In 2014, the international school community was rocked when it emerged that a serial paedophile had worked in multiple international schools over a 40 year period, illuminating previously unsurfaced issues around child safeguarding in this sector.
Not long after this case hit the international headlines, I was reading a Guardian Secret Teacher article. The Secret Teacher writing in June 2014 had moved to the Middle East and was heading back to the UK just a year later because, they said: “I miss the challenge and privilege of helping disadvantaged young people … children who really need to be taught. And by ‘need’ I mean children… who aren’t from the easiest of backgrounds.”
“In Jeddah, I supported a student experiencing domestic violence in the family home.”
The indignation I felt at reading this prompted one of my first ever tweets, which marks the beginning of my advocacy for safeguarding children in international schools. Having taught in Saudi Arabia, it resonated with me when the Secret Teacher said “Students’ parents are educated, successful, international business people and, generally speaking, the pupils are polite, pleasant and placid.”
Certainly, that was my experience too. But, in my time as head of year and then acting deputy head in Jeddah, I had also supported a student who was experiencing domestic violence in the family home, and had managed two serious cases of child-on-child abuse (one of which resulted in a student leaving the school, and another of which was unsatisfactorily resolved due to the status of the student’s family). There were also countless other less notable but still significant concerns related to mental health, divorce, racial abuse and radicalisation.
“A teacher drank a glass of wine in celebration when we landed outside of Saudi on a school trip – at 7:30am.”
As I reflect back on my time there over a decade ago, with experience and a feeling of guilt, I also recognise issues which should have had more action or exploration. A student in their mid-teens living without their parents for long periods with only a cook and driver at home. A 16 year old boy driving a supercar. A teacher who drank a glass of wine in celebration when we landed outside of Saudi on a school trip – at 7:30am.
Back in 2014, I knew that safeguarding and child protection was the business of international schools, but it was only in 2017 that I began to explicitly focus my career in this area. I was commissioned to audit safeguarding practices and develop a safeguarding handbook for an international school in Europe.
“I also recognise issues which should have had more action or exploration.”
This gave me the opportunity to dive more deeply into areas of safeguarding I was less familiar with: safer recruitment practices, the legal considerations around safeguarding, and the process of managing allegations.
Through attending the Council of International Schools (CIS) Child Protection Foundation Workshop in 2018, I learnt about the impact of the 2014 case and how it had spurred the creation of the International Task Force on Child Protection (ITFCP).
I also heard from forensic psychologist Dr Joe Sullivan about the motivations, thoughts and behaviours of child sex offenders, a presentation which I have now heard several times through my work with CIS but which is no less disturbing each time.
“This gave me the opportunity to dive more deeply into areas of safeguarding I was less familiar with.”
In early 2020, these experiences were coming together as an emerging idea for a doctorate. I was talking with a school leader I admire and explained to her that I was interested in exploring the challenges of safeguarding in international schools but I didn’t feel I was enough of an expert.
I will always remember how she looked me straight in the eye and said: “But how do you think you become an expert?” So, I sent off a research proposal and, by October 2020, I was beginning my doctorate with the University of Bath. In early 2023 I will undertake visits to international schools around the world to explore their child safeguarding practices through interviews with Board members, school leaders, safeguarding leads and students, all with a view to identifying challenges and sharing successful practices. ◆
Note: The topics touched on in this piece are also themes emerging in my preliminary research interviews with safeguarding leads: transience, recruitment, affluence, neglect, teacher conduct. But I am also asking new questions as a result of my conversations to date, such as:
- Who should be a safeguarding lead in an international school? Is a senior teacher, clinical psychologist, social worker or counsellor best suited to the role?
- What is the connection between diversity, equity and inclusion and child protection?
- What is the effect of safeguarding legislation if the country’s agencies are ill-equipped to deal with reports?
- What impact does accreditation have on safeguarding practices?
- How do safeguarding leads look after their own wellbeing? I look forward to sharing the results of my findings with the international school community in due course.
This article first appeared in the latest winter edition of International School magazine, out now.
