Visiting international schools in the Middle East

Published on 10th February, 2015 by Andrew Wigford. Published in For Candidates / TIC News

Andrew writes about his busy two weeks in the Middle East

Visiting international schools in Bahrain

My first five days were in Bahrain looking at three fantastic schools: Nadeen International School, the British School of Bahrain and St. Christopher's School. TIC has placed teachers in both Nadeen and the British School of Bahrain, and it was great to see some of them. They love their experiences at these schools. It was my first time visiting St. Christopher’s School and I was incredibly impressed by their learning facilities.

I was also very impressed with Bahrain itself. It is a very friendly place and a very easy country for expats to live in. There are lots of great restaurants, clubs and bars which are free to access and plenty are open-air. There’s a holiday atmosphere in the evenings, and many teachers stay in Bahrain for an extended time because of this comfortable lifestyle. St. Christopher’s has a turnover of just one or two staff members a year, which is incredible considering the school has over 100 teachers!

Teachers, Headteachers and golf in Doha

I travelled on to Doha for the BSME (British Schools of the Middle East) conference and the Heads Masters golf tournament (partly sponsored by TIC, along with Warwick Mann, ISC Research and WCBS). We played at the Doha Golf Club on the academy course and it was an excellent tournament attended by 18 Headteachers from international schools around the Gulf region.

The golf tournament was won by Sarah Graves from Compass International School Al Khor. Runner-up was Andy Dunlop from Qatar International School who also won the team event with Sarah and the prize of a free round of golf on the championship course.  No boasting, but I won the sponsors competition… and the nearest pin! Thanks to everyone who participated in this great event. The next event will be at the Vale Resort near Cardiff in the UK on 21st and 22nd July. Please get in touch if you are an international school leader and would like to join us.

Then on to more serious business and the BSME conference with Gemma. This was attended by about 200 participants from schools all around the Gulf region.

New international school teaching job opportunities

There were some very good opportunities for CPD at the conference. In addition, Gemma and I  were approached by many Headteachers of some superb international schools looking for support with their recruitment this year. Several spoke about the increased competition for good teachers at their schools and the need to work with specialised agencies like TIC to find the best quality teachers. We came away from the conference with around 50 new vacancies which will appear on the TIC website very soon.

I write this blog at the end of the conference, sitting next to the pool at the Movenpick hotel in Bahrain Airport. It's a bit chilly so I had to put a sweater on, but the weather has been glorious during the day. It's been a valuable ten days but now I'm looking forward to getting home - even though my wife told me it is minus 2 degrees Celcius in Wales!

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Andrew Wigford

Andrew is Managing Director of TIC. He has been involved in international education both as a teacher and Headteacher for over 25 years and has worked in Germany, Colombia and Austria. He set up TIC recruitment in 2005 to help teachers find great jobs in great international schools.