COVID 19 Update: What is the Current Situation and Well-being of Staff like at 4 International Schools?

International school teachers around the world are all going through challenging times at their schools. The range of experiences goes from complete lockdowns with the government mandating remote learning for all schools to basically doing “normal” in-school teaching with only a few precautions being taken.

Regardless of what your international school is doing, COVID 19 is and has been taking its toll on all stakeholders: teachers, parents, students, etc.

We asked some ISC members about their experience related to their well-being at the moment living in these days of COVID 19 and lockdowns.

We also asked them…

1. What is the current state of COVID 19 in your city and country?
2. How is that current state affecting your school and teaching?
3. Because of this state, how is your well-being and the well-being of the students and staff at your school?
4. What is your international school doing to help and be supportive to all stakeholders during this time?

The American School of London (London, United Kingdom)

The numbers are currently rising and we are currently in a one-month lockdown (although you wouldn’t know it by the number of people you see).

I have appreciated the school’s steps to keep us all safe – strict bubbles, SD, increased cleaning & mask-wearing from K-12. We have had a few cases, with the majority in the upper years, but in general, they have been mostly linked to outside contact. The school has an excellent track & trace system & I feel very confident in their protocols. Admin has been very gracious & understanding that stress levels are higher and have changed PD days into holidays. I feel ASL cares a lot about my well-being.

That being said, enrollment has dropped and there is some obvious financial strain. There is a lot of mistrust in the UK government as their policies have been very inconsistent and people are fed up. Local schools do not require masks and people are not really adhering to social distancing. Cafes, restaurants, etc. are only open for take-out. The economic fallout will be huge and apparently take 3 years to recover.

The school has a solid continuous learning plan for teachers/students who have to isolate and it has been offered to families for 2 weeks post-winter break.

Copenhagen International School (Copenhagen International School)

In Denmark, the numbers right now are at the highest they’ve been since the pandemic began, but they are staying steady at the moment and the deaths per day are low (compared to other EU countries).

Right now my school is doing in-person teaching, and we are doing “Normal +” which means we are basically doing our normal teaching, but with all the added precautions (like middle and high school teachers and students wearing masks all day, teaching teams staying in their “bubbles” throughout the day, etc.). It seems unlikely that we would go to full remote teaching or an emergency learning setup again, but we’ll see.

Because it is normal teaching pretty much, many teachers are just getting on with their teaching without too much worry, but we do have teachers that are worried and concerned. We’ve had a handful of teachers and students that have tested positive and for the most part, my school has taken the correct actions and precautions.

My school has a work environment group that looks out for the wellbeing of the staff, and they have been regularly meeting with admin to discuss the current situation and what more can we do to make sure our school is following the guidelines set out by the Danish government and how best to support teachers during these crazy times. There is some extra added pressure for classroom teachers to make sure they are doing all these extra precautions (cleaning desks, washing hands, etc.) while also doing their normal planning and lessons. It is a lot and can be overwhelming!

KIS International School (Bangkok, Thailand)

CoVid in Thailand has been very well handled. We locked down in March and the schools stayed closed until August. The borders are still closed to most outsiders. Although this is killing tourism, it is not allowing the spread of the disease. Most of our kids held up well even with the IB debacle and most graduates managed to get a place at university although most are still studying here online. At school, it is masks all around both in and out of classrooms which is a tad annoying in the heat, but most things seem to be running well. Both my wife’s school [in Thailand] and mine have been trying to help the local communities with food drives, etc.

Hope International Academy Okinawa (Okinawa, Japan)

Here in Okinawa (Japan), we are facing the beginning of the third wave of COVID-19, which is expected to bring a higher number of cases than the first two waves that we experienced last July and August. As of November 29th, we are currently on Stage 3 on Japan’s scale of the pandemic’s severity, just one level below the highest warning level of widespread infection level.

We have been fortunate thus far and have had no COVID-19 cases among our school community. We still can have “normal” days at school, so our teaching duties and practices haven’t changed. On school grounds, teachers, school staff, students, and parents wear masks at all possible times. Also, we wash hands regularly, take water breaks, and open all windows in the buildings during the day. Besides these preventive measures, we have canceled all the major school events for the next month, including Sports Day, Ice-Skating field trip, and the Parent-Teaching Conference will be a virtual event.

After experiencing one month of remote learning last April, it seems everyone in our school community is aware of how lucky we are to go to school, meet each other, and support each other in different ways. The level of collaboration and communication among teachers and staff has significantly improved. For instance, creating online groups has helped us share ideas, concerns, and, most importantly, get a sense of belonging. We are in these difficult times together.

For the last four months, we have updated our communication tools (website, blogs, Google sites) to provide more efficient and transparent communication with parents, teachers, and school staff. For instance, renewing Seesaw for School licenses to increase student and family engagement, purchasing Amazon Echo smart speaker devices for all classes to improve communication among teachers and school staff. In other words, our school has invested in updating tech tools to enhance the level of communication among stakeholders.

If you work at an international school and would like to share what it is like at your international school in a future ISC blog article, please consider joining the International School Community Advisor’s Facebook Group.

How to prepare your teaching CV for a job fair

An international education job fair is an excellent opportunity to meet and interview with a range of different schools, all in one convenient location. Events like the Explore CRS Shanghai job fair, taking place 8 – 10 January 2021, allow you to explore the career opportunities available to you, as well as build connections with new and interesting schools.

But just as during the normal job application process, it’s your CV that will determine whether a school wants to see you for an interview or take discussions further.

The recruitment consultants at Explore CRS sift through hundreds of CVs a year, in search of talented candidates to introduce to schools. They know exactly what information school hiring managers are looking for and what candidates can do to prepare their CVs ahead of an international education job fair. Here are their top tips:

Make an impression, fast

Recruiters and hiring managers are busy and spend as little as 3 to 5 seconds reading a CV. You, therefore, need to ensure that the layout of your CV is clear and that your employment story is coherently presented. Someone scanning the information needs to be able to quickly understand what you offer as a potential new employee.

Lay your CV out in clear sections: personal information, education, teaching experience, referees and other interests. Organise your work experience chronologically, starting with the most recent at the top. Don’t forget to include employment dates (month and year) and locations, as well as when and where you graduated from college or university.

Don’t go overboard

We appreciate that it’s hard to condense a long and varied teaching career down into a few paragraphs. It’s important, however, that you don’t include too much information in your CV. Try to keep it to a maximum of 3 to 4 pages. You need to present only the absolute highlights of your career and experience. Remember that adding more information also acts to dilute what is there, so keeping it brief will only strengthen your CV.

Emphasise your curricula experience

Many of the schools that Explore CRS work with are interested in teachers with specific curricula experience so be sure to emphasise all the curricula and national education systems you’re familiar with.

Although first preference will often be given to candidates whose experience matches a school’s criteria, many hiring managers do appreciate the similarities between curricula so it’s always helpful if you can clearly state those you’ve been involved with.

Explain the gaps

If there are gaps in your employment history, you should ensure you explain what you were doing during these times. There are a number of legitimate reasons for taking career breaks and very often these periods are spent doing things that actually enhance your CV. However, unexplained gaps in employment history can sometimes ring alarm bells amongst recruiters and hiring managers, so it helps enormously if you clarify why you took time out.

Write out your acronyms

In the international education sector, there are so many different institutions and academic bodies that it’s important to write out the name in full first and then use the acronym after. This is especially important if it’s not a well-known or globally used acronym. You need to ensure recruiting schools are able to understand your CV and quickly assess who you’ve worked for previously!

Include relevant professional development

Obviously, it’s great for recruiters and hiring managers to see that you’re dedicated to your ongoing professional development. They don’t, however, need to read every single PD workshop you’ve ever attended so make sure only to list the most relevant and recent you’ve taken part in.

Don’t forget, however, to include the most impressive examples of professional development, such as qualifications gained or participation in professional organisations, mentoring or research.

Spellcheck!

It’s amazing how many CVs come through to the Explore CRS consultants with grammatical or spelling mistakes. These errors completely undermine your attempts to come across as professional and diligent. Make sure you check your CV through at least twice and if you’re still unsure whether it’s error-free, have someone else check it too.

Use your CV at the event

Many job fairs (including those offered by Explore CRS) will include pre-scheduled interviews, so you will need to ensure your CV is ready to give to your consultant before you attend the event.

When the time comes for the event, it’s a good idea to print out 10 to 15 copies of your CV in colour and on high-quality paper to hand out to schools in person. You never know what face-to-face connections you’ll make, and a CV is an important tool in attracting the interest of a potential new employer.

One last useful tip for ensuring hiring managers remember you on the day is to include a professional headshot with your CV. While this is in no way mandatory, it’s a great way to make a lasting impression with school staff who will potentially meet hundreds of other candidates on the same day.

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This article was submitted to us by Explore CRS.

As well as helping applicants find teaching opportunities throughout the year, the Explore CRS team is also hosting a job fair in Shanghai, China, on 8 – 10 January 2021.

Attendees will have the opportunity to interview and network with a variety of international and bilingual schools, based both in China and beyond. After last year’s fair, over two-thirds of attending candidates were offered positions. An added benefit of attending the fair is the opportunity to take part in professional development workshops, after which all attendees can receive certification.

Learn more about the fair and sign up to attend via the Explore CRS website.

TEACHING on PRINCIPLE: How CGC Builds Learning Cultures in Every Classroom

In previous articles in this series we looked at the first two elements in the CGC Learning Ecosystem: Define and Design. Now we turn our attention to the Deliver element, asking, ‘How do we teach for learning and create a shared, schoolwide, learning culture?’.

The search for consistent quality of learning, and therefore consistent quality of teaching, is a long and winding road. The usual markers on that road seem to focus on developing ‘standards’ for teachers, and then ‘evaluating’ teachers against those standards. It’s all very compliance-oriented and rule-bound. Even the language around it smacks of the factory floor. In what other profession are we the ‘supervisors’ of our colleagues?

In CGC, we take a very different approach. We believe that schools are learning cultures and that cultures are framed by principles, not constrained by rules. We define a principle as ‘a shared truth that brings order and freedom to a system’. To us, common sense alone dictates that, as professionals, we are more likely to follow a ‘shared truth’ than to attempt to comply with the mind-boggling number of standards that seem to over-populate evaluation systems.

So, where do our Learning Principles come from? We believe that a well-crafted, co-created set of Learning Principles will be a practical synthesis of our shared learning experiences and the most reliable research. As always in CGC, we also believe in simplicity over complexity, so we generally work hard to synthesize our collective wisdom into 4-5 Learning Principles, and we find that this is plenty to guide learning, teaching and leading.

Of course, a set of Learning Principles has no value on its own. Just another wall adornment to nail up by the Mission Statement. The real learning impact comes when Learning Principles are translated into Learning Practices, then into the necessary Teaching Practices to support the learning, then Leading Practices to support the teaching. It’s basic logic, a simple if-then syllogism: If we are living this principle, then here’s what we’ll see our learners doing, here’s what our teachers will be doing in support and here’s what our leaders will be doing to sustain this culture of ‘learning, teaching and leading on principle’. For example, if the Principle is about Self-regulation, then learners, guided by teachers, will be able to set their own learning goals, and teachers will be able to set their own professional learning goals. It’s a system, and the system shapes the culture.

So, that’s the simple idea. A school-wide culture shaped by a few deeply-held shared learning principles that drive practices for learning, teaching and leading, including practices for Self-directed Professional Learning. When it comes to improving our practice, it seems obvious that we learn to improve our practice, so we should be following learning theory not out-moded evaluation practices. 

A final point. In our member schools, we have seen rapid transformation by simply working together as a faculty on one collective annual goal of high learning impact for all students. It’s a simpler, more effective use of time and energy than the annual ritual of scatter-shot multiple personal goal-setting by each faculty member, a process we have labeled, somewhat irreverently, ‘Letters to Santa’. It’s one of many Energy Vampires that we would best be rid of. But that’s another story…

This article was submitted by Kevin Bartlett. Kevin led international schools for over 30 years in 4 different locations, while working on a number of fronts to systematize international education. This work included designing accreditation systems including ACE, leading courses for the Principals’ Training Center, initiating and leading the IB Primary Years Programme, and co-founding The Next Frontier Inclusion and the Common Ground Collaborative.

www.thecgcproject.org
kevin@thecgcproject.org
#CGCKevin

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