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Over the past 12 months, GEMS Education - an international schools group with more than 90 schools across the world, including 45 in the United Arab Emirates, delivering predominantly British and International Baccalaureate curricula - has made some notable appointments.

From England, it appointed former chief inspector of Ofsted Amanda Spielman as head of its academic council, and multi-academy trust (MAT) CEO Rob Tarn as head of its Schools Management (FSM) division. It also appointed former gold-medal winner and IOC president Seb Coe and music icon Nile Rodgers to serve as special advisers to its much-touted .

Yet perhaps the most significant appointment came last October when it lured Lisa Crausby from her role as executive director of education at English school group Star Academies to become group chief education officer and evolve its educational delivery to more than 150,000 students.

And it certainly was a case of GEMS doing the chasing, with Crausby telling ����Vlog a call from GEMS chairman and founder Sunny Varkey “came out of the blue” at a time when her career path had seemed set: “The thought of leaving [Star] had never entered my psyche.”

But talking to him proved “inspirational”, and listening to his ideas and insights for what the role entailed was enticing.

“My head was turned,” she admits.

Why did this happen now?

This was what GEMS was hoping would happen, with Dino Varkey, group chief executive officer at the group, saying that Crausby had been identified as the right woman for the job based on her experience and their vision for the future of the company.

“When we looked at where the global schools sector is heading - greater alignment, sharper focus on outcomes and a demand for innovation at scale - it was clear we needed a leader who could bridge vision with execution,” he tells ����Vlog.

“Lisa’s experience in the UK multi-academy trust sector stood out because she understands how to raise standards consistently across large systems, but also how to evolve schools for the future.”

Yet despite the overtures from GEMS, Crausby says she felt a deep responsibility to Star and her role there, and was torn on what to do next.

She went to Star CEO Sir Hamid Patel about the opportunity that had come her way and asked his advice. He told her to investigate further, telling ����Vlog he knew it could be a perfect fit for her skills.

“Lisa is an excellent leader, set apart by her passion, knowledge, integrity and humility - she is driven by a sincerely held moral imperative and consistently places young people at the heart of her decision-making.”

So with his blessing, she visited GEMS schools in Dubai to see the set-up for herself.

“I spent three days there, visiting many schools and meeting lots of different people, and was very impressed by the size and scale at which it operated and the potential to do good with its pupils, who come from all over the world.”

Returning to England, she had a decision to make. “I became quite philosophical… I kept thinking, ‘Why did this happen? Why did somebody knock on my door at this point in my life?’” she says.

Eventually she realised, “If I don’t do it, I might regret it,” and, despite it leading to a “very hard” conversation with Sir Hamid - and, later, the wider Star team - about leaving, her mind was made up: “I took a leap of faith and said, ‘I’ll go for it.’”

Immediate impact

Almost a year on from that decision, that “go for it” attitude is evident when Crausby reflects on the work she has done in her first year in post - not least making headlines around the world by spearheading a move by GEMS schools to become entirely vape-free.

“Nobody was making this a concern within the UAE...I was the first person to say we wouldn’t tolerate vaping. I’m proud of that work because people started to talk about the issue.”

She says this measure was welcomed across GEMS schools and the region - and also by students, who “took charge of the initiative by organising vaping amnesties for safe and accessible disposal of vapes”.

There was also support put in place from counsellors to “help those who struggled to quit”, she continues.

On a more systematic level, though, her work has focused heavily on bringing her knowledge and insight from the MAT world to a large international group, to embed ways of working that she soon observed were missing.

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“I think the tendency [in the UAE] is to appoint a fabulous head, then let them run their school. I don’t think I saw any standardisation,” she reflects.

By contrast, “it’s quite common in England to codify and standardise aspects of the model so you become more efficient and, should a promotion arise, can move staff from one place to another, meaning you retain people”.

She raised this with Mr Varkey soon after joining, pointing out: “You need to leverage the power of your schools and have some things common to all”.

His response? “Nobody has ever suggested that before.”

She argued that promoting commonalities in how teaching is delivered would help the schools work together while retaining their own identity.

“[Mr Varkey] understood it all straight away, from both a teaching point of view and an efficiency and recruitment point of view.”

With this backing, Crausby got to work.

Perhaps the most notable move was to create “playbooks” outlining teaching expectations for staff across all schools, based on the principles of cognitive science. Also set out were ways in which new trends like artificial intelligence should be approached.

After visiting a few schools, she “sensed where the gaps were and where I wanted to place my energy to have the greatest impact”, she adds.

Coaching and edtech

Supporting Crausby was Ms Spielman, whom she consulted about her plans, arguing that, while there was certainly work they could do around standardising curricula, focusing on teaching first would have more immediate impact. “She [Spielman] agreed that this was wise.”

She also introduced instructional coaching training for all middle and senior leaders - delivered by Steplab - to help them work with teachers on the new techniques being introduced.

The first phase of this work was piloted in nine schools over the past academic year, and will be fully launched this year “with no opt-outs”. She believes this will have an immediate impact.

“It gives me confidence that the quality of teaching in the classroom is going from strength to strength. Additionally, when it comes to agility, if you want to move teachers from one [school] to another, the [terminology] is all the same.”

Another example of the standardisation she is bringing to the group relates to the use of edtech in schools.

“From a procurement point of view, it becomes cheaper when you’re standardising one app across the group rather than having 50 different apps all trying to do something similar. At our scale, that’s a massive cost saving.”

And this won’t be work she is doing alone - the plan is for teachers in schools to help guide decisions.

“I’m about to launch Excellence Fellows across each curriculum area, and one of their roles will be to determine which apps we should use: are they any good? Are they being used? What’s the evidence? If it’s really great, why aren’t we all doing it?”

This work has also involved students, who benefit from a programme called Gemstones. This aims to cultivate leadership qualities such as leading with empathy or service. “It has really taken on a little world of its own, and I can see schools are really enjoying it,” Crausby says.

Global respect

For Dino Varkey, all this has been exactly what the group hired her for - to help ensure staff and students are being prepared for the future.

“From embedding clear playbooks on teaching and curriculum, to driving teacher development and strengthening student outcomes, she has helped us translate ambition into practice,” he says.

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“What excites me most is the way she has connected her expertise from the UK with GEMS’ own pioneering spirit to create a model of leadership that is future-facing and global in its outlook.”

It’s a reflection shared by Sir Hamid, who says that Lisa’s appointment and subsequent work at GEMS speak to the high regard in which the education system in the UK is held.

“The growing number of high-calibre school leaders from England being appointed to roles across the world is a powerful testament to the remarkable progress made in our schools sector over the past two decades.”

Life on the other side

While much of her early work has been based on the experience she brings from years in the MAT sector, Crausby has now had plenty of insight into how different life can be when you work for a billion-dollar school group.

“For example, we’re doing some work on the importance of family, with the emblem of a tree with roots and so on, and I said to the graphics team, ‘Could we get a tree in the likeness of the logo printed in 3D and get it into all the schools tomorrow?’ and they said, ‘Yeah, no problem - we’ll get that done.’”

Indeed, while Crausby has enjoyed the work of bringing insights from the state system to GEMS, there is no doubt that her new role affords new opportunities.

“In England you’re given a certain ‘envelope’ that allows you to deliver a great quality of education, but you are more restricted in terms of any creative work you might want to do in partnerships, plus the buildings might not be as glossy or have the facilities you want.”

Many GEMS schools, by contrast, have Olympic-sized swimming pools, planetariums and recording studios. “They are very, very impressive.”

None, though, is likely to be as impressive as GEMS SRI, which opened its doors to its first cohorts this academic term. Crausby says she was heavily involved in its set-up before its grand opening in September.

“I think it’s going to be the most extraordinary, exceptional school,” she says. She believes it’s one to watch not only for its facilities or its plans to use psychometric testing to guide personalised plans, but also for the cohort it will attract.

“The parental networking is going to be spectacular,” she says. “It’s only people like Sunny Varkey who can give you access to all these entrepreneurs from across the globe.”

Relishing life

Perhaps most head-spinning, though, are GEMS’ plans for a programme aimed at helping students to learn how to live to be 100 years old - aptly named Beyond100 - which she says shows how involved GEMS wants to be in helping to shape children’s lives beyond school.

“It [focuses on] the importance of sleep, exercise, nutrition, reduction of screen time and so on, and how this all changes as a child grows,” she says.

“It’s about leading a healthy, happy, successful, long life. There are not many people doing that in the teaching space.”

Despite having all this to be working on, Crausby has not left the English system behind - she remains on both the Star academic board and the board of the Eton Star partnership, which she describes as “particularly significant to me” because of how its institutions “exchange insights and push the boundaries from a local and global perspective”.

All told, it seems clear that Crausby’s “leap of faith” was the right decision: “I’m very fortunate to be in the position I’m in,” she confirms. “I’m relishing every moment of it.”

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