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Peru is famous for many things: Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines, the Inca Trail, chocolate and, of course, Paddington Bear, to name but a few.

It’s also the third-largest South American country and, as such, home to a thriving international schools scene: ISC Research’s latest data shows there are 45 international schools in the country, mostly in Lima, which is Peru’s capital and biggest city. There are also over 3,000 teaching staff educating over 31,000 pupils.

But what is it like running an international school in the country? And living there? We spoke to four educators in the country to get their thoughts.

“The behaviour here is really good,” says Dr Judy Cooper, head of Markham College in Lima, which was founded in 1946 and has around 2,000 pupils. She has spent most of her international career in Asia, and knew things might be different - but thankfully, behaviour has been very similar.

“There aren’t any major behaviour problems - there are the usual issues you’d find in any school, but mostly it’s never a big issue,” Cooper adds.

Pupils are ‘very respectful’

Eleanor Prescott, who was until recently director at International Baccalaureate school Colegio Altair and is now CEO for South America at Inspired Education Group, agrees: “Pupils here are very respectful and are keen to learn - the culture among themselves is, ‘We don’t do disruption because we want to learn. So why would you disrupt a lesson?’”

She says this can sometimes be a shock to new pupils who arrive and try to stand out in lessons by acting in a certain way, but usually, after a conversation with them and their parents, this is resolved. “If we put a sanction, it’s never without a conversation,” Prescott adds.

Cooper is moving her school to be more in line with this way of operating by using restorative practices - something she says requires careful explanation to parents, who often were at the school, too, and sometimes their grandparents were there as well.

“They have a view of behaviour management from their time. But now we’re moving to restorative practice, we do a lot of training with parents so they understand it’s not a woolly conversation,” she says.

“It’s about explaining to them that it does have consequences, but the consequences are owned by the pupils. Rather than just complying, or maybe complying because of fear, they’re taking responsibility for their own actions.”

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Simon Porter, executive head of school at St George’s College in Lima, also says behaviour is easy to manage: “If you’ve done your time in a UK state school, teaching here is easy when it comes to behaviour.”

Interestingly, though, he says his school has 19 psychologists - “I’ve never had one school psychologist before!” - and these are sometimes used to avoid more direct behaviour management.

“Sometimes a behaviour issue is pushed on to the psychologists and becomes, ‘Let’s have a chat.’ While it’s obviously wonderful to have this team, sometimes a kid just needs a bit of a telling off,” adds Porter.

To this point, he says he is looking at slightly modifying the school’s behaviour system to have more consequences. “We don’t do detentions or anything like that, and I don’t want to go that way, but a slightly more structured behavioural system in my school would help,” he explains.

Focus on safeguarding

One of the major considerations for international school leaders in Peru is the fact that the way children act can transgress the boundaries we have back in the UK, as Prescott reflects.

“Kids will sometimes just come up and hug me at lunchtime, and the instinct in me is to think, ‘Oh my God, safeguarding, safeguarding, safeguarding,’” she explains.

Prescott says this behaviour, though, is a cultural aspect of life in South America, and so it’s a question of balancing it with the usual strict protocols of safeguarding to ensure that pupils are safe.

“We aspire to UK standards of safeguarding. Our designated safeguarding lead sits on the senior leadership team, and it’s a standing item on our SLT agenda when we meet twice a week, and parents are usually good at letting us know about any concerns,” she explains.

Markham College in Lima

Porter says his school takes a similar approach and also has the benefit of being part of a big network of schools in International Schools Partnership. “They have very strong protocols for safeguarding,” he explains.

He says, too, that working within the Peruvian system is good, as the country is quite progressive on safeguarding and has numerous reporting systems for anything that comes up, and parents can submit concerns to the authorities as well.

Meanwhile, for Cooper at Markham, she admits that safeguarding is an area that has probably been her top priority since joining because she felt there wasn’t enough knowledge among staff.

“I think in every school it should always be a work in progress, because there’s always more we can do,” she says.

“So we’ve done a lot of training with staff, and it’s part of our weekly briefings to remind people to flag things, and we’ve made it part of our annual training for all staff around the school.”

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Cooper says this has improved staff confidence around safeguarding and increased understanding of why any concern needs to be logged - something that has been aided by the creation of Markham’s own in-house safeguarding platform.

“Any suspicions or any conversations or disclosures go into that platform and are accessed directly by safeguarding leaders, who then follow up on that information,” she says.

Staff recruitment and retention

“Lima might not always be the first place on people’s list,” admits Cooper - but she says those who do come often find it an “incredible” place to live and work: “Many people come here and really enjoy it and stay.”

She adds that applications can vary in terms of quantity and quality depending on the time of year or subject, but generally, across both local and international applicants, the school can find the staff it needs.

“We’re about 40 per cent expat teachers, and about 60 per cent are local teachers,” she says, noting that the school benefits in a large part by how many connections it has around the world.

“A lot of our staff come in because they have links with the school. So often, when I’m recruiting, they’ll know someone who works here or worked here before, or at other schools in Lima,” Cooper explains.

Markham College in Lima

Porter, meanwhile, says he mostly hires local teachers because of the cost savings this provides - and he acknowledges that it is not always the most obvious nation for international teachers to consider.

“I think it’s a difficulty for schools here because people think, ‘Oh, Peru is a long way away,’ and so it’s not necessarily the first place people would think of coming,” he says.

One teacher who did make the move, though, is Briley Habib, a geography teacher at Markham College, who said she was drawn to the country having travelled there in the past, and found the culture one in which she wanted to raise her child.

“After researching schools and reading online about the new Markham primary building designed by Rosan Bosch, which aligned with my philosophical stance on education, I made Peru my top choice in South America,” she says.

Rules and regulations in Peru

“In terms of what we teach in the curriculum, we’re pretty much left on our own,” says Porter when reflecting on how involved, or not, the government gets in school life. Adding that it is “fairly hands-off”.

However, this doesn’t mean there are no rules to abide by. Porter explains: “In the timetable, I’ve got to make sure I’ve got a certain minimum of time for PE and maths and so on. It’s nothing abnormal, though.”

Other government policies can be more impactful, such as the minimum space requirements. “The size of our classrooms means we can’t have more than 15 kids in a class, which is a bit of a headache from a financial point of view,” Porter explains.

But again he says this is nothing out of the ordinary, and the level of bureaucracy in the country is not as high as in other locations he has worked in, such as in the Middle East.

St George’s College in Lima

One structural aspect of the school that Porter says is important is having a dedicated “national principal”, who deals with a lot of legal issues, such as the paperwork required for a new campus development. And Prescott agrees that this kind of role is useful to get things done.

“Peru can be incredibly bureaucratic, but it doesn’t affect how you lead your school - as long as you have really good people who understand the system,” she says.

Prescott adds that her school has an academic secretary, who acts like a “government liaison” and who “knows everything about all the systems”. This is vital support for any non-native leader, she says.

“There’s no way, as a foreign hire, you’re going to navigate that space immediately,” Prescott says.

Cooper, too, notes that the government is not entirely hands-off. There may be visits from certain authorities to look at paperwork or to audit spending, and there are plenty of documents they have to submit - but overall, it’s not onerous.

“There are things we have to adhere to, but I don’t feel it’s something that is standing in the way of doing what we want as a school,” she says. “We have lots of freedom and autonomy to look at what the best education is for our school, which I find refreshing.”

‘Amazing’ cuisine and extracurriculars

Talking to those working in Peru, one thing that unites them is their appreciation of the food. Cooper says that “if you look at the top restaurants in the world, many of them are in Lima”. She adds that it is “amazing cuisine”, with Prescott and Porter similarly effusive.

Another big positive for the country is the amount of things to do and the opportunity to travel, says Habib: “Peru offers fantastic opportunities for families due to the wide range of extracurriculars available at very affordable prices.”

“Internal flights and buses also tend to be pretty cheap, and Peru is an excellent country to visit for deserts, rainforests and mountainous areas,” she adds.

Porter concurs: “Geographically, it’s an amazing place to visit. You’ve got everything from the coastal desert and the mountains to the jungle.”

He reiterates that travel is aided by cheap internal flights, and says that even the buses are “really nice, posh” ones that make getting around easy.

Cooper says that, for example, she recently used a three-day weekend to take a one-hour plane ride to Cusco: “I went to a brilliant restaurant, did an incredible walk in some ruins and was back by Sunday afternoon.”

One thing that can affect new international teachers is the weather: for a large part of the year it is “endlessly grey”, says Prescott, and it can be quite draining when you haven’t seen the sun for some time.

Considering city safety

Porter adds that, like any big city, Lima can be a bit of a shock for some people, especially as seeing some of the poverty can be quite distressing. However, he says it is mainly a safe city and there is always plenty to do.

“We can walk out at night time, and there are millions of great restaurants to go to. There are parts of the city where you have to be careful, but I don’t think it’s any different from any other big city. You just need to be aware,” he says.

Habib, who is raising a child while living in Peru, agrees: “Safety can be a concern, like in any major capital city, but there are migrant neighbourhoods that teachers tend to live in, which are safer.”

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges, though, is that most schools in Peru operate on the Southern Hemisphere timetable, which means summer holidays are during the Northern Hemisphere winter, and conversely, Northern Hemisphere summer months are core term time. However, this has plenty of perks.

“I prefer having the nice long break over Christmas as I break up on 18 December and do not return until 18 February,” explains Habib.

“Also, we still get three weeks off in July as a winter break, which makes it long enough to head somewhere for some winter sunshine - in our case, a trip to Bermuda to see family.”