Retention, retention, retention. As head of school services for the International Curriculum Association (ICA), I’ve heard time and again from the leaders of international schools about how difficult it is to build a long-term, sustainable team.
International schools are unique places of learning, each with a differing make-up of staff, student body and educational approaches.
Yet they face a common challenge: teacher retention, with educators at international schools lasting only on average.
Furthermore, international school staff can struggle to adapt to changing curricula, pedagogies and student demographics. Teachers are busy. Finding time to dive into the latest educational research may not always be a priority.
However, as part of an organisation working with international schools worldwide, I have seen numerous examples of schools using professional development to not only bridge that gap but also boost retention by cultivating an environment where teachers feel they are continually learning.
Bringing CPD into the classroom: Holland International School, Singapore
One such example I have witnessed was at Holland International School, Singapore. It has been on a journey to the ICA Accreditation quality mark that identifies areas in which a school excels and recommends further improvements.
After six months focusing on the recommended improvements, the school realised that traditional all-staff meetings were not generating the change needed to bring discussions from theory to practice. They were not making the most of meeting time and enabling all staff to contribute.
The solution was to invite teachers into each other’s classrooms, with each giving a presentation on their learning environment.
Teachers were sorted into pairs to discuss peers’ presentations, review each other’s planning and observe one another’s teaching; the results were immediate. Classroom visits were engaging and inspiring, giving teachers pride in their practice and opportunities to learn from each other in a practical way.
Putting them into pairs enabled everyone to contribute, workshop their development together and continually evaluate their progress.
By ensuring that everyone was included in the process of school improvement, the school enabled its teachers to identify one another’s strengths and take advantage of the expertise at their fingertips.
Small-group learning: Futuraskolan International School, Stockholm
A similar approach was trialled at Futuraskolan International School, Stockholm. Staff at the school were implementing the ICA’s Looking for Learning (LfL) practice, which encourages educators to focus on the learner experience, rather than teaching technique.
However, staff felt that they lacked opportunities to discuss their observations, and that the forms used to track developments in learning didn’t sufficiently relate learners’ metacognitive outcomes to teaching techniques.
The school came up with a solution that killed two birds with one stone. Like Holland International School, it invited teachers into each other’s classrooms, creating small groups of two or three teachers who would visit each other twice over a set period. Following the visits, teachers used updated, more in-depth systems to provide feedback on each other’s teaching.
The shift was designed to create a collaborative, whole-school approach to professional development, where feedback was growth-orientated rather than top-down or critical.
The small-group approach meant that teachers could support each other’s development journeys over time, while the addition of more rigorous forms meant that the school could also gather richer qualitative evidence of student growth - embodying a learning-focused culture.
Continuous reflection: British College of Brazil
Another school that has a small-group professional development approach is the British College of Brazil in São Paulo.
To find a middle ground between the often non-specific nature of group professional development and the isolation of individual performance targets, the school asked teachers to identify their own professional development goals, then sorted them into “learning trios” based on similar interests. The trios were designed to be autonomous, shaping their own processes and goals and deciding their own frequency of meeting.
At the end of the one-term trial, the school surveyed staff and found that tight groups based on colleagues’ own development goals led to impactful, purpose-driven learning.
However, they also identified areas for refinement, such as the finding that the autonomous nature of the groups led, at times, to unclear expectations and less strong outcomes.
Collaborative professional development
Each of these examples comes from a school in a different part of the world with a different local context and its own school culture. But they all have something in common - the most valuable source of professional development came from their own teachers.
Encouraging collaborative, colleague-based professional development enables teachers to learn from each other about what works for their students, in their school, and benefit from each other’s unique skillsets.
It’s not quick or easy work, but creating a culture of professional development that aligns with your school’s purpose and allows teachers to become the best possible version of themselves is a great way to boost retention and ensure that learning remains purposeful and positive for pupils.
Sharon West is head of school services at the International Curriculum Association
