Grant Gillies, Headmaster at British School of Bucharest, reflects on some of the professional learning initiatives within the school and their work as a COBIS Training School.

Term one 2021

We have had a busy term at BSB with the now familiar challenges of opening and closing due to COVID. Despite this, we have welcomed our staff back with a real commitment to ongoing Professional Development. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure our staff continue to grow and develop. This is not always easy when operational matters detract, and energy levels are low. As a school we have adapted accordingly and provided space and some incredibly inspiring input that blends celebrating knowledge internally with external provocations to connect us with the wider world. It has been a balance but the recent Inset we hosted with Tom Bennett and Kate Jones addressing staff as part of our team, with staff providing Teaching and Learning workshops, we achieved just the right balance.

Being a COBIS Training School we have learning at the heart of everything we do and the connectivity with our COBIS network provides a community of like-minded, similar values driven colleagues.

It was great to be joined by the colleagues from the British International School of Stockholm for CPML training. Committing to training our Middle Leaders and having our Senior Leaders delivering the sessions sends a very important message, especially in turbulent times.

Our Heads of School are hosting a ConnectED CPD titled ‘Leading ‘Open’ International Schools Amongst and Through Periods of Intermittent School or Year Group Closures’ and the Head of Primary recently validated the CPML facilitators at Aloha College, Marbella. Both Heads have also committed to a COBIS compliance visit this year and continue to support schools as LIPs.

Our newly appointed Deputy Head of Secondary is hosting a COBIS webinar on ‘Sleep- the low hanging fruit of wellbeing’ on the 10 February 2022. He is currently working on publishing a book for John Catt on sleep and, over the past year, has presented at conferences and hosted podcasts.

At BSB we believe that leadership of learning is not about one person, it is a collective. Held together with a clear vision for our school, each member of staff is encouraged to lead learning at all levels. It’s about one person, it’s about all of us working together to improve our school, and ultimately impact on student learning. 

Our Secondary SEND has written a chapter published in the ‘EAL Academy Handbook 2021’ and we have two TAs signed up to undertake their CELTA training later this year.

It’s amazing when I sit down and reflect on the work that we have done this year alone and the learning that has taken place. In terms of the future, there are lots of things we don’t yet know but we do know we will continue to seize all opportunities, always reflecting on the aspects that didn’t go so well…….

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