Teach Middle East Magazine Jan - Mar 2020 Issue 2 Volume 7 | Page 45

Featured Teacher
Bill and Alison now share some of their
thoughts on being a school leader and
life after school leadership.
What has been one of the
biggest lessons you have
learned as an educator
Its all about people, schools are about
children: a Grade 5 teacher might
teach this grade forty times in his/
her career, but each Grade 5 class
only gets one shot at it. So it has to
be fantastic. Teachers must believe
in the power of their words and role-
modelling, to change and improve
the lives of their students. They should
not underestimate the impact of each
individual interaction. You learn about
this later in life when ex-students,
as adults, write to you and tell you of
the impact you have made on them
through a single interaction that they
have never forgotten. One of Bill’s Year
7 students from 1986, recently wrote
to him to say that she remembers his
guidance on how to tell a great story,
back when he was her English teacher,
and she still recalls these words each
time she sits down to write. She has
now published two novels.
What inspired your move
from school leadership to
recruitment?
We had worked in schools for 33
years (Bill) and 29 years (Alison) and
were ready for something new. The
motivation to create wonderful
learning environments is what took
us into schools in the first place and it
is what also took us into recruitment.
We wanted to help to create schools in
which motivated and team-orientated
teachers provide exceptional learning
opportunities for children. Sounds a bit
cheesy, but this remains our personal
mission statement today.
What Search Associates does is, in
fact, far broader and deeper than can
be defined as ‘recruitment’: In our
roles with Search Associates, we enjoy
supporting teachers in developing
their international career strategies.
Much of our time is spent meeting or
communicating with them about this
subject. It is a tough world out there
and there are so many pitfalls. How
can teachers find a school that is a
‘good’ fit for them?
occasional rescue dog! One of our
candidates is an international jouster
and has to find stables for her horse!
(Which she successfully did, by the
way!). Here are a couple of typical ‘good
sense strategies’ when considering
your next career move :
5 5 Always think 2 schools ahead, not
just one. One of the roles of your
next school is to provide the right
platform for the subsequent one.
Think strategically.
5 5 What is your ‘brand’? Imagine a
future recruiter talking about you
to another recruiter – what words
do you want him/her to be saying
about you, that capture your ‘brand’?
Now wind back to now: how can
you ensure, in all your verbal and
written communications, that you
communicate these values?
When we are not working directly with
candidates we spend the rest of our
time visiting (or communicating with)
the 780 schools across the globe that
look to Search Associates to provide
them with great teachers. By getting
to know and understand these schools
we are best able to guide our teachers.
We have visited 263 schools in the last
3½ years! Most of these were in the
Middle East, but we have also visited
schools further afield, from Turkey to
Kazakhstan and also China.
What are the three key things
that schools in the Middle
East should keep in mind
when recruiting staff?
Don’t just recruit people for the
classroom; recruit for the staffroom.
Connectors and culture makers are so
important in the world of international
schools. We tell our teachers about
the particular importance of this. A
positive influence in the staffroom
is invaluable. In fact, this extends out
into the community too, and teachers
should always be aware of their role as
representatives of the school’s mission.
Teachers need to have a great reason
to get out of bed in the morning and
go into school. Therefore, they need
schools that value them and listen
to them, as well as challenge and
develop them. Teachers serve best in
emotionally intelligent organisations.
When teachers are happy and fulfilled,
the students get a good deal.
At a conference last year, we listened
to Jane Larsson (Executive Director,
Council of International Schools)
challenge international schools to do
much more to reflect the diversity of
the student body in the teaching body.
Our own experience tells us that this
is not the risk some perceive it to be.
There are so many wonderful teachers
out there, many just itching to get that
first chance ‘to go international’. We
encourage our students to be creative,
to take risks and to think outside the
box… do international schools do the
same?
What are the activities that
you do to relax and take your
mind off work?
We have enjoyed finding a way to
marry our work with leisure. We spend
so much of the year in the Middle East,
where most of our own candidates
and schools reside, that we make sure
we put the laptop back in the bag and
explore and enjoy the places that our
work takes us to. When carrying out
school visits to Turkey last year, we
flew Bill’s mum into Istanbul and were
tourists for 3 days. We love beach-
walking in Dubai, We have visited the
Louvre in Abu Dhabi twice, and have
been to all the water parks in both
cities!
Bill and Alison are now enjoying having
a much wider impact on the wonderful
world of international schools and I
wish them all the best!
We try to support them in asking the
right questions in formulating the right
strategy for their own career needs.
For example, many are interested in
teaching a new curriculum (typically
migrating to the IB curriculum) or
changing country. Sometimes their
own circumstances have evolved and
they have to consider the needs of a
spouse and children – as well as the
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