Julia Knight, School Improvement Adviser at Hawar International School. She has been working internationally since 2012 and is a passionate advocate for children’s well-being in and out of the classroom as well as an advocate for teacher development and research-based practice. Having worked extensively across all phases from EYFS to Sixth Form in a variety of roles, she knows that happy children are successful students.
I have worked overseas since 2012 after a successful career in London. Naively, I believed that my new life as an international teacher would be vastly different but I still expected that Safeguarding children would be a priority for every school.
In the UK, my role as a Head of Year meant I was often dealing with child protection and safeguarding concerns that ranged from providing evidence in court to supporting families alongside my social worker colleagues and other external providers. As a young teacher, I learned some harsh but valuable lessons. For example, at one case conference, I used the phrase: ‘attention seeking’ and before I could even finish my sentence, the conference chair jumped in with ‘attention seeking is a spotlight on something you are missing.’ From that moment, I never used that phrase lightly or out of context. I also learned that internationally there are very few external organisations able to support children’s wellbeing and that Safeguarding wasn’t as stringent as the UK.
The first location was Thailand and it was there I first came across the notion of “affluent neglect”- absent parents, who were busy in their daily lives, leaving their children to nannies, drivers and sometimes grandparents. Parents who would ensure their children had the latest trainers and gadgets but could not afford to show up at a parents evening or answer emails about lateness etc;
In the UK, poverty and poor parenting are often linked but no one really talks about the children who have everything except a present family to help with homework, or attend sports days. It is heartbreaking to witness and the affluent neglect will often manifest in ‘attention seeking behaviours’ such as non-compliance, truancy, self-harm and / or bullying.
Then as I moved to the Middle East, I witnessed the cultural complexity of keeping children safe and discovered strict laws that were actually far less ambiguous than the UK. For example, the law in Saudi Arabia is very clear: a child is anyone below the age of 18. There is no grey area here. There are robust laws to protect children however culturally, family business is private and issues are dealt with in the home making it very difficult for children to make disclosures and even more difficult for professionals to support them.
The last and perhaps the most surprising aspect of being an international teacher is how many colleagues have anecdotally come across dubious “colleagues” and more often than not they are hiding in plain sight when their crimes come to light and reviews will often note that chances to safeguard children were missed.
Every school should have in place the 5 Rs.
- Recognise – the signs of abuse in both victims and perpetrators
- Respond – appropriately to concerns about abuse
- Report – concerns to the appropriate internal and external authorities
- Record – information accurately, appropriately and securely
- Review – safeguarding practices regularly to ensure they are effective
More often than not, the dubious “colleague” is allowed to leave the school / country without any fuss with some schools more concerned about reputational damage over the children who may have been harmed.
Sadly, none of this will be shocking to seasoned international teachers but we can keep being part of the change. It’s been wonderful to witness the growing focus on Safeguarding and it has been championed across all of the membership organisations from the Council of International Schools (CIS) to Council of British International Schools (COBIS) and BSME (British Schools Middle East). There has been an added emphasis from governments as well. Here in Bahrain, the Ministry of Education has mandated that all schools must have Safeguarding training and a designated lead- an excellent step forward in keeping children safe.
For those schools who are at the beginning of their Safeguarding journey, I would advise looking at the Council of International Schools 24 Questions which is an excellent starting point and can help guide the direction and focus of training.
I would also begin with Safer Recruitment- ensuring all staff are background checked and have references from the last three employers and they should always be from the headteacher or principal registered email address. All schools should post a safer recruitment statement on their website and on their job advertisements to discourage abusers from applying to your school.
In the end, the only way we can keep our children safe is by having a global, collective framework that all schools are committed to.