previously only one option, or it could be that as different regions develop and change, there is not the same economic justification for expatriates in a location that historically supported them.
James MacDonald is Director of the International School of Brussels, having previously held posts including Head of School at NIST, Bangkok and Yokohama International School, Japan. james.w.macdonald@gmail.com
Change happens. Evolution is not a bad thing per se, but it strikes me that much of the change described in these trends is not happening by choice.
8 | International School | Autumn 2022 Features
tradition will trump change in our more established international schools.
This leads to the question of what to do when, as an educator, a person is asked to consider change. The change may be in relation to a learning theory, a new pedagogy, a new technology, a different form of communication, a new way of thinking about situations, or an alternative decision-making process. On a personal level, it is clear that the choice is one for the individual to make. However, there is also the perspective that needs to be considered in relation to that individual being a professional.
When a professional is presented with a new or different way of manifesting
The CaseChangeFor
hange is difficult, and not a pathway that many are comfortable with. To change is, consciously or sub-consciously, to act and think in different ways. When we are presented with a situation or information that signals the need or expectation to change, there is understandable resistance or guarded interaction. This response is normal. It also recognises the personal nature of change. We can be told to change, but to take the step is in the realm of the individual. There are common phrases around the notion that no-one ever changes (think, for instance, about leopards not changing their spots). That is, we are forever the person we have always been; we interact with the world with particular perceptions and beliefs. This may be so, in which case the request to change seems futile. Again, whatever the intellectual and personal response to life’s experiences, which changes an individual chooses to embrace is their choice.
10 | International School | Autumn 2022 Features
By Richard Mast
C
their skills and experience, there is pressure to change. An argument is presented through academic research, educational articles, conference presentations, educational consultants, professional reading, the exchanging of ideas and so on. At a personal level, however, most people may choose not to embrace the change. One of the reasons for the apparent resistance to change is that as we develop as teachers and administrators we also develop a self-image in relation to our abilities. This self-belief is often reinforced by colleagues, students and parents. We can come to the conclusion that we are good at what we do. This affirmation of skills, knowledge and experience is gratifying, and those who receive such support are to be congratulated. The problem is that when a person has a sense of being excellent at what they do, there is a builtin justification not to change.
A teacher or administrator who is asked to change the way they perform their tasks when they know that their modus operandi is at a very high level is not going to jump toward that option. As a recognised expert, this person ensures that the school community sees their palette of skills. The proof of their abilities will be on display. In this process the reasons for change are lost. This perspective demonstrates that the educational value of research or ideas developed through experience are not being treated with the respect that they deserve. Most importantly the students are not gaining the benefits.
is a major professional problem. A true professional will recognise and accept that they have to change for the benefit of the students. This may well mean jettisoning deeply-held beliefs. It may mean developing a completely new and possibly counter-culturally oriented set of skills and forms of communication. When the personal overrides the professional then the individual is displaying unpalatable attributes. When the professional accepts that their responsibility is for the learning of the students, that means doing anything and everything to ensure that the students have the best chance of success. That is what change is for. To change is to know that learning in a school setting is a dynamic shaped by the interaction of the teacher and the student. The teacher has to adjust to the circumstances, and that means accepting change as the fundamental to being the best possible teacher. ◆
Richard Mast trains Chinese and foreign teachers and administrators in China and Australia. ✉ rmast617@gmail.com
Autumn 2022 | International School | 11
As a recognised expert, this person ensures that the school community sees their palette of skills.
When a teacher enters a classroom and uses their knowledge, skills, understanding and experience to deliver their best teaching, there is a danger that the very array of skills that are the foundation of the teacher’s self-image and reputation may be inappropriate for the students. What if the way the teacher teaches is not understood by the
When teachers and administrators are hired to work overseas they may be designated as ‘foreign experts’. They are seen as being world class teachers and administrators. The expectation is that when school begins, the students, teachers, parents and administrators will be rewarded by the presence of this professional. Telling such a person to change the way they teach, administer, communicate or perceive their role in a school is counter to the messaging that has been part of their life experience.
students? What if the teaching methods are ineffective or even repress learning? When a teacher from one culture is teaching students from another culture, there is the colliding of world views. The perceptions, expectations, processes of learning and the forms of communication can be out of alignment to the extent that the pedagogy is more of a parallel universe than a valid experience for the students. In this situation, the teacher can persevere with their pedagogy because it is central to who they are and how they see their role. When this happens, the teacher is asking the students to change. The students have a very different way of thinking and learning, and now they are expected to undertake and demonstrate their learning according to the dictates of the teacher. When this breaks down, the teacher is likely to see the students as the problem. If the teacher not changing means that the students have to change, then there
WhatUkraine:CanIDo?
‘What can I do?’, I wereThousandsmyself.askedofothersaskingthemselvesthesamequestion.
‘What can I do?’, I asked myself. Thousands of others were asking themselves the same question. The public outcry in the UK to offer spare rooms to fleeing Ukrainians grew stronger, amplified by daily news broadcasts with people demanding that the British government find a way to facilitate the passage of these Ukrainians. The Government’s slow reaction was overtaken by Facebook sites that enabled British hosts to reach out to Ukrainians – women, children, elderly (younger men had to stay in Ukraine to fight), and eventually the Home Office got its act together to enable the issue of visas for entry to the UK. But with a one-bedroom flat, I would not qualify as a host for ‘Homes for Ukraine’.
the impact of this war. As Ukrainians began to flee their shelters shrouded by the remnants of their annihilated cities and towns – at one point I read the Russians were destroying a school every 20 minutes – we marvelled at the hospitality and refuge offered by Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Romanians, and Moldovans as well as other nearby countries.
‘Schools’, I thought. ‘They will need schools. I know about schools, and I know something about international
D
By Mary Langford
Autumn 2022 Features | International School |
uring the early hours of Thursday 24 February listening to the radio in a drowsy state, I heard the reports that Russia was entering Ukraine, embarking upon Putin’s ‘special operation’. I watched the 24-hour BBC News all day; by that same night, the Russians had taken the nuclear power station in Chernobyl. The world watched in horror as these unbelievable images unfolded before our eyes. We were inspired by the way that the Ukrainian people took action to fend off the aggressors. Men were ordered to defend their country, and rallied. Women gathered supplies, preparing food parcels and first aid kits. Even children were making camouflage to disguise the tanks that would defend their homeland. Those left behind in cities carried their babies, pets and bags of prized possessions to hide in basements and subway stations, to avoid the reckless missile strikes against buildings including schools and shelters. Three days into the conflict, the man of the hour, the comedian/entertainer-turned-politician President Zelenskyy, famously told Western leaders offering him and his family shelter, ‘I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition’. Social media relayed dozens of personal stories about
I wrote to her and asked ‘What if we could replicate this all over the UK?’, and we arranged a quick Zoom call when I pitched a plan to her. I explained to her that, in addition to my school job, I had worked for 15 years as an occasional international education consultant with a national organisation that provides school placement advice to parents worldwide seeking information on educational matters for students of all ages. What if we asked this organisation if we could contact all the independent schools in their UK network to ask if they would consider offering a scholarship to Ukrainian students, and then pass that information along to each relevant local authority CME so they would be aware of these independent school options? This might alleviate some of the pressure on state school places. She loved the idea, and added that she had regular meetings with other CMEs in London; she also had a contact list for all the CMEs throughout the country, who she believed would welcome this initiative, and she would share that list with me. I met with the leaders of the school placement consultants who also supported the idea. We could explain the process and make the information on local CMEs available to all our schools.
Autumn 2022 | International School | 13
I was frustrated by the time that passed as I
students needing schools.’ I knew that any child granted asylum would be entitled to attend school, and that the CME (Child Missing in Education) officers in every local authority were charged with finding places in local state schools; a challenge when many state school classes are oversubscribed. ‘What about the independent sector?’, I thought. Many British independent schools have charitable status, with an associated duty to demonstrate how they provide for ‘the public benefit’. But these schools would not be the ‘go-to’ solution for CMEs. I also knew from experience that even if independent schools wanted to offer full scholarships to refugees, many would not know how to actually ‘find’ a refugee.
was delighted with this and at the time I retired from the school, at the start of the Afghanistan withdrawal, we spoke again about this ‘pilot’ project and the possibility of using it as a model to help other refugees.
St Mary’s Ukrainian Saturday School.
On 11 March I contacted a former colleague, the CME in my previous school’s local authority, whom I had met several years earlier. After the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, my International Baccalaureate (IB) school wanted to take action by making a full bursary available to a refugee. After months of looking for a refugee to no avail, even after writing to our local MP and to some local charities, I eventually contacted Tobias Ellwood, a Member of Parliament who is himself an international school IB graduate. With his advice, I was finally led to the CME in our local authority who was exactly the right person to help us. A short time after I made her aware of our interest, she introduced a 15-year-old who had been granted asylum and had attended two schools for a brief time in other parts of the country before coming to London. She tracked this student’s progress at our school with great interest. After successfully completing the IB Diploma Programme in my school, this student went on to pursue a science degree at a London university. The CME officer
(3) how independent schools can fulfil the need for Ukrainian Saturday School premises throughout the country.Allof the stakeholders – Inna Hryhorovych, Julia Lemesh, and our CME contact – have signed off on the draft letter which is now in the hands of the two organisations that plan to send it off in August when school personnel return from the summer holidays. Though I had hoped to make contact with schools by now, the delay may be a blessing as in June the Department of Education issued a statement strongly urging independent schools to do what they can to support Ukrainian refugees. The CME is poised to contact all of her colleagues nationwide so they know they may hear from local independent schools that can offer bursaries. Several of us have expressed the thought that, if this works, it might become a more long-term initiative for refugees of all nationalities to benefit from an independent school education.
Meanwhile, another Ukrainian project had started to take shape. I manage a group of language teachers who support IB Language A students who take their mother tongue language as an IB School-Supported, Self-Taught course. In May my Ukrainian teacher, who is on the faculty at Cambridge University, asked me if I could meet one of his colleagues, Julia Lemesh, President of Ukraine Global Scholars, a US-based charity that works under the auspices of the President of Ukraine. UGS seeks bursaries for Ukrainians aged 16+ in US boarding schools and universities. Their vetting system is designed to identify Ukrainian students who will return to Ukraine for at least 5 years after completing their education so they can help with rebuilding the country. With the onset of the war, UGS was now inundated with requests from Ukrainian young people seeking an education abroad. Could I help by approaching my network of boarding schools in Europe?
arranged one meeting after another, and the ideas were considered by all the relevant colleagues. Then in late May the education consultancy finally agreed, but suggested that, rather than do this independently, they would prefer to approach the CEO of a national independent school membership organisation, whose reach of 1000+ member schools would be far wider. A jointly-signed letter would have more impact. Would I draft a proposal to send to them?
also having a ‘safe haven’ where they could celebrate their Ukrainian heritage and history, was important. In April, I had participated in a COBIS webinar where heads of schools in Warsaw and other Eastern European cities discussed what they were doing in response to the crisis by not only taking in Ukrainian refugees, but also making their school premises available to groups of Ukrainians for their own schools.
I wondered, would schools in the UK consider making their premises available for Ukraine Saturday School groups?
(1) how independent schools can make local authorities aware of any scholarships on offer from independent day schools, with information on ages, genders, special skills, and English language proficiency required;
I know the Editors would also welcome articles for future issues of this magazine from others who are working to support Ukrainian refugees in the current crisis. ◆
If all goes well, I hope to share an update in a future edition of International School magazine.
Mary Langford retired last year after a 40+ year career working in international schools and as Deputy Director of ECIS. Based in London, she now works as an international education consultant. ✉ mary@langfordiec.com
(2) how sixth form (ages 16-18) boarding schools can make places available to the 100+ vetted UGS candidates hoping for placement, with the offer of guidance on negotiating the visa status of these students; and
14 | International School | Autumn 2022
A third Ukrainian project was also evolving: through colleagues at the Scuola Italiana in London, who rent their premises from the Ukrainian Embassy, I was introduced to Inna Hryhorovych, Principal of St Mary’s Ukrainian School, the Saturday School, where normally around one hundred students of varying ages are taught Ukrainian language, literature, history and geography. Inna reported that they were being swamped with requests from newly-arriving Ukrainian families, and with Ukrainian families being received by host families all over the country the need was now nationwide. She explained that many of the refugee women were qualified teachers and wanting to work, but they needed places to do this. Ukrainian families did not regard their stay in the UK as permanent and would want to return to their homes, husbands and fathers as soon as they could, so maintaining Ukrainian language, but
In early June the Ukraine Ministry of Education reported that 1,888 schools had been shelled and bombed since the conflict began on 24 February. As I write this in mid-July, over four months after I first reached out to my CME colleague with the initial idea, after numerous Zoom meetings and conversations with key players, this is still work in progress. Everyone is on board to contact schools with guidance on:
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The Global Issue Of Street Children – Can International Schools Do More?
By Gillian Ashworth
I
The emergence of international
What may be surprising... is how little focus appears to be given to the particular issue of street children.
car saying that the family could not look after him. Or Michael, who at age 10 was lined up to be trafficked. Or Geoffrey, who twice felt compelled to run away from home and live on the streets as a result of being forced into work he found unbearable, and out of the education he, as a teenager, had enjoyed and had been flourishing in. Or the many other ‘street children’ across the world for whom these and many other scenarios – stealing, prostitution, drug use, abuse of all kinds which should never happen to a child –represent common life experiences: ‘tens of millions’ of them and growing, even back in 2012, according to a UNICEF report (2012: 6).
nternational schools have, from their emergence post–World War 1, represented an elitist form of education. Initially aimed at serving the needs of internationally mobile professional families, their number – or at least the number of schools laying claim to being ‘international’ schools – has grown markedly since that time, driven by the attractiveness of an
Compare the opportunities on offer to such students, however, to those available to Daniel, born into a home on a garbage dump until, at age 5, his mother pushed him into a stranger’s
‘international education’ – often delivered in English – to local elites, who anticipate advantage arising in education and career terms from the education provided.
16 | International School | Autumn 2022
For one, the very definition of ‘street children’ is contested (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2012: 4–5), rendering identifying who exactly one may engage with in practice, and how, a challenge. Theirworld (2022) use the following definition of a street child from a group of non-governmental organisations at an Inter-NGO programme on street children and youth in
schools took place in a historical context of the large-scale conflict of two world wars, and brought with it aspirations of promoting international understanding which might better support sustained peace in the world. Such ideological aspirations have over time persisted and expanded, and become for some the key characteristic of international education. The International Baccalaureate (IB) was born in the 1960s with one explicit aim being to ‘foster international mindedness, an appreciation of multiple perspectives, promotion of intercultural understanding, and consideration of solutions to major global issues leading to world peace’ (Saxton and Hill, 2014: 44), and continues to require its member schools to promote a holistic approach to education that encourages awareness of the local community, while additionally imposing requirements relating to service and action on students participating in all of its programmes.
‘Any1983:girl or boy who has not reached adulthood, for whom the street (in the widest sense of the word, including unoccupied dwellings, wasteland, etc) has become his or her habitual abode F
And as can be seen on multiple school websites, schools do indeed carry out much worthwhile ‘service’ work of various kinds.
Geoffrey at Teacher Training College
And as can be seen on multiple school websites, schools do indeed carry out much worthwhile ‘service’ work of various kinds. What may be surprising, though – on the basis at least of personal experience, and unscientific internet surveys aimed at capturing the essence of how this particular issue may or may not be being considered – is how little focus appears to be given to the particular issue of street children: children the same age, and thus with whom our international school students should perhaps be able to empathise. But children who, to use a global metaphor, are polar opposites in terms of opportunity, and resultant life experience. And hence children who should be in the sights of international
And yet tens of millions of street children are living diametrically opposite lives all around the globe, with students in socio-economically elite international schools appearing to spend very little time engaging substantively with the issue, even in terms of developing greater awareness of it. There may be a number of entirely practical reasons for this.
Autumn 2022 | International School | 17
Perhaps the self-consciousness of privilege also acts nowadays as a significant driving force in sustaining an emphasis on this dimension of international schooling. Whatever those forces may be, however, few schools appending the term ‘international’ to their names would dream nowadays of creating a mission or vision which did not allude to aspirations of cultivating their students’ capacity to care about and take some responsibility for the world around them.
school students engaging in myriad ‘service’ activities, charged with ‘taking action’ to ‘make the world a better place’, and striving to become the Coca-Cola of the international schools world – a ‘global citizen’: a piece of a standout global brand everyone loves, without quite knowing what the central secret ingredient is.
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and understanding in the first place, as well as advice on what may work and what may not in terms of practical action – may lie in charities which work with street children. School–charity partnerships do of course represent well-trodden service paths already taken by many schools, and these allow schools, wherever they are, to engage in service learning at a global level through, for instance, raising money via organising events from the bake sale onwards. But other possibilities may exist, such as an entrepreneurial experience of running an eBay shop selling products created by some of those whom the charity endeavours to support; or helping create such products in conjunction with some of those individuals – an approach which would privilege agency on both sides. There are many possible ways in which meaningful action can be taken in this particular area, about which I hope soon to publish more specific and practical ideas. Other possible considerations, though, may exist in how international schools could engage in this area. Daniel, Michael and Geoffrey, mentioned above, all found themselves for various reasons living on the streets of Mombasa, Kenya, until taken into a foster home run by GapKenya, a charity operating to help street children in that city. Having a place to call home meant they could be found places in school; all three are currently enjoying notable academic success at their respective levels of education. Daniel has cited taking inspiration from a previous fellow foster home resident, Evans, who went on to graduate from university with a top class degree in mechanical engineering.Inverydirect contrast to our international school students, one crucial missing piece for street children is access to educational opportunity. Could that ever be provided by, for instance, the scholarships offered by some international schools? How might such children access a chance to try for such scholarships? What might be the potential consequences, positive and negative, of such openings?
all of this under an overarching aim of ‘empower[ing] young people with the values, knowledge and skills to create a better and more peaceful world’ (IB, 2019: 1). If we genuinely aspire to this, and wish to nurture ‘global citizens’ in our schools, the issue of tens of millions of children, the most vulnerable members of society, being trapped in such lives would appear to be one which international school students should not fail to engage with.
Other possible considerations, though, may exist in how international schools could engage in this area.
and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, directed, and supervised by responsible adults.’
The challenges of meeting complex and severe needs of such children in meaningful ways are undoubtedly ones which confound, even at government level or for non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as perhaps indicated by the fact that so many children across the world remain in such life situations. One may thus quite legitimately ask how in practice individual international schools might engage with this particular child population; one characterised, moreover, by frequent moving around, and a desire often not to be found for various reasons. Many schools are in any case geographically removed from areas where the issue of street children impinges. Meanwhile associated issues such as child trafficking, abuse and prostitution render this an area to be approached with extreme care by any schools that do consider having their students engage in some way.
None of this needs to close the door to meaningful engagement in this area. A first step in solving any global issue lies in gaining awareness and understanding of it. The IB recognises in its assertion, for example, that ‘Meaningful service requires understanding of an underlying issue’ (IB, 2017: 23); and defines ‘advocacy and educating one’s self and others’ (IB, 2017: 11) as forms of ‘action’ in its programmes:
But apart from learning about the issue, what else might students do? Engaging directly with street children may not be feasible in itself, and may not be the most prudent approach even where it is. Some problems which can arise from so-called ‘voluntourism’, as outlined for instance in this article from The Guardian –anddirectofmoredo-gooders-actually-do-harmthe-business-of-voluntourism-do-western-www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/13/https://–applywidelytowell-intentionedinitiativesvariouskindswhicharepredicatedonengagement.Onepossiblesourceofengagement–ofgainingthenecessaryawareness
‘Joff-ree’). At age 4 Geoffrey was passed over to an aunt when his mother and his drunken father separated, and his mother could no longer afford to look after him. He was able to attend school in Nairobi, until at age 13 he was required to work for the family in addition to attending school, which he loved and did not want to leave – but required him to rise at 6am each morning, after going to bed at 2am, in order to fit in both work and school. Suffering canings at school due to falling asleep in class, Geoffrey eventually had to leave because his school fees were not being paid; at which point he ran away to live on the streets of Mombasa. Through
References
• Gap Kenya (2022) https://gapkenya.com/
• Theirworld (2022) Street Children. Available from: https://theirworld.org/resources/street-children/ [Accessed 20 July 2022].
• International Baccalaureate (2019) What is an IB education? Geneva: International Baccalaureate.
• Saxton S E and Hill I (2014) The International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme: An International Gateway to Higher Education and Beyond. Higher Learning Research Communications. 4(3): 42. Available from: https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v4i3.123 [Accessed 19 July 2022].
At age 17 Geoffrey began to attend a day centre for street children set up by GapKenya; from there he was taken into the foster home, and was finally able, via one of the charity’s sponsors, to start high school: albeit placed in the first class with students several years younger than him. Geoffrey graduated from high school as a 22 year old, performing strongly in the national Kenyan High School (KCSE) exams.
✉ gillianashworth@gmail.com
GapKenya, which by way of transparency I should mention was founded and is run by my sister and brother-in-law, Gayle and Paul Woods, is beginning to provide evidence of what street children are actually capable of when such opportunities are provided. In many ways what they gain from current educational opportunities is no less than life itself – or a chance of a life that doesn’t comprise an endless spiral of the continuing homelessness, poverty, hunger, violence and high chances of an early death that continuing to live on the streets may bring. But surviving and surmounting the challenges of their lot in order to take such opportunities involves substantial qualities such children must call upon themselves. So perhaps finding that they can have considerable cognitive firepower when placed in a position to start demonstrating that should not be so surprising. Nor of course should the immense levels of resilience and resourcefulness needed to reach such a point. One might suggest they could be ideal candidates to help solve the global issue of street children in the future, if only their experience and qualities could be harnessed rather more towards such aims...
Geoffrey is currently more than halfway through a teacher training course. In his free time he teaches children at other centres run by GapKenya, motivated he says by the importance he perceives of educational opportunity being given to children. He has, I am told, recently created a homemade video about his experiences as a street child: but at the moment, he has no audience to show it to. One wonders what valuable things this trainee teacher, who well knows the value of educational opportunity, might have to teach many international school students around the world. ◆
This piece has zoomed in from the big picture to something of a smaller one; let me close by focusing in particular on the story of Geoffrey (pronounced
a charity worker in the city he was able to sit school exams which would enable him to attend high school, and on passing those sought out his father, whom he had not seen since the age of 4, to plead to be sent to high school. Instead Geoffrey was told he had to earn money, and was sent to work on a construction site: he again ran away to the streets.
Gillian Ashworth is now an author and consultant, following long-standing experience of working in a range of international schools across the world.
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• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2012) The State Of The World’s Children: Children in an Urban World. Available from: https://www.unicef.org/media/84881/file/SOWC-2012-executive-summary.pdf [Accessed 20 July 2022].
• United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2012) Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_HRD-9970-2016149 [Accessed 20 July 2022].
• International Baccalaureate (2017) MYP: From principles into practice. Geneva: International Baccalaureate.
Geoffrey teaching at a GapKenya centre.
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Angeline expanded on this, suggesting that, as well as reflecting society, schools have a powerful role in helping to shape what future society will look like. ‘When we inherit these institutions,’ she said, speaking directly to senior leaders, ‘we inherit the horror stories, the values and beliefs, and the cultural norms that exist. If we want to build on and make progress, we’re asking people to shift a previously accepted state of being … We need a commitment to transform our schools into becoming totally inclusive by having strategies to address the mindsets and behaviours, and also the systems and structures that exist within them.’
T
The panel involved Angeline Aow, Curriculum Coordinator at Berlin International School, Germany and international advisor for the Council of International Schools (CIS); Estelle Baroung Hughes, incoming secondary principal at the International School of Dakar and President of Africa Learning International; and Joel Llaban, the newly appointed Director of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice at International Schools Services. Our conversation centred around embedding DEIJ into all aspects of school life in order to support everyone within the school community.
Estelle called for action by the entire international school community: ‘International education was built in a colonial context; very elitist, and a very, very exclusive brand’, she said. ‘We made this happen, centring one culture
A Journey
The discussion began with a very powerful statement from Joel about inequity. ‘Harms live in nuance, heavily breathing in the interpersonal, while some are blatant, or baked into the institution, and so much of this violence has consequential trauma so deeply internalised and normalised that much of its working exists within us. We knowingly and unknowingly march along with it’, he said.
That’s Never Complete: The DEIJ Debate
By Nalini Cook
Angeline expanded on this, suggesting that, as well as reflecting society, schools have a powerful role in helping to shape what future society will look like.
Responsibilities for change
oday, DEIJ (diversity, equity, inclusion and justice) is on the radar of most if not all international schools. But though some schools and organisations are making strides, the majority of international schools are still at the very earliest stages of implementation, with many yet to make any authentic, long-lasting change. Even for those schools that are already taking a diverse and inclusive approach, it’s a journey that is never complete, and one that remains ever-evolving. This was the theme of a discussion I was honoured to moderate at the ISC Research Edruptors@ School virtual conference in June 2022.
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Autumn 2022 | International School | 23 Features
✉ Nalini.Cook@iscresearch.com
So it’s time to undo this work as intentionally as it was done. We need to undo it’, she urged.
I raised the issue of diversity and equity within international school recruitment. It’s one place where ISC Research sees shift beginning to occur, but at a pace that’s too slow and selective, and often blamedparentson
The panel agreed that international schools will have authentic and beneficial impact for all when they offer genuine representation of cultural and intellectual diversity within both their international learning environment and their international community. ◆
Nalini Cook is Head of Global Research at ISC Research, the recognised source of data and intelligence on the world’s Englishmedium international schools market.
Steps to change
Estelle meanwhile described how schools will create ‘cynics rather than changemakers’ if educators don’t all model change.
Estelle proposed a solution. ‘Recruit for potential and train each other. Diversifying your staff and leadership is not a threat to quality in your institution. Lack of diversity, on the other hand, leads to less quality – and research has supported that. Excellence looks different in different cultures and we need to learn from other cultures,’ she explained.
Angeline reminded us all – curriculum creators, authorisers, accrediting bodies, education suppliers, researchers and schools – that we must all work together to support change. ‘There needs to be more inter-agency collaboration and sponsorship of this work on a global scale’, she said.
and their desire for white, Western or native English speaking teachers. The panel was adamant that schools have to take accountability. ‘Parents rely on us to understand why this [diversity] matters for their children,’ said Joel. He spoke for all participants when he said ‘success, strengths, creativity, beauty, power, achievement, leadership, joy and genius can also emanate from the minds and bodies of black and brown women, neurodivergent and queer bodies. These don’t only live in white male bodies.’ He argued that change will not happen ‘until leaders reimagine this business model of what parents want, to what students truly need.’
• Integrating DEIJ strategies into units of enquiry across the curriculum at Berlin International School and being continually open to conversations that stretch the school community; and
and excluding others intentionally.
• Across the CIS community, centring the voices of those who have been historically marginalised in order to respond to needs and gaps in understanding and, as a result, creating learning opportunities for all.
Building diversity and excellence
Angeline added a really powerful point to this conversation about the confused belief, particularly of Asian parents, that to achieve educational and career success, their child has to adapt to a Western ideal and assimilate into the spaces that are going to help them get there. ‘It’s really important for us to facilitate those conversations with parents to shift beliefs so that we can start to dismantle this together’, she said.
Estelle meanwhile described how schools will create ‘cynics rather than changemakers’ if educators don’t all model change. ‘The approach of ‘do what I say and don’t do what I do’ isn’t working for children … Start by diversifying your brain and the children will see that and become more open-minded,’ she proposed.
• A listening initiative at International School Dakar that enables the voices of everyone to be heard, including all students and non-teaching staff, to ensure the school is not only student-centred but human-centred;
Committing to action is one thing; how to proceed is something quite different. Everyone agreed this is not an easy task but encouraged all international schools to move forward. Joel acknowledged the process toward change will begin with difficult conversations. ‘Do not skip the stage of interrogation of inequity in your own communities in aid of white comfort’, he said. ‘You have to ask the hard questions. We need to name the inequities for us to define equity.’
The panel shared several examples of good practice, including:
I
Experiences of a blended approach to extend active learning beyond the classroom
By Ian Tay Yee Ren
This does not mean, however, the obsolescence of the teacher. In fact, there is now an even more important role for a trained teacher in pedagogy and subject specialism – to both produce and facilitate knowledge. The blended learning course suggested here brings together the traditional lecture and content coverage into a video, which could then free up time for in-class, synchronous activities, and for other teaching and learning activities. Attention
has to be paid, however, when designing a blended learning lesson, to the concept of constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996).
Legend: T Online Videos T Synchronous (In class activity) KnowledgeApplicationEvaluationAnalysis Teaching Others Practice by Audio-VisualDiscussionDoingReadingLecture
For example, in all the videos that I have created, there are clear learning outcomes which align with the specifications, learning activities, and assessment of the students, which in most cases will take the form of an external public examination.
My experiences have shown that this approach adds value to students’ learning as students can work at their own pace and progress more effectively throughout the course, leading to less likelihood of falling behind. Such ‘e-tivities’ also provide learners with scaffolding and increase learner engagement both in and outside of classes (Salmon, 2013). This was really apparent as one of my students, when students’ views were invited after a pilot blended learning lesson on Fiscal Deficit and National Debt, commented that this approach enabled them to ‘get more engaged in class because [they] know what is going on’. In fact, there is clear evidence of involvement in active learning while watching the videos as one student commented that the video gave them a ‘better preview than doing by myself ... and not only getting information, but [I can] also think between each point’. Approximately 80% of students, when asked, found that the blended approach was more effective compared to only in-class activities;
still remember marking an exam response a few years back where a student simply memorized a pre-written essay but did not put any sense in it whatsoever with regards to the question. When asked, the student admitted that he actually did not understand what he was writing about. This is one of the many examples I’ve encountered that highlight the importance of memorization and rote learning no longer being the focus of pedagogy, especially in the current age of high-speed internet and mobile devices. Dates, definitions, and formulae, for example, can be accessed in less than 10 seconds with a simple Google search. In my case, I am slightly perpetuating this as I have also developed a tailor-made chatbot, the Taybot, to help with ensuring students in my Economics courses are accessing the appropriate definitions. What is needed now is for teaching and learning to focus more on higher-level skills, and teachers to change from getting students to simply memorize dates, formulae, and definitions to facilitating active learning through group discussions, experimentation, or other activities that will elucidate critical thinking. One way to do this is to use technology to develop flexible learning environments through a blended learning approach which could add value to student learning and develop active and independent learning.
To illustrate this, I find very useful the synergy between Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) and the Learning Pyramid (Nunn & Jones, 1972). For example, in the courses that I teach, the first two assessment objectives, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Application’ (which meet the ‘cognitive’ goal), may be easiest to attain and therefore could be included in a video recording. Less easy to achieve, however, is the growth of the affective domain, which in my course would be the last two assessment objectives: ‘Analysis’ and ‘Evaluation’. These two would require more in-class synchronous discussions, which promotes active learning. This is summarised in the two pyramids shown.
24 | International School | Autumn 2022 Leading, teaching and learning
Ian Tay Yee Ren teaches at an international school in Switzerland, after 15 years teaching pre-university level Economics around the world. He also works with Cambridge Assessment International Education as a paper setter and examiner. ✉ iantyr@yahoo.com
• Nunn N R & Jones C R (1972) The Learning Pyramid: potential through perception. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill.
Despite the low number who agreed with this statement, it is worth considering ways in which this could be changed, to ensure that students are not distracted by the infinite amount of functionalities and information that is available online: partly to ensure that students can navigate around online platforms for learning. As MacDonald (2008) notes, this includes consideration of the integration and alignment with course structure, student needs and the nature of the learning objectives.
and technology. International schools, specifically, can make more use of preexisting technology which could extend lessons beyond physical classrooms, which may in some cases be thousands of miles away from the student’s home, and help to develop the aforementioned higherlevel skills. This would also help students for whom the language of instruction is not their first language. It is also the case that a blended approach may provide increased value for money as students gain an education not only through synchronous face-to-face activities but also through asynchronous activities online. The blended learning approach could also develop students’ ‘21st century skills’, equipping them not only for study but also for future jobs and employability. For example, the blended learning approach has enabled me to include more group work in class where students work independently and in groups, a key skill valued by employers (Blowers, 2000).
Leading, teaching and learning
• YouTube (2022) Studio Analytics. Google.
• King A (1993) From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side. College Teaching. 41(1): 30–35.
References
• Graham C and Stein J (2014) Essentials of Blended Learning : a Standards-based Guide. London: Routledge.
I believe that a blended learning approach strikes a perfect balance between the purpose of education
• Bloom B S (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay.
• Atkinson R C and Shiffrin R M (1968) Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In: Spence K W and Spence J T (eds) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation. New York: Academic Press.[pp 89–195].
perhaps unsurprisingly, no one said that the videos alone worked best.
• MacDonald J (2008) Blended Learning and Online Tutoring : planning learner support and activity design. Aldershot: Gower.
All this while I simply acted as a ‘guide on the side’ after already being a ‘sage on the [online] stage’ (King, 1993). My main task going forward will be to gear even more of my teaching and learning activities through similar approaches towards developing more independent learners, while ensuring that technology can be used effectively by the students. ◆
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actually developing a more independent culture of learning. In addition, one of the drawbacks to this approach is the extent to which technology may distract from learning (Graham & Stein, 2014).
• Biggs J (1996) Enhancing Teaching Through Constructive Alignment. Higher Education. 32: 347-364.
In the pilot lesson, I trialed the blended learning approach with my students who all have English as an Additional Language (EAL). Having all three formats available to students – a video, a narrated PowerPoint, and a transcript – gave students the flexibility needed. As some students commented in feedback, the pre-class materials are ‘more flexible [as I] can pause at any time and [the] notes are clear’, enabling them to ‘pause the video and there are subtitles underneath’, and provided them with ‘the basic knowledge of the content, [which I] can go back and check if not sure at any time’. Having subtitles, in English and Malay, which I edited from the automatically generated subtitles on YouTube, also seemed to be useful as about 52% of viewers used subtitles while watching the video (YouTube Studio Analytics, 2022). I am hoping to be able to do the same in Mandarin Chinese and Russian, the two most commonly spoken languages in the schools in which I teach. With this approach, information could be processed more effectively in the working memory, transferred to the long-term memory which has infinite storage capacity, and easily retrieved (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). I found it such a morale-booster when 100% of the students in the pilot said that they would like more of such blendedHowever,classes.when asked what could be done to enable them to learn more from the class, some students suggested something that I’ve already put online, which was slightly disappointing. Again, I believe that this is down to students developing good habits to remember to use out-of-class resources, and to them
In a different but similar survey, 3 of my students agreed with the statement that ‘technology is a distraction’, 8 disagreed, while 6 neither agreed nor disagreed.
• Blowers D F (2000) Canada: The Story of Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition. In: N Evans (ed) Experiential Learning Around the World: Employability and the Global Economy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publications [pp 83–102].
• Salmon G (2002) E-tivities: the key to active online learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Ana Teresa Risi de Carrillo
learningBy
Ingredients for learning Care and Trust
me to learn from students, as well as to know if I have really shaped and had a positive effect on a student’s life at school. The most rewarding moment of my teaching career was during my tenth year of teaching. I took ownership of a bullying situation, and followed it up closely, documenting many moments that happened in and out of school. I really cared about the student being bullied. He knew that he counted on me at any moment during the day and trusted that the stories he shared with me about the abusive behavior he encountered with the aggressor were going to be communicated appropriately to decision-making directors. At the end, he was able to successfully graduate from school.
D
uring my 35 years of teaching, I have worked in 7 different schools: 3 in Africa, 3 in South and Central America, and I am currently in Switzerland. Teaching is my passion. Throughout my career I have liked to challenge myself and invest my energy in students who are not motivated in my lessons, or who fall behind and produce very little work in class. My Masters in Education dissertation was about motivating students to achieve better scores in Science, and results showed a significant difference in their learning. If I need to think of two characteristics that I would like to analyze in depth within my profession and present with my students, I would select: care and trust.
In this article I will share a few examples from my teaching career, as they have helped
26 | International School | Autumn 2022 Leading, teaching and
Furthermore, I approach them in class to check on their individual progress and understanding, and with a positive tone of voice, sometimes with color markers in my hands to pay individualized attention to their needs. I always tell them that learning Chemistry is like learning a language, and that it is alright to be behind, but aiming to get there at a certain point. In return, they would be grateful for the care shown to them, and they will trust the teacher, who is not criticizing their poor work or poor academic performance. They are given chances, and soon they will start to invest their energy and effort in class.
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I had a student once with ADHD, labeled as teachers facing difficulties with teaching him. Well, I took him as a challenge, and my effort paid off! I was aware of this because during a teacher’s day, he told me: ‘Miss, I never do this for any teacher. I have prepared a mix of marshmallows and cocoa and left it on your desk’. I found a note too, thanking me for being his best teacher and saying how special I was for him. I cared about him, and I trusted that if I nurtured that relationship with him, in return, he would do the same towards me. Moments like this fill my heart with joy and satisfaction. In discussing the importance of care and trust, I would
As teachers, we often attend courses on education, as well as participating in workshops on the latest research related to our field of work and to technology. But, when do we learn how to motivate students to get engaged in their learning in our classes? Just recently, I had a student in my Chemistry class who was not completing classwork and homework. I kept on inviting her to come and work with me on her missed assignments, but to no avail. She seemed quite disengaged in my lessons, and not motivated. I continued to show interest in her learning. So, without giving up, I approached her as she was leaving one of my lessons, and shared the three assignments that she was missing. Since we both had a free period coming, she was willing to stay with me. I guided her through the work she needed to do. I showed her what to do, giving her a specific example on how to complete the work. This is when she finally shared with me that
I met him two years later, when he shared that without my intervention he would have killed himself. I am sure that trust and care were the ingredients in this happy ending: he knew that I really cared about his wellbeing and that he had every right to be happy and to enjoy school. I invested time and effort into talking to him and encouraging him to believe that the weak person was the aggressor and not him. I constantly reminded him how valuable a person he was and how loved he was by his family.
I like to invest time and effort on students who are negatively ‘labeled’ by the school as being ‘different’ or challenging. How would any of us, as adults, feel if a lesson is not engaging or has no meaning to us? How many times would we text or do something else when we attend a webinar or g-meet where we are not learning much? Let’s reflect: how should we deal with this? We should care about involving such students in meaningful activities, approaching them more often, and showing them that we care about them and their learning. I usually give such students things to do during the lessons. An example of my interactive teaching involves selecting three students to participate as role models in displacement reactions. They feel valued and respond positively to these activities. They can also help to set up experiments in my Chemistry lessons and they even remind other students to clean up after they are done.
like to mention a school Warden I really respected and admired for how he ran the school, and how he appreciated teachers’ work. He was Mr William Baker, and he was an exemplary Warden. Of course he was demanding as well. He would repeatedly share that if he hired a teacher, that person would receive from him his full trust, knowing that that teacher would do their work right. He put his teachers above all circumstances and cared about us. He appreciated what we did in our classes, and how we educated and nurtured our students. At the end of every bimester, he invited us to his home to celebrate our work: a moment when we felt cared for and rewarded as he approached each of us sharing his appreciation for what we did at school.
They can also help to set up experiments in my Chemistry lessons and they even remind other students to clean up after they are done.
learning
most of my energy with. These students usually begin to distract others and interrupt the lesson. Punishment works temporarily, but I don’t recommend this route, as the gap on nonlearned content will grow more and more. The approach that is really useful is to prepare very engaging lessons and handson activities. In Chemistry, this means to run investigations, when possible student-led investigations, giving clear instructions of procedures to follow, reinforcing safety as a priority. From the data collected and observations, students will then infer and reach conclusions that will connect to the learning objectives. Again, care and trust are important ingredients to build a healthy relationship with them.
In all these examples, and in my experience more widely, it is these two characteristics – trust and care – that I believe are central to the positive relationship between student and teacher that is so important in supporting student learning and wellbeing.
Ana Teresa Risi de Carrillo has worked at international schools in Madagascar, Ethiopia, Malawi, Guatemala and Perú, teaching High School Math or High School Sciences. She is currently teaching Chemistry at Institut auf dem Rosenberg, at St Gallen, Switzerland. ✉ anatererisi@gmail.com
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When student-led investigations like this are planned, what I have observed in my classroom is that most students will be involved in running them, but some will fail to complete the tasks related to their observations and findings. This moment is when close supervision and individualized support is important, to show them once more the caring relationship towards their learning, and that the work is doable, not difficult, but feasible. A few weeks ago, I focused on helping one of my students to care about his learning. He came twice to work with me before his bimester exam. I knew he would improve, as before he left for his holidays, he asked me to write an email about his test score. He trusted me, as I promised that I would do so, and he thanked me in an email: ‘I’m quite happy with my score and aim to do even better next semester’.
For me it is important to pay special attention to my students so that they reach their potential, and if they need time to do so, I am flexible.
As she walked into my next class, she handed in her work and her facial expression showed pride. The work showed that she had put effort and dedication into completing it. I told her that I was so proud of her work, and recommended that she not miss any opportunities
Leading, teaching and
to ask for help during a lesson. I also reminded her about the importance of handing in work on time and of being responsible. I am glad to have built a caring and trusting relationship with her. Her results after the creation of this new bond showed progress, dedication andForunderstanding.meitisimportant to pay special attention to my students so that they reach their potential, and if they need time to do so, I am flexible. Some students need that push, that guidance and care. Once they create that connection and see that I care about them, things change. Students need to feel that I am not there only to deliver a lesson, without caring about the outcomes. I am really there for them, building a network of care, trust and knowledge. Once this is accomplished it is magical; students who are labeled by school as ‘different’ come to class on time, providing help with setting up for investigations, thank me for the lesson, and refer to me with respect.
she understood the task she had to complete. The second short assignment was about matching vocabulary with definitions. I had enough time to reinforce the learning of the different kinds of intermolecular forces when she had questions. This was the start of our new caring and trusting working relationship.
Some students who join the class already giving up, feeling that Chemistry is difficult and impossible to learn, are the ones I need to pay closer attention to, and invest
Students care about their grades, as they know that they will be evaluated when they go to college. I do penalize late work, but an 80% for a late assignment is much better than a zero if not handed in at all. When students hand in late work, I make sure that they understand the work, so I ask questions and reinforce the weaknesses. The next case scenario, once they get this support, is to continue to follow them closely, and make sure that their assignments are not delayed, to show them to comply with the due dates and be responsible. The network of trust and care has been established, so they should respond to this demand in a positive way.
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Autumn 2022 | International School | 29 Leading, teaching and learning EMPOWERING STUDENTS TO ACCESS EXAM QUESTIONS INDEPENDENTLY JCQ approved reading“Theysupportlikedbeing
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EntrepreneurshipSocialOğuz
W
In Youth Social Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda, the UN (2020) defines social entrepreneurship as ‘entrepreneurial activity undertaken
Opening of Wonderland Mini-food Forest and Permaculture Garden
equipped to respond to the challenges we are leaving to their generation.
You can nominate a young changemaker under the age of 20 to join this program
pace. Governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, universities and schools have a collective responsibility to collaborate and put in place agile innovative cultures and systems to raise young changemakers who are
30 | International School | Autumn 2022
e live in a time where there is an urgent need to redefine our global understanding of the self, others, nature, and socioeconomic systems in a way we may never have been challenged to do before. We are faced with potentially global catastrophes such as the climate crisis, poverty, inequality, political instability, scarcity of resources, and disaster displacement. Unfortunately, we have failed to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at the intended
By Aybike
A Tool to Empower Young People to Create A Thriving World?
From the Schools
Ashoka, an NGO established in 1980 by Bill Drayton in the US, views social entrepreneurship as a changemaking movement and an instrument to create a sustainable world. Empowering organizations and individuals by creating an ecosystem of changemaking where they share knowledge, mindsets, and skills to recognize and solve problems they see around them connects with the idea that everyone can become a changemaker. When changemakers/social entrepreneurs solve a problem, they also introduce new ways of thinking about the problem and solutions to the ecosystems in which they operate. They do not only offer solutions to specific problems, but also potentially ‘revolutionize the industries’ they are a part of, as Bill Drayton puts it. In this sense, social entrepreneurship is very much shaped by Systems Thinking. In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge (1999) explores Systems Thinking as an attempt to understand how interconnected systems come about that produce results nobody intends
While it is tempting to philosophize on big ideas related to innovation, the urgency of the crisis the world is in requires these concepts to be accessible and available for use by educational institutions. We might be more supported in this massive task than we think. If you are an educational leader designing the next strategic planning cycle for your organization, the work of Senge et al on Learning Schools (2012) and Otto Scharmer’s Theory U books (2018) might be great resources for co-creating systems with senior leadership teams, teachers and students sitting at the same decision-making tables. One challenge educational leadership teams face is to shift the natural tendency to design ‘for’ teachers and students to designing ‘with’ teachers and students. Ashoka also opens space for young changemakers to co-lead their ‘Everyone a Changemaker’ movement with their Ashoka Young Changemakers program tacklingfromhelpthischangemakerchangemakers).en-gb/programme/ashoka-young-(ashoka.org/Youcannominateayoungundertheageof20tojoinprogram.Opportunitiessuchastheseourstudentstoconnectwithpeersdifferentcontextsandjoinforcesinsimilarproblems.
F From the Schools
Robert College, founded in 1863 and located in Istanbul, Turkey, is the oldest continually running American school outside the US. The rigorous curricular and co-curricular programs aim to raise students with the knowledge and skills to serve as leaders and contributing citizens nationally and internationally.
2. Systems Thinking
with the explicit objective of addressing societal problems, which was born out of the cooperative movement that began in nineteenth century Europe’.
Autumn 2022 | International School | 31
The Social Entrepreneurship Club was founded in 2013 by five students and me as their advisor. We built our foundational understanding of social entrepreneurship by reading articles written in English for university students as these were the only available resources at the time. We have also worked closely with the Ashoka Turkey office to get together with social entrepreneurs from Turkey, who were generous enough to come to our school and share their stories with our community. Meeting social entrepreneurs from Turkey was particularly powerful for our students in enabling them to see that what we read in theory was applicable at the local and the global level. Although it was very helpful to understand how social entrepreneurship works, teaching it to high school students required a
to produce. A Learning Organization, according to Dr Senge, is based around five disciplines:
An Example of Implementation at a High School: A Student Movement From a Club to an Office
3. Mental Models
4. Teams Learning
Ashoka, an NGO established in 1980 by Bill Drayton in the US, views social entrepreneurship as a changemaking movement and an instrument to create a sustainable world
5. Personal Mastery
1. Building a Shared Vision
32 | International School | Autumn 2022
The school administration noticed the club’s impact and in 2019 created the Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Creativity Office. This can be considered as an example of designing with the students instead of for the students. What students identified as a need and co-led as a movement was acknowledged and integrated into the organizational structure. Robert College Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity Office (RC SEIC) used the know-how created by the club to cocreate a platform model by organizing sense-making and design sessions with the students and educational leaders at school. The office currently also has a physical space named The Rabbit Hole. The name was given as a reference to Alice in Wonderland and to the Matrix trilogy. We hope that teachers and students entering into this space connect with different possibilities for themselves and others.
RC SEIC is a student-facilitated social impact–driven innovation platform to design, experience, and develop
1. Self Discovery: Every event and program designed and facilitated by the office is seen as an opportunity for students to get to know themselves and their interests. We practice Non-Violent Communication (NVC) principles as designed by Marshall Rosenberg, as well as organizing regular individual and collective reflection sessions to make sense of our experiences.
The school administration noticed the club's impact and in 2019 created the Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity Office.
From the Schools
How does the andEntrepreneurship,SocialInnovation,CreativityOfficeWork?
clear framework. Using Design Thinking by Tim Brown and Dave Kelly made it possible for us to design workshops aimed at identifying problems around personal experiences linked to UN SDGs, and to develop projects focusing on a solution model. Once we created this program, we tested it with our club members and once we started seeing results, such as projects being presented in competitions organized by innovation centers and co-working spaces, we collaborated with public schools and started visiting different cities in Turkey to offer peer teaching-learning workshops for teachers and students to start social entrepreneurial movements at their schools. This interaction helped us to become aware of the need to create an opportunity to bring together social entrepreneurs with high school students. In 2016 we organized our first social entrepreneurship conference for high school students in Turkey, which has become an annual event ever since. This learning journey contributed to the process of co-authoring a Guidebook on Social Entrepreneurship for University Students with Ashoka Turkey.
2. Community Building: Our community building events aim to flatten learning hierarchies and open space for everyone at school to learn from and with each other. Every Wednesday, our event designer and facilitator student team organize ‘On Wednesdays We Wonder Talks’ for a community member to share one of their learning interests with the community. This helps us to see the learning diversity in our community and offer possible collaboration opportunities for the future, where relevant.
transdisciplinary, collaborative, diverse learning and creative responses to local and global issues as outlined in UN SDGs. SEIC achieves this via initiatives focusing on self-discovery, community building, capacity building, and sharing individual and organizational learning with the local and global ecosystem:
3. Capacity Building: Our capacity building programs and events aim to increase school community and ecosystem knowledge on UN SDGs, social entrepreneurship, design thinking,
• Senge P (1999) The Fifth Discipline. London: Nicholas Brealey.
From the Schools
• Ashoka Türkiye (2022) Gençler için Ashoka – Ashoka Türkiye. Available from: https://ashokaturkiye.org/genclericin-ashoka/ [Accessed 3 July 2022].
Aybike Oğuz is Head of Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Creativity at Robert College, Istanbul, Turkey ✉ ayoguz@robcol.k12.tr
4. Sharing Individual and Organizational Learning: Every experience circle closes with a reflection cycle on what we learn. These insights are shared with our author team who write articles on our organizational learning in our Medium account. We also share our annual learning harvest in our school magazine, RC Young Changemakers. Schools around the world have a key role to play in designing ecosystems for young people to co-create with all stakeholders
• Senge P, Cambron-McCabe N and Lucas T (2012) Schools that Learn. New York: Random House US.
NVC practices, and facilitation. Each year, we focus on one SDG and our student program design team designs a program for the students to develop projects using the Design Thinking framework. This 8-month program starts with an Insight Day, where we bring together academicians, social entrepreneurs, and practitioners to talk about one aspect of the target SDG for our school community to gain an interdisciplinary insight into the SDG. It continues with a selection process to decide on which student teams will participate in the program. After the selection process, the teams start participating in design thinking workshops once a month, and the program ends with a presentation to the community for feedback purposes and to the jury members for funding and support purposes. We work on capacity building also through our annual conferences on social entrepreneurship.
• Ashoka (2022) Ashoka – Everyone a Changemaker. Available from: https://www.ashoka.org/en-gb/country/ united-kingdom [Accessed 3 July 2022].
• United Nations (2022) Youth Social Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda. Available from: https://www.un.org/development/desa/youth/world-youth-report/wyr2020.html [Accessed 3 July 2022].
who have a say in the design of the education they receive. Our local efforts combined as a global effort to create a culture of collaboration and co-creation will empower young people to create a thriving world. ◆
• Scharmer C O (2018) The Essentials of Theory U. Oakland: Berret-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
References
Autumn 2022 | International School | 33
Features
• Wellbeing targets or priorities for your school
• Individual: intensive support for students who need specialised care. This process is cyclical, it does not stop. We can use it to guide strategic, curriculum, funding and pastoral care decisions. Wellbeing is not stagnant so our initiatives and processes should match this dynamic. At the time of change we live in, student wellbeing strategies need to be constantly evolving. We monitor, measure, manage then use that data to change or repeat how we monitor, measure and manage.
A step-by-step process to data-driven student wellbeingPsychologistFeature
Y
The short answer is: Data
• Informed consent and confidentiality of Wheninformation.looking at what to monitor, consider:
This is the most powerful part of the process as it enables strategic choices for targeted student support interventions at each level:
Step 1: Monitor
• What will your students benefit from.
Advertising
• Benchmarking: usually run 1-2 times a year, these can help see a school’s performance against a national or local average. Timing here is key to accuracy (e.g. stress levels may be higher prior to exams).
• School-wide: time and cost effective, can allow change in the school climate
• Cohorts: strength or skill-building interventions can be deployed to help specific groups identified through monitoring
Get in touch at komodowellbeing.com to find out how Komodo can help your school! References and full article available online at bit.ly/3PHEaiA
Step 3: Manage
outh mental health has been undergoing a rapid decline over the past two decades with about 50% of all lifetime mental health disorders appearing before age 14. From a developmental standpoint, adolescence is a tough stage due to a multitude of factors: the physical and cognitive maturation, the constant swaying between needing support and striving for independence, more complex social interactions and perception of self. Besides, teenagers are currently navigating a world of uncertainty where global warming, pandemic and international conflicts are sweeping certainty off our feet. In the aftermath of COVID-19, a global movement of increased awareness around wellbeing has arisen. Schooling associations are mandating that schools adhere to safeguarding and child protection protocols. Accreditation bodies are relying on international schools to produce evidence of their student wellbeing. This demand for evidence is a first step in the right direction but where to start? How to assess and ensure effectiveness?
• Online or on paper: online delivery is easy to use, meets students on a platform they are familiar with and provides staff with reliable data, automated results and analysis. Paper surveys are simple to complete but are costly and time-consuming to manually collate and analyse
• Embed monitoring processes in the school day not as a stand-alone event
By monitoring student wellbeing regularly, systematically and over an extended period of time, schools can ensure their wellbeing strategy is driven from a student-first perspective. When looking at how to monitor wellbeing, schools need to decide on:
Schools can look at two main types of data collection depending on the desired results:
Ilia Lindsay from Komodo explores
• Self-report or teacher report: self-report methods enable a better understanding of the internal world of the individual
The process of collecting, monitoring and measuring data is the only surefire way to ensure that student wellbeing strategies are evidence-based. However, measuring and managing student wellbeing can seem a daunting task. The reality is, this can be broken into a three-step process that continues to move in a cyclic nature.
Ilia Lindsay is a Registered Psychologist specialised in Child and Family Psychology. She has spent her career working in child and adolescent mental health services both in hospital and community settings. She is now Psychology Lead at Komodo where she supports schools in their data-driven wellbeing solutions.
• Regular or ‘pulse’ surveys: these allow to discover regular patterns and trends over time so schools can stay on the pulse of students, intervene early and prevent arising situations. Consider best cadence and frequency to avoid survey fatigue and student disengagement
Step 2: Measure
• What does research say about adolescence and wellbeing trends
how data can hold the key to your school’s approach to student wellbeing.
Examples:
• Policies setting forth fundamental school operating procedures (with regard to budgets, facility management, crisis management)
The first step was to create a structure through which this work would be possible. Drawing from literature and examples from other organizations, the Board developed a shared understanding of the purpose of Board policies, recognising that the Board policies should be comprehensive but broad enough to allow administrators to exercise professional expertise and act nimbly as conditions change. Clear boundaries were developed for Board policies compared with administrative policies, as shown in this table.
• Policies setting forth standards of Board and administration conduct
Board policies
The school’s most fundamental and foundational policies and any additional policies established by the Board to guide the school’s administration.
F
Autumn 2022 | International School | 35
Examples:
• Information and guidelines for student conduct typically covered in a Student Handbook
rankfurt International School (FIS) is one of the oldest international schools in Europe, established in 1961 to meet the need for an English-speaking education in the Frankfurt area. As a founding International Baccalaureate (IB) school, FIS entered 21 students in the first 1971 IB examinations and still delivers the IB Diploma Programme today.
This was a daunting prospect. How do you rewrite policy when each word of every policy has had full Board approval? How can you unpick an interconnected document which has been built over decades? How can you streamline without losing vital oversight and direction? Not to mention that most Board members
How Frankfurt International School streamlined its Board policies
FIS is governed through policy. Policies are reviewed by the Board’s Policy Committee as part of a structured review cycle. A function of the school’s long history has been the growth of the Board policy manual over time, which by 2021 was something of a behemoth. About one year ago, the Board came to the realization that a major project was needed: to streamline the manual.
Any policy, guideline, regulation, or handbook authorized by the Head of School in furtherance of the duties assigned to the Head of School by the Board – namely, to administer and manage the school and execute Board decisions.
By Leila Holmyard and Kate Sawyer
• Policies governing relations between the administration and personnel, such as those setting professional standards of conduct that implicate retention decisions and disciplinary actions
From the Schools
have professional careers in addition to their Board role, and rewriting the policy manual was going to be a huge undertaking.
• Policies to fundamentalprotectindividual rights to privacy, autonomy
This work could not have been possible without a high level of trust and transparency between Board members and administrators
FIS expanded to two campuses in 1992 and now serves 1800 students from ages 3-18. The FIS Board of Trustees has played a pivotal steering role in the growth and development of the school throughout its history, providing strategic oversight of considerable projects such as the movement of the Primary School to a new site in 2001, the construction of a new Upper School building in 2006, and the recent opening of the ACE (Arts, Creativity, and Education) Center at the Wiesbaden campus in 2021.
• Policies that describe the school’s mission, beliefs and general goals
• Policies governing the dayto-day functioning of the school
• Policies involving the Board and school governance
• Policies implementing Board policies and responsibilitiesdesignating
• Policies outlining administrative procedures and timing for administration actions
The Board consists of 12 members: six current FIS parents, elected by the parent community; five members from the wider community who are appointed by the Board; and one elected faculty/staff member. This structure allows for direct representation and for the Board to appoint individuals to provide expertise in areas such as finance and organizational development.
Rewriting the Manual
Administrative policies
• Standard-setting policies that set the tone, vision and priorities of the school, such as guidelines for community interaction and academic honesty
36 | International School | Autumn 2022
Leila Holmyard is Head of Strategic Projects at Frankfurt International School, Germany ✉ LeilaHolmyard@gmail.com
Kate Sawyer was a Frankfurt International School Board Member from 2019 to 2022
Some policies were split to include a broad, directional Board policy and a separate administrative policy outlining the administrative procedures necessary to implement the Board policy. For example, in addressing the school’s tuition reduction program, the Board policy describes the broad purpose and scope of the program, while the administrative policy addresses the procedures for applying and awarding applicants. For policies reviewed less frequently, the editorial process provided a unique opportunity to rapidly update language to better fit the school today. One example, written with additional input from the school counselors, was a shift in the educational goals of the school from students achieving ‘admission to competitive universities’ to achieving 'their personal goals for the next stage in their education’.
What comes next? The 2022-23 academic year will see the FIS administration begin the process of reviewing the newly-defined administrative policies, ensuring that no guiding documents are lost through the streamlining process. The new, shorter Board policy manual means there are fewer policies for the Board to review annually, creating more time for deeper discussions and ensuring that the Board’s focus can remain at the strategic, valuessetting level of the school, steering FIS into its next era of growth and development.
◆
The next step required a leap of faith. One Board member, Kate Sawyer, offered to lead the editorial process and, over the course of eight months, she reworked the Board policy manual into a new streamlined structure, highlighting areas for discussion by the Policy committee and the full Board at interim meetings. The editorial process required assessing which policies should remain Board policies and subject to Board approval, vs which policies should become part of a new administrative policy manual solely under the purview of the administration.
Involving key stakeholders was a fundamental part of the process
From the Schools
Involving key stakeholders was a fundamental part of the process. The school’s Sustainability Council was involved in writing a new Board policy on Sustainability, and the committee for Equity, Justice and Belonging (EJB) gave input into a new Board policy for EJB. The writing of new policy was expedited as a result of this project, meaning the new Board policy manual is reflective of the school’s current direction and priorities without being weighed down by the language of the past.
This work could not have been possible without a high level of trust and transparency between Board members and administrators, ensuring that Ms Sawyer had the linguistic flexibility to substantially streamline the policies. This was achieved through clear tracking of changes, open discussion and frequent opportunities for feedback. When the full draft of the new Board policy manual went to the Board for approval in May 2022, Board members had already read and discussed every section, ensuring smooth approval and adoption.
Autumn 2022 | International School | 37 EventOpenDigitalPersonalisedProspectusEventsFollowUp Staff Recruitment Agent tool Make your school personal Personalised school admissions and recruitment “This is the future of school admissions.” UK boarding school Register to watch a demo kampus24.com
(in stark contrast to perception in the UK: the Tes Wellbeing Report 2022: International noted that only 18% of responding teachers in the UK indicated that their workload was manageable); 62% feel they achieve a good work/life balance; 69% feel valued and respected as a teacher in the international sector; 72% are satisfied with their job. Looking at the responses from incoming teachers only, to allow for a direct comparison with an earlier survey in 2020, the percentage
TeacherRogers Wellbeing and Perceptions of International School Experience
From the Associations
38 | International School | Autumn 2022
here can be no doubt that the recent pandemic has had an impact on the wellbeing, workload, and job satisfaction of teachers. This is clear from the findings of recent COBIS research on Teacher Supply in British International Schools, delivered in partnership with ISC Research, based on around 1,600 responses from senior leaders and teachers. But the same research also shows that the pandemic has not had as significant an impact on teachers’ plans within the sector as one might imagine. Alongside their wider school communities, teachers in the international school sector have demonstrated tremendous resilience, and continue to have positive perceptions of their experience in the sector.
Teachers who contributed to the COBIS research reported that the
... despite the challenges of the past two years, overall, teachers continue to have a relatively positive perception of their workload and job satisfaction
pandemic had had a moderate or significant negative impact on workload (73%), wellbeing (72%), work/life balance (67%), and job satisfaction (65%). Similarly, 94% of senior leaders reported a significant or moderate negative impact on teacher wellbeing, while 88% reported a significant or moderate negative impact on teacher workload as a result of Covid-19, school closures, and the delivery of remote or blended learning.
Yet despite the challenges of the past two years, overall, teachers continue to have a relatively positive perception of their workload and job satisfaction, and feel valued and respected in their profession in the international school sector. 63% feel they have an acceptable workload
By Fiona
T
to report a comparatively positive perception of workload, job satisfaction, and feeling valued/respected in their profession. It continues to be the case that the opportunity to work and learn in an international context can make teaching a highly attractive career, support teacher retention, and enable teachers to develop their practice and gain valuable skills and experience. Teachers are positive about their international school experience, with 83% of teachers reporting that they are happy or very happy with their experience. Teacher wellbeing must continue to be a priority for schools to address the challenge of teacher supply, to persist.perceptionstheseandandrecruitmentsupportretention,toensurepositive
Despite the impact of the pandemic, international school teachers continue
Dr Fiona Rogers is Deputy CEO, and Director of Professional Development and Research, for the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). ✉ fiona.rogers@cobis.org.uk
of teachers reporting a good work/life balance has decreased by 10%, and the percentage reporting that they feel valued and respected has decreased by 13%, though perceptions of workload and job satisfaction have remained constant. There are some regional variations in this data. A higher proportion of respondents from the Americas and Africa felt they had an acceptable workload; the proportion of respondents from the Middle East and Americas feeling they achieve a good work/life balance was above average (compared with responses from teachers across all regions); respondents from Europe were least likely to feel they achieve a good work/life balance, and had the lowest level of agreement with the statement about job satisfaction.
Teachers choose to work internationally for a number of reasons; the main motivations continue to be travel and cultural exploration, and enjoyment and challenge. When asked if Covid-19 had changed their plans in the international school sector, the majority of teachers (61%) indicated that it had not. A relatively small proportion of teachers reported now planning to stay in their current location longer than originally planned, planning to move closer to home, or planning to move to a different location. Regionally, the percentage of teachers planning to stay in their current location longer than originally planned is highest in the Middle East, while Asia has the highest proportion of teachers planning to move to a different location. Teachers in Europe are most likely to say that the pandemic has not changed their plans in the international school sector (63%), while teachers in Asia are most likely to have changed their plans as a result of Covid-19 (45%).
◆ From the Associations
Teacher recruitment and retention continues to present a challenge for the international school sector: 91% of British international school leaders find recruiting quality teachers ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ challenging, and more than a third of senior leaders reported that the number of teachers leaving at the end of the last academic year (2020/21) was higher than the previous year and higher than at the end of 2018/19 (pre-Covid-19). Schools are addressing this issue in a variety of ways, including many schools reporting enhanced staff wellbeing initiatives as part of their work to improve retention.
The UK is still trying to shake off former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s well-worn comment made just before the Beatles became globally famous in 1962, that Britain had lost an empire and failed to find a role. A number of British post-war Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers have spoken at some point about Britain ‘punching above its weight’ on the world stage, making a positive impact. Sir Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday celebrations this year and the Pyramid Stage set at the Glastonbury Festival show the affection the world still
Personal Reflection
40 | International School | Autumn 2022
BritainGlobalDefiningin the 2020s?
It is Councilofhere.alreadyInpraisetheBritish
T
Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone – Joni Mitchell ‘Big Yellow Taxi’
Part of the debate in post-Brexit and now postJohnson UK in 2022 is about the role Britain should play in the world. Education is one of the public policy areas, including educational organisations such as COBIS, Cambridge Assessment, Universities UK and higher
By Rob Ford
education more widely, that the rest of the globe still looks to with some admiration because of the positive impact made internationally. It is also something for the UK to be proud of, not least because of the valuable and ongoing contributions made to furthering international education, curriculum, qualifications and supporting networks of teachers and school leaders, developing students around the world.
here are a few well-worn phrases, overused in education, that exist in staff workrooms and faculty lounges around the world such as ‘don’t smile until Christmas’ or ‘when is the vacation?’. Perhaps the most overused one is ‘let’s not reinvent the wheel’, especially when educators are at the whim of capricious policy-makers looking to make their mark in the short term and exacerbated when there is high turnover, such as in the case of England this summer, when three consecutive Secretaries of State for Education were appointed in as many days.
has for Britain’s phenomenal arts and creativity sectors, as well as for the longevity of some of its musical icons. ‘Global Britain’ isn’t only post-Brexit marketing spin. The positive reactions to that famous Peruvian immigrant and UK icon Paddington Bear, having tea with a very royal icon, Queen Elizabeth II during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, demonstrated the affection for a side of Britain still admired in the world.
As recently as just over a decade ago, education was celebrated with the British Council’s brilliant International School Award (ISA), through which classrooms were connected from Bristol to Bandung with Connecting Classrooms projects, Comenius awards, Erasmus programmes, TIPD (Teachers International Professional Development), Asian Dialogues, European Language assistants, Arabic and Chinese language programmes F
Many times over the years I have walked past a sign at the British Council’s now former HQ in Spring Gardens, London which states ‘Connecting the UK to the World. Changing lives through education’. I have lived this and seen it so many times with students and colleagues
Personal Reflection
from my own schools, and those I have the privilege to work with around the globe as a British Council Schools’ Ambassador. We have shared ideas and projects, created unique collaborations, and created friendships and partnerships, that have made ordinary schools into something extraordinary.
We certainly don’t need to reinvent the wheel either where ‘Global Britain’ is concerned when it comes to international education. Along with the BBC World Service, the British Council is one of the most wellknown and well-respected of UK institutions that not only flies the flag for Britain culturally and educationally
Autumn 2022 | International School | 41
but is one of the most admired British organisations globally, seen as a model for the projection of so-called ‘soft power’ around the world. It is also part of the response to Dean Acheson’s statement from 1962. America House, The Goethe Institute, Alliance Française, Dante Alighieri Society, Confucius Institute, Cervantes Institute; all follow or have adapted the British Council model from when it was first set up in 1934 to the present day, with its nearly nine decades experience of connecting classrooms and cultures around the world. I will declare an interest at this point. I have had the enormous honour and privilege of working with the British Council, with remarkable and dedicated British Council people, for nearly 20 years in international education. The British Council is not perfect; with over 100 offices globally, and its one billion GBP budget, there is a very business-oriented commercial aspect to English language courses and qualifications. It has diversified into MOOCs with Future Learn, and its CPD through the Education Exchange webinars is another facet of its adaptability. Its wide-ranging and long-standing work with schools across the UK and abroad suffered a heavy blow when in December 2020 the UK pulled out of Erasmus and the schools-based eTwinning networks. This was compounded by the government in 2021 not re-appointing the British Council to oversee its Turing scheme replacement. A recent Daily Mail article accused the British Council of the neo-right 2020s sin of ‘wokeism’ as an organisation linked to its liberal, humanitarian and global values, and a recent industrial dispute over restructuring has also had a damaging impact on this global educational giant.
I will declare an interest at this point. I have had the enormous honour and privilege of working with the British Council, with remarkable and dedicated British Council people, for nearly 20 years in international education.
TheGlobalwww.futurelearn.com/partners/british-councilFutureeTwinning:Erasmus:education/schools/education-exchange-digital-eventsEducationreports/language-trends-2022www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/research-Britishwww.britishcouncil.org/education/schoolsSchools:CouncilLanguageTrendsEngland2022ExchangeDigitalEvents:www.britishcouncil.org/erasmus-plus.ec.europa.euwww.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htmlLearnandtheBritishCouncil:SchoolAlliance:www.globalschoolalliance.comTuringScheme:www.turing-scheme.org.uk
and Anglo-Russian partnerships. We spoke to the International Space Station in orbit, and for a brief time the Prime Minister’s Global Fellowship scheme created remarkable young people each giving something back to communities in the UK and abroad. I will never forget playing cricket in the summer of 2007 with young people from Bristol and Tomsk in a summer camp in Siberia, and wish we could get back to a global narrative of peace, collaboration and hope for the sake of a hopeful future for all children.
It’s not Panglossian to want a future where our young people are secure about who they are in the world, having faith in politics and politicians, aware and embracing of the diversity that exists everywhere, and can link the two through the cohesion of their national and global citizenship. We need to get back to finding the good and what unites us and not divides us. We need to recognise and have faith in the organisations we have that work. Now that really would help to positively signpost the rest of the 2020s for young people across the globe in a way that builds hope and prepares them for the future as confident national and global citizens.
Some relevant links British Council
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In July this year, the annual British Council ‘Language Trends England 2022’ report was published. The drop in language learning in primary schools in England, as well as a lack of international education in all England’s schools, was not a surprise to anyone who knows how little serious emphasis the Department for Education has
It’s not Panglossian to want a future where our young people are secure about who they are in the world
Rob Ford is Director of Heritage International School in Chişinău, Moldova, a long-time British Council Schools’ Ambassador, and previously Principal of Wyedean School, Gloucestershire, UK. robert.ford@heritage.md
Personal Reflection
The former Secretary of State for Education in England, Charles Clarke, once famously said that meaningful education had to have global learning as an integral part of the curriculum. It would be a move in the right direction to return to that approach, especially with a broader holistic curriculum through programmes like Erasmus, working constructively with our near neighbours and putting more energy into getting our young people actively involved in their communities on a much wider scale. Teachers and school leaders need to talk, share and learn from their counterparts across the world, and not only from those in the same multiacademy trust (MAT) group or that are located just down the road.
Not everything we do in school needs a qualification at the end of it. So many programmes and opportunities that organisations such as the British Council used to bring to school communities and their local communities have now gone, to the detriment of the societal cohesion that holds us all together. And we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We see great work from organisations such as Global School Alliance supporting schools again, but more needs to be done.
◆
42 | International School | Autumn 2022
Hopefully the pendulum will start to swing back, though, and England will return to creating opportunities in schools for developing global citizens as it used to through brilliant organisations like the British Council, actually preparing young people for the challenges of the future. Global Britain will come to be respected again.
placed on languages and international education, despite the rhetoric. It was still a shock to read in such simple terms the stark reality for our students.
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The book is set out so that readers can turn directly to the sections they feel are of most relevance to them, although it is also worth taking the time to read the book in full as it contains a wealth of up-to-date and carefully balanced
and parents contemplating this form of education for their children.
InternationalSchooling: The Teacher’s Guide
44 | International School | Autumn 2022
by Denry Machin and Stephen Whitehead
Bangkok: Pedagogue Publishing, 2020 | Reviewed by David Wilkinson
information. The variety of schools that describe themselves as international schools is explained, with well-chosen descriptions of the main types of such institutions. In doing so, the authors make clear that there is no single form of an international education, and the reader is provided with the guidance needed to assess whether a school of interest might match his or her expectations.Eachsection of the book is completed by suggestions for further reading, endnotes and relevant quotations from teachers
or administrators currently working in a variety of schools representing the different forms of international education they provide, and from a wide range of countries. The benefits of moving from the home country as well as the potential dangers are also made clear. For teachers contemplating a move from
national to international education, the academic qualifications most relevant to securing a position in the more wellestablished and better-known schools are discussed. Advice is given about preparing for interview and about where to find impartial information about the schools of Theinterest.down-to-earth way in which every question is addressed that might be asked by someone seriously considering a move to such a school, as teacher or parent, is refreshing. The book offers sound practical advice from two people who, quite evidently, have a wealth of relevant handson experience on which to draw. ◆
David Wilkinson has taught in and led international schools, including headships of Machabeng College Lesotho, Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, and the Mahindra United World College of India.
Book Review
enry Machin and Stephen Whitehead’s teacher’s guide is a valuable companion to international education. The authors’ stated readership is any teacher contemplating a move from a British school to an international school. However, this well laid-out and very clearly written handbook could certainly be useful to a much broader audience, including teachers already working in an international school
Each section of the book is completed by suggestions for further reading, endnotes and relevant quotations from teachers or administrators
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