Tes International

The founding head of School at Phoenix House in Japan, Claire Fletcher, joins the podcast to share her insights on working in several brand new schools in the international sector and the ups and downs this brings.

From the reality of arriving at a school still being built to why she believes you have to interview teachers for new schools in person to sense if it's really for them, she reveals why life as a founding school is 'not for the faint-hearted' - but is also incredibly rewarding.

She also offers advice on staying calm when everything around you is brand new and answers are sometimes in short supply - and why this makes recruitment a vital component of setting up a new school.

We chat with Claire Holmes, head of School Counselling at Tanglin Trust School in Singapore to hear about the school's approach to managing pupil transitions - both on arrival and departure - and why including parents in this work is vital.

She also explains why it is important international schools give due focus to 'stayers' - those pupils that remain in a school throughout their education but see many of their friends, and teachers, leave on a regular basis - to ensure this consistent loss does not affect them unduly.

As part of this she also explains why she has written books designed to help schools and leaders do all this as best as possible to ensure wellbeing of pupils - and parents - remains a top priority.

In this episode of the Tes International College we head to China to chat with Garry Russell, Head of College at Dulwich College Shanghai (Pudong) and Lavinia Tong, head of Admissions & Marketing, to discus staff retention.

They explain why this is such an important focus for the school and through a mix of career opportunities and ambitious goal setting, coupled with a strong community ethos, they aim to keep staff with the school for as long as possible.

They also talk about how they are developing pupil alumni networks to help build their community feel and ensure past pupil success and life stories can be shared with current cohorts.

In this episode of the Tes International podcast we head to Saudi Arabia to chat with Dr Steffan Sommer, director general of Misk Schools to discuss the school's approach to teaching leadership as part of its standard curriculum.

He explains how the course was developed with links to the High Performance Learning framework, why there is a focus on both subtle, in-lesson ideas, and specific leadership classes, and the need to ensure this work develop leaders ready for the 21st-century.

He also outlines why the school has appointed an independent researcher to evaluate the work with the intention of releasing findings on best practice in this area to help other schools develop similar frameworks in the future - both in the country and around the world.

In this episode of the Tes International podcast we head to Japan to chat with Mark Beales, the principal (MYP/DP) at Osaka YMCA International School, to hear about a bespoke assessment diploma pathway the school created to sit alongside its IB programmes.

He explains why this was formed and how it was created, the importance of having it accredited by WASC, and the work done to make parents, pupils and teachers aware of its purpose within the school's offering.

We chat with Lizzie Varley, an education advisor with Cognita Schools based in the Middle East, to discover how a cross-school focus on student wellbeing encompasses everything from staff development and helping pupils develop a positive mindset to considering how artificial intelligence will change the world children will inhabit and preparing them for this.

She also talks about the importance of senior leadership buy-in towards wellbeing initiatives and how to balance this with pressure to deliver high academic outcomes at scale.

In this episode of the Tes International podcast we chat with Chris Woodhams, assistant principal (Academic) at St. Joseph’s Institution International School in Malaysia about how the school revamped its focus on students with English as an Additional Language (EAL).

He explains how this involved bringing in outside consultants to help identify areas of strength and improvement, doubling its EAL department staff cohort and embedding a whole school approach to EAL including boosting training for staff to do this - and why all of this requires trial and error and giving staff time to develop these skills.

The director of the British School of New Delhi, Vanita Uppal, joins the Tes International podcast to discuss a major project in the school to overhaul its CPD offering to staff in order to ensure a consistency of quality and approach.

She explains how this work was carried out and the practical changes they have made to incorporate this and why this project is now expanding to include administrative stuff too.

She also discusses her own education career growth that has seen her spend 32 years at the school and the immense changes witnessed in that time.

In the first episode of the new academic year we chat with Simon O'Conner, director at Deira International School in Dubai and chief education officer of Al-Futtaim Education Foundation Chief Education Officer.

He discusses how schools need to start thinking about the arrival of Generation Z teachers into the workplace, what they will expect from the world of work - from technology to how they are managed - and how this can be managed alongside the existing workforce.

He also discusses the power of coaching to help drive career growth for teachers - and how school culture can make or break all this hard work.

In this episode of the Tes International podcast we chat with Daniel Jones, chief education officer at Globeducate, to discuss how the school group is managing the challenge of the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence, chiefly ChatGPT.

This includes working to understand how it could benefit teachers by reducing workloads by generating lessons templates or curriculum ideas, through to the risks it poses from plagiarism to if coursework-based assessment can survive into the future.

He discusses how this work has included forming working groups to bring expert insights from across its groups and the need for a continued focus in this area given its rapid evolution.