Working as One: The Collaborative Culture Behind Student Success

 

At the start of this academic year, Mr. Cocker wrote about our ambitious plans to ensure that we always maximise the incredible opportunity of being an all-through school.  I am pleased to reflect and provide an update on this important aspect of BIS Abu Dhabi's work.

 

As a new member of this community, I have been struck by the warmth, kindness and inclusivity of our great school. The staff team, the children and the parent community achieve such special things by working together as one.  This does not happen by accident.  It happens because our values of Kindness, Honesty and Respect are lived and believed in by all who call BIS Abu Dhabi home.  We trust each other and we lean into that trust when we work together.

 

By recognising the strengths and talents that exist here in our community, we are able to continually collaborate, provide each other with chances to share talents, and learn from one another.  I think our recent foyer music performances, careers visits from 'Parents as Partners' and the truly special Pinktober coffee morning were shining examples of this collaboration in action.

 

BIS Abu Dhabi's genuine commitment to collaboration extends even further than this: it permeates everything that we do together.  When the school's leaders make strategic decisions about professional learning, curriculum design, teaching practices, behaviour routines or policy changes, the Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Senior School Teams work in unison to reach the best decisions for our students. 

 

The children's seamless, coherently planned journey through our school comes first and sits at the heart of our decision making.

 

At the start of this academic year, we have worked together across-phases to design an evidence-informed professional learning programme for our teachers to develop their knowledge of the latest research from the Education Endowment Foundation on inclusive practice in classrooms.  Keeping up to date with the latest thinking in educational research and literature helps our teachers to deliver the very best teaching every day for our children.  It has been inspiring to see colleagues from Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Senior School sharing their expertise with each other and learning from one another.

 

Over the next two terms, we will be looking very closely at the coherence and level of ambition in our curriculum, whole school.  This exciting piece of work will allow subject leaders from different areas of our school to come together, review current practice in light of research and experience, and make decisions together to make design and teaching of our ambitious curriculum even stronger for our children. 

 

By combining collaboration with a relentless desire to improve, leaders across BIS Abu Dhabi are focused upon ensuring that we are truly exceptional in all that we do.  I am delighted by the positive start to this academic year and I am excited to see what we achieve together this year, which will undoubtedly be more as we work in genuine partnership together.