Recruiting international teachers is rarely straightforward. At (GIS) in Macau, we’ve learned that the process can often feel long, unpredictable, and time-consuming. Finding the right people, those who not only have the skills but also share our values, usually takes months.��

Earlier this year, we tried something a little different.��

As part of Explorer Access event, we were invited to trial their candidate search tool. We gave it a go without huge expectations. Two weeks later, we had two new teachers signed, sealed, and ready to join our team. Here’s how it all unfolded.��

Who We Are��

At GIS, currently in our second year of operation, we’re a close-knit team of over fifty staff – around thirty of which are our dedicated educators. We follow an internationally recognised curriculum and support professional growth, offering pathways like the International PGCE for instance.��

We aim to create a community that values curiosity, growth, and mutual respect. We also know that the people we hire help shape that community every day.��

Why We Trialled the Explorer Service from Teacher Horizons��

The usual approach to recruitment can be slow and costly. We were looking for a faster, more hands-on way to find teachers who were already aligned with what we needed.��

That’s what made the search tool so interesting. Instead of waiting for applicants to come to us, we could search through a vetted pool of candidates, see who matched our needs, and start conversations straight away. The clean, straightforward, and efficient platform helped us overcome any sense of being lost. It allowed us to navigate easily and clearly, immediately accessing most of the fundamental information we needed. Our initial caution quickly melted away as we saw the potential out there and felt we could access it.��

Source: Teacher Horizons

“This experience reminded us that recruitment ��DZ����’t have to be stressful or drawn out. With the right support, it can be simple, efficient, and even enjoyable.”

The 14-Day Timeline��

We �徱���’t go into this with speed as our main goal. But having a focused tool and a clear process made it possible to be focused and efficient.��

Our Process��

• Days 1 – 3: We filtered candidates using Explorer and reached out to a few who looked like a strong fit.
• Days 4 – 10: Interviews were set up and carried out – the direct messaging system made it easy to keep things moving.
• Days 11 – 14: We made two offers, and both were accepted.

What normally takes a couple of months happened in just two weeks.��

Source: Teacher Horizons

What We Learned��

There were a few key things that helped make this work:��

• Acting quickly matters. The strongest teachers often get snapped up fast. Being able to contact them directly meant we �徱���’t miss out.
• Fast replies go a long way. We made a conscious effort to respond to candidates within two days. It helped build trust and kept the momentum going.��

Final Thoughts��

This experience reminded us that recruitment ��DZ����’t have to be stressful or drawn out. With the right support, it can be simple, efficient, and even enjoyable. We’re big believers in starting conversations with candidates on an open, positive note, grounded in our values as a school. We found Teacher Horizons’ tool enabled us to do exactly that!��

If your school is looking to speed up its hiring process and connect teachers quickly and easily, we highly recommend giving Explorer a try.��

You can reach out to the Teacher Horizons team at candidate@teacherhorizons.com to learn more or set up a demo.��

This is an advertorial from Teacher Horizons, written by the team at , Macau

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This article highlights the key learnings from the latest webinar, part of a free series provided by Accessit, hosted by renowned library consultant Sarah Pavey. Supported by Accessit, Sarah will be joining �鶹��ý in March for an exclusive webinar looking at AI in the library. Join the �鶹��ý Community for more details.��

Read more from Sarah and a range of library leaders at and watch the webinar recording ��

As international school librarians, we navigate a unique landscape of challenges and opportunities. In the recent webinar presented by Accessit Library, “Multilingual Challenges and Cultural Sensitivity in International School Libraries,” I offered invaluable insights into addressing these complex issues. If you missed it, I’ll explain how we can implement the best practices suggested in the talk and use our library management systems (LMS) to maximum effect.

The webinar tackled three critical areas: multilingual environments, cultural sensitivity challenges, and managing transient student populations. Each of these issues present distinct hurdles, but with the right strategies – and clever use of our LMS – we can transform them into opportunities for growth and innovation.

Source: Accessit Library��

Multilingual environments: Supporting language diversity��

Our libraries serve students speaking a multitude of languages, and research shows that strong home language skills positively impact students’ overall academic performance. The webinar emphasised the importance of supporting both mother tongue development and proficiency in the school’s language of instruction. Practical strategies included using multilingual databases and e-book platforms, collaborating with local libraries and cultural institutions, and developing home language programmes with community involvement.

So how could we use our LMS within this context? We could consider:��

• Tagging resources by language, making it easy for students to find materials in their mother tongue.��
• Generating reports on language diversity in your collection and identifying areas for expansion using data–driven analysis of the findings.����
• Creating multilingual interfaces to ensure that all students can navigate digital resources comfortably.����

By highlighting the inclusivity of multilingualism and celebrating home languages, we can ensure that our libraries are a welcoming environment for all students.����

Balancing intellectual freedom and cultural sensitivity��

In the webinar, we also looked at crucial guidance on navigating the delicate balance between intellectual freedom and cultural sensitivity – a challenge unique to our international settings. For starters, having a clear collection development policy is key to success. We can initiate diverse library committees to underpin inclusivity in this respect. During the talk, we also examined the importance of staying informed about local laws and cultural norms, particularly those condoned by an education authority.����

Again, we could use our LMS to support these strategies by:��

• Maintaining detailed records of collection decisions and any challenges.
• Allowing for the flexible categorisation of materials to reflect cultural sensitivities.��
• Providing data on usage patterns to inform collection development decisions.��

In international schools, we often find that the curricula we follow can be at odds with acceptable content within the school’s host country. This, in some cases, can have heavy financial implications if infringements are found during an inspection. Through international librarian groups such as , schools and librarians can reach out to others experiencing similar dilemmas to find solutions.

Source: Accessit Library��

Managing transient student populations��

In international schools, there is inevitably a high student turnover as parents move between jobs in global markets, and this can disrupt our library services. To ensure continuity, I suggest using a streamlined library induction session that could be used whenever a student joins the school. Another strategy would be to create a ‘Library Buddy’ initiative where established students show newcomers the ropes. School leavers pose yet another challenge, so having flexible loan periods and establishing a good relationship with the school administrators is crucial.����

However, this is where your LMS really shines and can be your ally. We can use it to:����

• Quickly generate library cards and user accounts for new students.��
• Set up automated welcome emails with library information.��
• Create custom loan rules for departing students.��
• Track buddy system partnerships and induction completion.��

“By highlighting the inclusivity of multilingualism and celebrating home languages, we can ensure that our libraries are a welcoming environment for all students.”��

Opportunities for professional development����

Professional development was another key theme of the webinar. We can be so isolated as school librarians, and there is much value to be found in engaging and sharing best practices with global school librarians’ organisations – the and , for example. We might also choose to present at or attend conferences aimed at our profession and run by educational organisation such as . Perhaps we can also use our LMS to track professional development activities and set reminders for upcoming networking opportunities.

Continuous learning and adaptation are essential in our field, and such practices keep us informed about global educational trends and student demographics shifts. Our LMS can help by providing data on changing student demographics and resource usage patterns, informing strategical approaches.��

I strongly encourage you to watch the if you haven’t already. The strategies and insights provided, combined with creative use of your LMS, can significantly enhance your library’s ability to serve your diverse, dynamic international school community.

Remember, our work has a lasting impact not just on our current students, but on the global community they will help shape. Let’s continue to learn, adapt, and innovate in service of this vital mission. �����’s encourage global citizenship and promote cross-cultural understanding together.����

This in an advertorial from .��

By Sarah Pavey

Sarah Pavey is an accomplished library professional with over 30 years of experience. As an independent consultant and trainer, she has dedicated her career to empowering school librarians worldwide, running online courses and participating in multinational projects.

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Reflective practice for teacher development��

At the core of the YETI model is reflective practice—a foundation for effective teaching and ongoing professional development. Inspired by , YETI integrates structured inquiry cycles that allow teachers to critically evaluate and refine their strategies. This process fosters inclusivity and responsiveness, enabling educators to address the diverse needs of their students.

Reflective practice also aligns seamlessly with A-JIS’s mission of cultivating globally minded learners through collaborative, dynamic environments. By investigating specific classroom challenges, analysing data, and applying evidence-based strategies, YETI encourages teachers to engage in critical thinking and achieve sustainable improvements in their professional skills.��

The YETI framework

1. Identify a focus area: Teachers select a specific area of teaching, such as student engagement or classroom management.��
2. Define the problem: A clear, actionable problem is identified to guide the inquiry process.��
3. Explore root causes: Teachers analyse the factors contributing to the problem, gaining deeper insights.��
4. Conduct an information review: Educators draw on existing research, peer experiences, and proven practices related to their focus area.��
5. Formulate a research question: A targeted question ensures the inquiry remains focused and practical.��
6. Data collection: Teachers gather data from sources such as assessments, observations, and surveys.��
7. Data analysis: Patterns and insights from the data inform evidence-based decision-making.��
8. Implement solutions: Teachers apply strategies to address the problem and evaluate their effectiveness in real–time.��
9. Evaluate the impact: Both qualitative and quantitative data are reviewed to measure success and identify areas for improvement.��
10. Reflect upon outcomes: Teachers use their findings to refine future practices and sustain improvements.��

This structured approach integrates reflective practice into daily routines, fostering a culture of growth and adaptability.��

Collaboration and shared learning��

Collaboration is a defining element of YETI, emphasising the value of shared learning and peer engagement. Teachers engage in discussions, share strategies, and adapt methods to suit their unique contexts. This collaborative process not only strengthens professional relationships but also promotes innovation and diverse problem-solving approaches.

At A-JIS, YETI is integrated with the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model, enhancing collective efficacy and motivation amongst educators. By fostering a culture of shared learning, YETI encourages teachers to exchange insights, address common challenges, and continuously improve their practice.

Addressing structural challenges��

While YETI offers significant benefits, implementing such a model necessitates addressing structural challenges. A-JIS educators identified time constraints as a key obstacle, given the demands of daily teaching responsibilities. To overcome this, the school introduced measures such as allocating dedicated time for inquiry, providing procedural guides, and streamlining data collection through collaborative tools.

Flexible collaboration options also enhanced the model’s adaptability, enabling teachers to engage in team-based or individual inquiries according to their needs. These adjustments ensured that reflective practice remained sustainable and accessible, empowering teachers to fully embrace the YETI process.��

Transforming instructional practices��

By engaging in action research, YETI enables teachers to refine instructional strategies based on classroom evidence. Educators at A-JIS reported improved responsiveness to diverse learning styles and greater use of differentiated methods, creating more student-centered learning environments.��

supports the effectiveness of reflective, evidence-based approaches in enhancing instructional quality. Unlike traditional professional development, YETI empowers teachers to drive their growth through inquiry-driven, practical methods, leading to stronger engagement and academic outcomes for students.

“Teachers engage in discussions, share strategies, and adapt methods to suit their unique contexts. This collaborative process not only strengthens professional relationships but also promotes innovation and diverse problem-solving approaches.”

Impact on student outcomes��

YETI’s benefits extend beyond teacher development to significantly impact student outcomes. Teachers at A-JIS observed notable improvements in student participation, engagement, and critical thinking due to changes informed by their reflective inquiries. Approximately 60% of teachers reported moderate to significant gains in student outcomes, highlighting the model’s effectiveness.��

By fostering dynamic, evidence-based instructional methods, YETI not only enhances academic achievement but also nurtures essential skills like creativity and collaboration. These outcomes align closely with A-JIS’s mission of developing globally minded leaders prepared for the complexities of a modern world.��

Recommendations for schools��

The success of YETI at A-JIS offers valuable insights for other schools aiming to adopt reflective practice models. Key recommendations include:��

• Embedding reflective practice: Integrate cycles of inquiry into daily routines to ensure consistency and alignment with teaching schedules.��
• Providing structural support: Allocate time and resources for reflection, including tools for data collection and collaboration.��
• Promoting collaboration: Foster a culture of shared learning, encouraging teachers to work together and exchange insights.��
• Adapting to contexts: Tailor the model to meet specific school goals and logistical needs, offering flexibility for team-based and individual inquiries.��

By implementing these strategies, schools can cultivate a culture of reflective practice that drives both teacher development and student success.��

By Dr Jake Madden

Dr Jake Madden is the Group Head of Schools at Aoba Education in Tokyo, and a globally recognised educational leader with 40 years of experience in teaching and school leadership. You can connect with him on .

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In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ISF Academy in Hong Kong embarked upon the Assessment as Responsive Teaching (ART) Project. This emerged from a Professional Learning Community (PLC) on Assessment for Learning. The project was led by a group of passionate secondary school middle leaders committed to enhancing learning and improving student wellbeing. It also tackled head on traditional attitudes towards summative assessment, and grading in general. Nicholas Forde outlines how a PLC model with ‘leadership from the middle’ can act as a driver of change within a school community.

The context of overassessment

Within Hong Kong, many high-performing schools are considering ways of addressing stress and wellbeing concerns that stem from over assessment. At the heart of this is the high status given to examinations and assessment of learning within society at large. This is also coupled with a highly influential tutoring industry, which claims to help students ‘win at the start line.’ For teachers and parents alike, our understanding of the purpose of assessment will have been shaped powerfully by our own experiences in school. This may have included an emphasis on grades, different types of ranking, and a scarcity of helpful feedback about how to improve.

Emerging ideas from a Professional Learning Community: early adopters

This set the scene for an ‘Assessment for Learning’ PLC at the ISF Academy. Its goal was to differentiate between assessment and reporting/grading and promote better feedback and responsive teaching and learning. If all stakeholders (students, teachers and parents) could move away from the status implied by grading and reporting, to focusing on the next steps in learning, this would improve learning and promote wellbeing. As early adopters, all members of the PLC completed the ‘Assessment Essentials’ and ‘Assessment Lead’ online courses offered by Evidence-Based Education. This gave them access to the latest research on the four pillars of assessment. The courses then formed the backbone of our approach to achieving better assessment literacy.

Scaling up our approach: the Assessment as Responsive Teaching (ART) project

The original PLC was driven by a group of committed middle leaders. They made recommendations to senior leadership for a whole school focus for the following academic year. The Assessment as Responsive Teaching (ART) Project scaled up our approach across the whole secondary school. With COVID-19 pandemic restrictions still in full force, all teaching staff and senior leadership completed online courses during the academic year. Teachers were supported by ‘Assessment leads’, middle leaders all of whom had been part of the initial PLC. This allowed for facilitated discussion and common planning on the four pillars of assessment. It also kept the momentum going with our strategic priorities despite the pandemic.

A common language, purpose and focus for action planning

Assessment as responsive teaching was our strategic focus for the next academic year. It also became the focus for learning visits, peer observations and team action plans. Building on the facilitated online courses, we found that there was more consistent talk about assessment and feedback as we worked towards the use of a common language. A teacher commented on how the language of assessment started to cut through, in the same way to a school implementing IB for the first time.

Moving from assessment of learning to feedback on learning and progress

Following this, we felt confident to move away from individual graded assessments in day-to-day teaching. This was a symbolic milestone. It signified a whole school shift in practice from grading to a cycle of ongoing feedback about progress on learning. Now all grade 6-8 teachers provide only verbal and written feedback on day-to-day assessments without reference to achievement levels. The Middle Years Programme (MYP) rubrics show only narrative descriptors of achievement. grade 9-10 teachers can also choose to use the same approach with their classes. In the medium term, students still receive achievement grades on two written reports each year. As a school in Hong Kong, we recognize the practical reality and parental expectation of reporting terminal grades. This might be seen as a barrier to the ultimate success of assessment literacy, however, in our context, tackling day-to-day assessment and grading was the most important in alleviating the stress for students about ‘where they were’. Now, students are given specific verbal and written feedback about where they are, as well as practical steps about how they can improve.

The parent and student perspective

Some parents and students felt that we had suddenly ‘gone gradeless’. Students claimed that they were more stressed because the feedback on day-to-day assessments was not specific enough. This signified the strength of attachment to the status of grading. Connecting students and parents with MYP rubrics to gauge current and future progress was helpful. A key message was that no student should be in the dark about their current progress, but neither should they feel anxiety that day-to-day assessment is high stakes.

A work in progress, staying the course

Nearly four years on from the initial PLC, the subsequent ART project has provided a strong foundation of understanding and ongoing practice across the whole secondary school. Crucially, middle leadership guided us on the appropriate entry point and pace for tackling assessment literacy. Without this, implementation might have been less effective.

• All newly hired teachers complete the online Assessment Essentials course as part of their professional learning
• A mini course on the four pillars of assessment is offered to parents
• Student and parent voice surveys have been completed to assess impact and identify further parent education needs

Tips for making the most of the PLC model

Professional Learning Communities are an excellent way of encouraging collaboration. Teachers can explore issues of interest and take on leadership and research in a supportive environment.

• Provide clear parameters and terms of reference: number of meetings; membership; feedback mechanism
• Provide the time and space on the calendar for PLC meetings to take place
• Seek to understand and research your own unique school context rather than explore what has worked elsewhere
• Make clear the links between the PLC focus and the school action plan

Nicholas Forde is the Principal of Secondary School at The ISF Academy, Hong Kong. You can connect with him via email.

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Who said “Great leaders are born, not made” anyway? Did anyone ever say this? Actually, yes! It’s called the Great Man Theory of Leadership and fortunately, tells us that it “is not an empirically validated theory” so we can move right along.

We at UNIS Hanoi believe strongly that great leaders are made, and not born. In education, almost all school leaders rise through the ranks having begun their careers in the classroom. Being a highly effective second-grade teacher, physics teacher or counsellor, does not, however, provide one with a set of skills for effective leadership to be able to deftly lead teams, programmes and schools.

If most school leaders start out as teachers, what is the leadership pathway? In many cases, it is forged by individuals with a desire to lead, to serve, to have an impact beyond the classroom. They take on postgraduate study, engage in professional courses, and in many cases, simply learn on the job when handed a title that expects and assumes leadership capability.

What if there was a clearer path? What if schools were able to identify educators with a desire to lead, and provide them with clear leadership development opportunities to build their capacity as leaders?

Being clear about who we want our middle leaders to be, determines what they will do. But how do schools define this vision? Is it worth seeking a definition of something between leadership and management and then to consider on which side of the divide the middle level leader role and its expectations fit?

This is harder than it seems. Traditionally speaking, managers oversee the functioning of structures and systems and maintain the status quo within an organisation. Their focus is on control and task completion. Leaders, on the other hand, are concerned with new directions and change, which includes making sure that people on teams feel safe, supported and empowered.

Despite this apparent distinction, the relationship between management and leadership is a muddy one. While leadership can be understood as a process of influence, based on a set of values or vision, research in the field of educational leadership also suggests that denoted management activities inevitably influence others, and in influencing others, leadership occurs. Is it possible to have one without the other?

But what if our educational systems allowed us to consider our middle level leaders from a different perspective? What if middle level leaders were afforded the freedom to move away from management responsibilities and to develop their capacity as influencers and innovators?

This is a vision at the heart of UNIS Hanoi’s professional development structures.

It requires trust, relinquishing traditional hierarchies of control, and above all, a shared commitment to educational pedagogies that align with the mission, vision and values of the school. The conditions for success must be assessed and curated for highly skilled middle level leaders to emerge. This is what we have been working to achieve at UNIS Hanoi.

Empowering our middle level leaders has been built upon three pillars:

• An explicit vision for leadership.
• A recognition of the skills required to lead effectively.
• A commitment to supporting the growth and wellbeing of leaders.

As one of two UN schools in the world, the UNIS vision is inherently aligned with the values of the United Nations and the principles of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This connection is critical in attracting educators with shared ideological goals and aspirations to be part of a school that creates and inspires changemakers for a better world. The mission is strong. So what next?

Bravery.

What do you want your middle level leaders to do? What are you brave enough to encourage your leaders to do? This pillar requires honesty – and the ability of a senior leadership team to lighten the grip. Let go. Good people have been hired. Trust them. Give them the parameters they need for success by identifying your expectations of them, and where the boundaries lie.

And the second pillar? Skills development. The provision of intentional professional development in leadership skills, people management, empathy and hard conversations are all critical components of your third pillar. A trifecta of experience, training and mentorship from members of the senior leadership team is essential in raising your middle level leaders to become skillful influencers and leaders.

Given that most classroom teachers do not come equipped with leadership training, schools must invest wisely in developing their leaders, intentionally, not accidentally. Key ingredients of the leadership pathway at UNIS Hanoi include:

• Clarity of expectations through a job description that identifies two major responsibilities for team leaders: fostering a collaborative culture, and facilitating improvements in instruction and assessment.
• Team leader meeting agendas that have a balance of management responsibilities and opportunities for leadership development. Agendas are carefully planned and use a range of protocols that middle leaders can try out with their own teams. Our intention is that every leadership team meeting is an opportunity for growing leadership capacity.
• Annual leadership retreat. This gift of time and day of renewal and training allows our leaders to feel connected to our mission, vision and values and to feel supported in our leadership work.
• Investment in a leadership library. Team leaders are provided with a stack of key leadership books for the full school year – a compendium of leadership wisdom, and another layer of support for the complexities of leading adult teams.
• An annual book study provides us with a shared experience and adds to our collective wisdom and expands our leadership toolbox throughout the year.
• A timeline of leadership priorities. From onboarding new faculty in August, to facilitating data conversations, to conducting mid-year team health checks, this calendar keeps leaders on track and allows us to build in professional learning at just the right times so that leaders feel well equipped with the skills to carry out these important responsibilities.
• Year-round mentorship with senior leaders for reflective conversations and wellbeing check-ins. This provides a safe, supportive structure for leaders to seek coaching, counsel and confidentiality.

Finally, none of this would be possible without the essential third pillar, which is that schools must take care of their leaders so that they can take care of others. The affective burden of leadership is real – it’s intense – and requires what Heffernan & Mills () describe as “emotional and affective labour” which can take a toll on the wellbeing of leaders if not acknowledged and proactively planned for. Building an environment where vulnerability, bravery, mistake-making and risk-taking are celebrated leadership qualities, again, takes time and intention, and results in high organisational trust. Schools who make the time to make this happen find themselves with empowered leaders, who empower teachers, who empower their learners. We believe that this is what our students deserve.

��Jenny-Lee is the Grade 4 Team Leader at the United Nations International School, Hanoi. You can connect with Jenny-Lee on and .

��Megan is the Elementary Principal at United Nations International School, Hanoi. You can connect with Megan on and ��

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Rationale

By engaging in action research projects, a team of advanced skills teachers have successfully improved the quality of teaching and learning against the school improvement plan. This approach offers a valuable opportunity for schools of all budgets to enhance the quality of their professional development programmes and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement. By supporting practice with educational research and emphasising the ‘why’ behind improvement efforts, staff members have bought into the process and are achieving more meaningful progress.

“Schools are a live entity where change is inevitable and action plans need to accommodate this.”

Getting started with action research

When engaging with action research in your school, collaboration with leaders is essential to determine a specific and appropriate developmental focus or foci. To achieve successful results, you must determine the specific problem or issues you want to investigate and improve through action research. To determine the foci, a range of resources should inform the final focus area. School inspection reports and improvement plans are useful documents to initiate lines of inquiry, but in-depth knowledge of your classrooms and teachers’ skill sets is the determining factor in finalising a purposeful developmental plan.

Action planning is essential to the success of action research to support the process and outline roles, expectations and methodology to ensure transparent application. Succinct aims, actions, success criteria and outcomes become the driving force of the project. It is important to anticipate any potential challenges in your educational context and how you could navigate them. Each school is a live entity where change is inevitable and action plans need to accommodate this by being flexible and fluid. Clearly define the boundaries and scope of your research. Consider the context, population and resources available for your study. Be realistic about what you can accomplish within your timeframe and constraints.

Educational research provides pedagogical influence and validity to the planning and implementation of improvements. Keeping up to date with educational research not only adds rigour to the project but also keeps international schools aligned with the ‘why’ of educational movements before adapting and filtering them into our settings. Teachers benefit from the science behind the new ideas and being given irrefutable evidence that the changes being implemented have been proven to work in different settings and are suitable for their own school. Thus increasing investment and professional trust from staff.

Implementation and monitoring

A forum for launching action research projects that five school professional development leads found effective was a CPD session with the target recipients responsible for implementing the improvements. The scale of the action plan will determine the number of participants ranging from whole school initiatives to smaller targeted groups. The aims, plan and supporting research are shared to begin the process and align staff in a collaborative continuous development process. An ‘I, We, You’ model is advisable to maintain dialogue and collegiality. Leaders (I) model initial practice supported by research, staff (WE) then collaboratively explore and prepare their practice together to begin implementing in their classrooms (YOU).

Monitoring must be consistent and well-planned for the duration of the project. Monitoring strategies should best measure progress against the project objectives to remain aligned with the intended trajectory. It is important that there is continuous monitoring as evidence begins to manifest within your school. This should then inform reviewing, refining and any redirection of your intended outcomes in order to maximise the impact of your project.

Suggested strategies:

To maintain continual development through the action plan strategies plan received by teachers, we suggest:

• Utilising three-week CPD cycles that protect time to review and renew practice.
• Building a supportive culture through gallery lessons for colleagues to observe the developing practice.
• Creating discussion forums to exchange insights and setbacks and provide peer-on-peer support.
• Implementing voluntary sign-ups where staff identify a time in their week to demonstrate the CPD strategies in practice.
• Finding contextually appropriate video resources that reflect the demographic of the school to support development.
• Sharing best practice platforms such as marketplaces and peer teaching workshops, celebrating progress.

Measurement

To be able to measure impact, purposeful baseline data explicitly aligned to the research objectives needs to be collected and measured. The indicators should align with your research objective and reflect the changes you expect to observe. In some instances, the data is readily available (i.e., student data). Other effective methods are lesson observations, surveys, stakeholder voice, internal data, etc. It is important to collect a range of qualitative and quantitative data from a range of perspectives to compare outcomes and determine the impact of your action research. Measurement must be ongoing and used to inform adjustments and refinements to the process.

Reflections

As your project concludes, reflect on your findings and the insight gained from lessons learned, recognise unexpected outcomes, challenges or limitations, and consider any implications of your results and the effectiveness of your interventions. Reflecting is essential to refine future research and to improve your understanding of impact measurement.

To summarise, action research models provide a structured and systematic approach to problem-solving. They allow educators to gather data, analyse root causes and implement targeted interventions to bring about positive change and collegiality. They promote a culture of evidence-based decision-making and continuous improvement, which ultimately benefits both teachers and students.

Chelsey Seymour (Assistant Head Teacher), Ben Vaughan (Advanced Skills Teacher), Tinisha Hall (Advanced Skills Teacher), Jamie Hagan (Advanced Skills Teacher) and Hanaa El Sayed (Advanced Skills Teacher) all work at You can connect with Chelsey on .

��

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Since ChatGPT became publicly available in November 2022, schools have been reeling from the effects of artificial intelligence. By January 2023, AI was passing the bar exam and getting Bs at the Wharton School of Business. It wasn’t long before AI tools filtered into the student consciousness to fulfil technology’s greatest promise: a free homework machine. How we deal with AI in school will represent the most substantial shift in education since the introduction of the computer itself. Every school leader needs to understand what AI is, what it is not and how to lead their faculty and stakeholders in a deliberate and meaningful direction based on their school’s unique values and challenges. At Menaul School, our interventions and training helped our faculty to get ahead of AI challenges, to the benefit of our students.

To begin with, ‘artificial intelligence’ is a misnomer; a better term for these tools is ‘large language models’ or LLMs. There is no comprehension taking place within the circuits of ChatGPT, instead, LLMs take huge subsets of data, most of it culled from the internet and libraries of texts, then use predictive algorithms to determine what the next word should be. It’s essentially a scaled-up version of the same predictive text feature on your smartphone that knows when you type ‘I’ll call you back’ that the next word is probably ‘later’. Developed with billions of language samples and leveraging neural networks which identify better and worse responses, AI has been trained to generate incredibly complex and superficially impressive outputs.

As a school leader, it’s vital to keep your finger on the pulse of what is going on in the world of teachers. There are a lot more of them than us, and they’re incredibly smart. Reddit’s /r/Teachers and /r/Professors introduced me to AI in November 2022. I remember the conversations about what would happen when students learned how to use these tools. What would it mean to teach standard essays? What would it mean for research assignments? The debates going on here pointed me in the direction of meaningful resources to educate myself on how AI worked and, more importantly, how students were beginning to use it in the classroom.

In January 2023, I delivered the first training to our faculty on AI. Hard to imagine today, but most of our faculty had not heard of it and were flabbergasted as I input an AP English Literature prompt and it spat out a fully developed essay in a few seconds. Some of our teachers foresaw the doom of education. Math teachers shrugged and told us students were already using apps like Photomath to take pictures of equations and lay out the step-by-step solutions – welcome to their world.

Looking at the actual output of an AP Lit essay, I helped the faculty discover hallucinations. Asking ChatGPT to analyse the symbolism of purple cars in E M Forster’s A Passage to India returned an impressive-looking literary analysis that ignored the fact that there are no purple cars in the book. As predictive language models, AI tools don’t generally fact-check, their focus is on generating comprehensible output. Faculty learned that the tools were not omniscient, though newer versions have already become far more ‘fact-aware’.

At Menaul School, our goal was to develop a school-wide response supported by policy and with the buy-in of faculty. Understanding the tools, how they worked, how students would use them and how they would continue developing was crucial to crafting that response. The responses of our faculty mirrored society at large. Techno-futurists posited the redundancy of basic writing skills, ChatGPT serving as a fancy calculator for English, skipping the arithmetic of thesis + sentences = essay straight to engagement with ideas. Others said we’d need to focus education on developing unique and identifiable voices in writing or technical solutions like reviewing Google documents to watch as students typed their responses in real time. Plenty thought that banning the technology was necessary – notwithstanding the logistics or our ability to enforce it outside of school.

The conversation was crucial, teachers needed to process through conversation and find counterexamples to determine how this would affect their lives. I asked them to bring samples of their own assignments and run them through the tools, discuss the output. Most were unhappy with the results – it was good, and they �徱���’t know how they could tell it from student work except where it was too good.

The first AI detector, GPTZero, had just come out, and we explored that technology. We learned that AI detectors look for specific patterns and that there’s no secret signal that any writing is AI-generated. A clever person can adjust the prompts to avoid the patterns and the more technically proficient the writing is, the more likely it is to be flagged as AI-generated. We couldn’t base our response on a technology with a 30–60% failure rate.

By helping the faculty to work through these issues, to see the positives and negatives to each option through experimentation with the tools and respectful discussion, we realised that we would need to wholly transform how we evaluated student work in our classrooms.

Having broad faculty agreement on what changes we needed to make was crucial to developing meaningful policy. Without faculty buy-in and enforcement, policy lives in handbooks. When everyone agrees on the expectations and standards, then policy supports meaningful change. From our common understanding of the changes we’d need to make, we adjusted our academic honesty policy, discipline ladder, orientation programme and advisory curriculum. We also had to communicate with marketing and enrolment to explain the changes in detail. There was an opportunity to use curricular changes to drive positive word-of-mouth about our school in the community, but not if they were unaware.

“Without faculty buy-in and enforcement, policy lives in handbooks.”

In the end, Menaul School arrived at a place we never would have expected. As a one-to-one device school, we determined we would need to move all significant assessments to handwritten, in-class assignments. With the tools for detection flawed, and the temptation to use AI too great, we agreed that the only way to faithfully assess student skills and knowledge was by going old school. While this conclusion is not for everyone, we have watched as our friends in other schools still struggle with a lack of policy, with unclear expectations. Our teachers felt prepared, educated and empowered to make a decision, and that meant that our policies have worked. When teachers deviated from the policies, they received AI-generated work and the response from other faculty has been, ‘What did you expect? You let them take it home. Why not follow the policy?’ Why not follow the policy indeed.

Five tips for building consensus:

• Educate on AI: school leaders should start by educating themselves and their faculty about what AI tools are, including their capabilities and limitations.
• Stay informed and share knowledge: leaders need to keep abreast of ongoing discussions and debates about AI in education, how AI is being used in classrooms, and its implications for teaching and learning.
• Hands-on training and experimentation: conduct training sessions for faculty to demonstrate what AI tools can and can’t do. Focus on practical examples from the faculty’s own curriculum.
• Collaborative policy development: work with faculty to develop a school-wide AI policy that reflects the school’s values and addresses specific challenges. This involves open discussions and considering diverse viewpoints from different disciplines to ensure broad agreement and buy-in.
• Transform evaluation methods and communicate policies: revisit and adapt evaluation methods to address the challenges posed by AI. It’s also important to communicate these policy changes effectively within the broader school community, ensuring that all stakeholders understand and support the new approaches.

Chris Ferrara is the Assistant Head of School at . You can connect with Chris via email.

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Restorative practices – a growing phenomenon gaining traction in international schools – hold the promise of transforming school culture and climate through evidence-based methodologies. In an era that increasingly values inclusivity and holistic development, restorative practices are well-suited to address the unique social and emotional needs of Third Culture Kids (TCKs). This raises the pivotal question: to what extent can restorative practices successfully cater to the intricate challenges faced by TCKs?

Restorative practices (RP) have the potential to play a significant role in meeting the TCKs’ need for identity and belonging. Research indicates that TCKs’ identities do not fit into mainstream social constructions. TCKs report a sense of rootlessness and not ‘fitting in’ with the surrounding culture. RP provide a platform for TCKs to share their experiences and explore their identities within a supportive international school community. Through restorative circles and discussions, TCKs can connect with peers who may share similar feelings of not fitting into mainstream social constructs, fostering a sense of belonging. RP can inform the pedagogy of the advisory programme to help achieve this end. International schools need to be responsive to this need and cover themes linked to identity and belonging in a cross-cultural context. Specifically, RP can support this through the use of circles, which can involve prompts inspired by the literature, created by the school or ideally in collaboration with students themselves.

It is also critical that RP methods and techniques are extended to families, offering them a toolkit for managing the transitions that come with the TCK lifestyle. Given that TCKs experience a large number of ‘separations’ during their developmental years, familial relationships are of heightened importance. Families in transition need a social and emotional support toolkit to deal with the process of transition. This can be achieved through international schools offering RP family workshops to teach the value of family circles which can help families build stronger bonds, discuss their feelings about separations, and develop strategies to cope with the challenges of moving. This can provide the emotional support young people need during transitions. In addition, transition programmes need to be well developed in international schools, both to welcome and say goodbye to families. Parents should be informed by the school of the absolute value of their relationships and the need to strengthen their bonds during transition.

Restorative circles and interventions can create the safe space that TCKs need as they seek to build meaningful connections and work through their fears and emotions relating to transition and change. By emphasising active listening and empathy, such practices allow TCKs to work through their complex emotions with peers and teachers who understand their unique experiences.

Furthermore, restorative circles, both proactive and responsive, should become an aspect of daily life in international schools to help foster healthy connections between students and staff and build social capital. Advisory (or personal, social and health education) should be a safe space that embraces a responsive curriculum that considers the social discipline window (see image below) as it works ‘with’ the students in an ongoing, responsive design as opposed to delivering a rigid curriculum ‘to’ them. This can be done through grade level leaders working closely with advisers, grade-level student representatives and counsellors in determining appropriate content and objects for the social and emotional aspects of the advisory curriculum.

It is also evident that TCKs experience varying degrees of loss throughout their lifetimes. Saying goodbye on a regular basis can lead to unresolved grief with no rite of passage to mark the occasion or to help them mourn. More can be done to meet these needs and support international students. RP can play a crucial role in facilitating rituals or ceremonies that honour such transitions. Through this, TCKs can have a forum to process their feelings of loss and grief, which provides closure. Restorative pedagogy can assist in developing rituals that mark occasions, say proper goodbyes and explicitly acknowledge loss when it occurs, whilst also celebrating change. This can be achieved by community circles – both proactive (to prepare for the departure of a student and to celebrate their contribution to the community) and responsive (to acknowledge and reflect on feelings of loss when students leave).

In addition, RP can help guide teachers in building meaningful and respectful relationships with TCKs. It cannot be assumed that new teachers have been trained this way, especially if they are recruited from various countries around the world. TCKs desire teachers who are skilled at building respectful, meaningful relationships and who are highly engaged. TCKs are cautious investors and teachers need to know about their unique social and emotional needs. To achieve this end, during new staff induction, teachers can be trained to use restorative approaches in their classrooms, getting to know each student individually and creating a supportive atmosphere where TCKs feel understood and valued. This can help overcome the cautiousness often associated with TCKs when it comes to investing in relationships.

TCKs need to belong, find their identity and work out their relationship with the several cultures that they often live within. International schools should help children to manage the complex feelings that come with transitions as opposed to denying them. The TCKs’ lived experience is dynamic, transient, mobile and constantly shifting. TCKs’ identity and belonging is not linked to a geographical location, but rather, it is about people and relationships. Restorative processes that value proactive relationship building, as well as relationship-centred responses to harm, can meet this need. This should include the full range of the RP continuum.

Integrating RP in international schools holds promise for addressing the distinct social and emotional needs of our TCKs. By establishing safe spaces for dialogue, restorative circles empower TCKs to navigate transitions, process grief and feel enhanced belonging. The ultimate way to achieve this would be to adopt RP at the systems level, embedding proactive and responsive community-building processes into daily life to foster healthy connections. In addition, ongoing teacher training is essential to ensure educators cater to TCKs’ unique social and emotional needs. By embracing proactive relationship-building as well as responsive approaches, our international schools can contribute to the holistic wellbeing of TCKs, build community health and foster a sense of belonging that goes beyond geographical boundaries.

Practical tips for school leaders:

• Implement restorative circles in advisory programmes to address social and emotional aspects. It is a mechanism more powerful than you realise.
• Offer RP family workshops to support families during transitions. Families look to schools for guidance in these times.
• Incorporate RP training into new teacher induction and ongoing professional development. Do not assume that your international staff are all on the same page with approaches to discipline.
• Create rituals or ceremonies using RP principles to acknowledge and process loss during student departures. This enhances wellbeing across our communities.
• Foster a collaborative approach between grade level leaders, advisers and counsellors to tailor the advisory curriculum to meet these unique social and emotional needs and avoid depending exclusively on ‘off the peg’ curricula that have not been designed with international schools in mind.

Alistair Goold is a grade level leader and social science teacher at the . He holds a Master of Science in restorative practices and is the founder of . You can connect with Alistair directly on .

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In 2000, just under 1 million students attended international schools around the world. At the end of 2023, that number had grown to 6.9 million (�鶹��ý 2024). That huge growth in student numbers and schools has meant a corresponding explosion in the number of teachers working in international schools, with staff growth from 90,000 to 664,645 during the same period.

As the international education sector continues to grow exponentially, schools are becoming ever more reliant on recruiting in the countries that they serve. And so they should. The fact that 91% of British international school leaders find recruiting quality teachers ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ challenging (), indicates that the effective recruitment, training and promotion of local talent is one way of developing an effective and well-rounded education for students who learn in English, but live all other aspects of their life in a country with a different language. Appointing staff from the resident country also goes some way to avoiding the significant teacher shortage and recruitment challenges faced by international schools around the world.

However, one problem that often appears in schools with a high proportion of local staff is the difficulty they have in accessing the plethora of professional development opportunities that are only accessible to those with a professional or proficient level of English. There is a solution, which does not seem to be common practice, which is to deliver professional development programmes bilingually.

I came to the realisation that schools appear to be overlooking this solution when, in the summer of 2023, I discovered that here at Misk Schools, we would become the first to offer the well-respected COBIS Programme for Middle Leaders (CPML) bilingually. This experience provided me with valuable insights into how schools may deliver highly reputable courses that are commonly seen as being for English speakers only, to a bilingual staff team.

If this is something that may help develop the professional development programme at your school then I hope the following hints and tips will help clarify what is possible and how you may approach implementing something similar yourself.

Photo: Misk Schools Riyadh, Campus Exterior

Identify the course, approach the provider

This may seem like an obvious place to start, but it was a surprise to me to find that we were the first to ask COBIS if we could deliver one of their courses bilingually. At the time, our school had a clear need to develop a new set of middle leaders after a significant recruitment round. Our curriculum is delivered in English about 60% of the time and in Arabic for the remaining 40%. We therefore have a significant number of Arabic-speaking middle leaders, for whom fluency in English is not essential to their teaching success. We determined that a middle leadership programme would be of great benefit to our new international and local department heads and, having determined which course was most suitable, we picked up the phone.

Develop a relationship

The relationship between the accrediting body and the course provider (your school) can, and should be, mutually beneficial. Developing a course, traditionally taught in English, into a second language, increases the consumer base and reach for the accreditors, whilst simultaneously allowing you to deliver the course in the language that most benefits your school. Find the win-win by collaborating with your accreditors to identify the best way to update, develop and translate the materials. There are key considerations around branding, copyright and intellectual property. In our case, we made it very straightforward: the accreditation body would retain their branding and formatting on all course documents, and we would retain the same content in English and manage the translation into Arabic.

“This created a fully inclusive atmosphere in the course, meaning that speakers of both languages were fully engaged and treated equally.”

Be inclusive

A key factor in the success of our delivery was to plan, prepare and promote the course as being fully bilingual. We offered the same number of places to Arabic and English speakers, the course was facilitated by an English and an Arabic speaker, and every single piece of material from the website to the pre-reading was available in both languages.

This created a fully inclusive atmosphere in the course, meaning that speakers of both languages were fully engaged and treated equally. We purposefully avoided promoting the course as English with translation available, as that was not our point. We wanted the course to be accessible to our entire staff community.

Facilitators, not translators

We wanted to make the programme inclusive so we ensured that both facilitators could deliver the course to a high standard and answer any questions arising from the delegates. This meant that, rather than having an English-speaking facilitator supported by a translator, we had two highly competent facilitators capable of guiding conversations across both languages. This created equity and, by the end of the first few days, we found that the conversations had become bilingual themselves, with speakers of both languages offering viewpoints and perspectives that they were translating within their groups and in open conversation.

Take feedback

We ensured the smooth running of the course by taking open and anonymous feedback daily. This led to useful guidance from the delegates, who were able to provide feedback in both languages and steer the facilitators to make improvements that would enhance the course for all participants. Interestingly, one piece of repeated feedback was to provide more opportunities for open discussion around leadership. We had reservations that the pace of the course would be too slow when time was given to general conversation, especially as translation would be needed after every comment. However, we realised that this was what the delegates appreciated the most.

In summary, delivering high-quality CPD in a bilingual setting is much easier than you may have thought. It may also go a long way to solving some of the recruitment and training problems you face. I would encourage all schools to reflect on whether their current CPD offer is inclusive and equitable for their local talent and, if not, to follow the guidance above.

Jeremy Newton is the Senior Principal at , Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. You can connect with Jeremy on .

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What is a head of multilingualism and why should your school have one?

More and more international schools are engaging deeply and thoughtfully with the linguistic diversity of their communities. In different contexts, schools are coming to understand that monolingual or ‘English only’ approaches . Change is slowly happening as classroom by classroom and school by school, teachers and school leaders begin shifting their beliefs and practices towards approaching multilingualism

With this deepening engagement with multilingualism comes the need for intentional leadership that brings insights from linguistic research to the multilingual realities of our schools, combined with a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ).

This article puts forward the case for a formal leadership role focused on multilingualism. We share case studies of three international schools in different contexts that have a head of multilingualism, exploring the rationale for the role and what it involves.

Case Study 1

Head of multilingualism at the International School of London (UK) – by Susan Stewart

The International School of London (UK), where I worked from 2011–2022, has a long-established home languages programme, where all students have the opportunity to develop literacy in one of the 22 home languages currently offered as part of the curriculum from age three to the end of the IB Diploma Programme.

The role of head of multilingualism grew out of a close collaboration in 2012 between myself as home languages coordinator and the head of EAL. With a shared office space, we soon realised that we needed to take a more global approach to talking about students’ language portraits/repertoires, so that decisions about student language choices were not being made in isolation. We met all new families at the admissions stage, we ran staff professional development and we wrote articles for the school newsletter together.

When the head of EAL left two years later, the school asked me to take on both roles, and I became head of multilingualism, which enabled us to leverage students’ current/past language repertoires and to collaboratively plan for their futures, involving parents, students and the school in the process. Today, the main focus of the head of multilingualism is as the gatekeeper of the language policy and multilingual ethos, the building of student language choices and pathways in collaboration with families and ensuring curriculum cohesion between the different language departments (home languages, English, EAL, language acquisition).

Case Study 2

Head of multilingualism at Raha International School KCC (United Arab Emirates) – by Fatima Aissani-Miller

The United Arab Emirates is a multicultural country by nature, as foreign workers form most of the population, with more than 85% expatriates. English has emerged as a shared language that brings everyone together. While fostering unity, this presents a challenge for families who strive to maintain their linguistic and cultural heritage.

Raha International School KKC’s campus was founded four years ago. With over 50 languages spoken in the community, the school’s management team opted to create a new role that embraces and nurtures all languages and cultures. I was appointed in 2022 as head of multilingualism and member of the senior leadership team.

During my first year, the emphasis was naturally on nurturing the importance of Arabic as the mother tongue of the host country. This directed my attention towards curriculum development, blending the local Ministry of Education requirements with IB teaching, learning and assessments strategies.

Now in my second year, I work closely with the school community to nurture the linguistic identity of all students. I organise workshops for parents, develop intercultural awareness among the staff and parent community, and empower students to showcase and advocate for their native languages through celebrations of Mother Tongue Day, during assemblies, class visits, newsletters and after-school clubs. Whole school events and full support from senior management are key elements in the success of the role.

Case Study 3

Head of multilingual learning at Dulwich College Suzhou (China) – by Jacob Huckle

In recent years, Dulwich College Suzhou (DCSZ) has been undergoing a shift towards approaches that see multilingualism as an asset to be leveraged and towards what Rojas calls an ‘ecological model’ rather than a ‘medical model’. This ecological model demands a ‘shift in EAL specialists’ roles and responsibilities from past experiences of ‘fixers’ of learners to leaders for developing a schoolwide advocacy ecosystem’,

This required reconceptualising the role of head of EAL as head of multilingual learning, with the responsibilities centred around fostering an inclusive school ethos in which all languages are valued and used as resources for learning, for example through translanguaging pedagogies (the intentional use of all students’ languages as part of the learning process).

As head of multilingual learning, I have led the creation of a new language policy outlining our more inclusive approaches, coordinated our certification as a , collaborated with other language teachers to articulate our vision and language pathways, and worked with the community to identify and address issues of inequity and marginalisation as part of broader DEIJ work.

At DCSZ, the role of head of multilingual learning involves a large amount of advocacy, thought leadership, collaboration and strategic planning as we shift policies, practices, and personal beliefs to authentically embrace multilingualism.

With this deepening engagement with multilingualism comes the need for intentional leadership that brings insights from linguistic research to the multilingual realities of our schools, combined with a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice.

What is your school doing to ensure that it:

• embraces the multilingual reality of your community?
• takes seriously all students’ right to use and develop all languages that are important to their identities?
• designs pedagogy, curriculum and assessment to draw upon all languages as resources for learning?

Each school has a unique context and linguistic landscape, so the role of head of multilingualism varies, but each shares a commitment to intentional and strategic action towards embracing multilingualism as a right and resource and the transformation of our schools into inclusive and equitable multilingual communities.

Advice for schools establishing a head of multilingualism:

1. Create clear reporting and collaboration lines with other language and curriculum leaders and teachers.
2. Identify someone with a relevant knowledge and experience base in multilingual education, ideally at master’s level.
3. Ensure time and resources are allocated to the role, including for professional development and parent interactions.
4. Develop a relevant and shared vision for the role that is rooted in your specific school and linguistic/cultural context.
5. Build networks and learn from others, including groups like ECIS Multilingual Learning in International Education, NALDIC International Schools SIG and Language Friendly Schools.

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Jacob Huckle is Head of Multilingual Learning at . Connect with Jacob directly on . Susan Stewart is currently Director at , and was previously Head of Multilingualism at the International School of London (UK). Connect with Susan directly on . Fatima Aissani-Miller is Head of Multilingualism at . Connect with Fatima directly on .

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