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MANAGING INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS
Edited by Sonia Blandford & Marian Shaw (2001)
Routledge Falmer ISBN 0-415-22885-9 (£25.00)
INTERCOM 15
Reviewed by Richard Pearce
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This book is a product of the MA for International Schools course at
Oxford Brookes University. It is written and edited by the tutors with
some contributions from appropriate guest experts. The introduction states
that this volume aims to complement Hayden & Thompson’s International
Education: principles and practice, an aim it amply justifies.
By the publication date of this review the Bath oeuvre will number three;
along with 20 years of the International Schools Journal, the professional
development bookshelf is at last beginning to fill. The title commits
the editors to two tasks: giving an account of management, targeted at
the reflective practitioner rather than the researcher, and paying due
attention to the diverse situations of International Schools. The first
can almost be taken for granted: in the UK, unlike the USA, teaching careers
lead from the classroom towards towards the office, so Masters degrees
normally supply the necessary management skills. The authors’ expertise
shows in each chapter. The second requirement cannot be assumed, but some
chapters respond particularly well to the cultural, social and economic
diversity of the schools.
While explicitly eschewing definitions of international education and
international schools, very much Hayden and Thompson territory, the book
ranges over the essential practical tasks of international school managers.
Is there an underlying assumption that ‘international education’
has its own ideology? If so, should schools seek it by responding to market
demands of their (often globalist) clients, or lead the way with a millennialist
agenda borrowed from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’? One test
of the chapters is whether they speak in terms of what is, what should
be (and on what authority), or what could be.
In their introduction the editors set the scene with clarity and perception.
They are clearly writing of a field that they know, and delineate issues
authoritatively. The chapter on curriculum development, by Simon Catling,
Professor of Education at Oxford Brookes, is an outstanding account. Covering
a broad range of salient International School situations it offers frameworks
from which the reader can draw appropriately. It is clear when the stance
is realist and when idealist, and the reader can quickly move on from
reading to planning.
The same virtues are evinced by chapters on staff recruitment and retention
by John Hardman, on managing mixed-cultural teams by Marian Shaw, and
on English as an Alternative Language by Jackie Holderness Each carries
authority derived from their authors’ evident experience of the particular
problems of international schools.
Though the national base of training and research is clearly British,
a welcome change of accent comes from the Canadian guru of educational
change, Dean Fink. Perceptively applying New World perspectives to the
range of international school situations, he offers seven frames within
which practitioners can plan change, so that their policies correspond
to local realities.
Clear and helpful chapters on standards and performance, on planning,
on middle management, assessment, and on leadership complete this volume.
It will be widely appreciated.
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Richard Pearce is based in London. He is an
international educator and consultant to multinational enterprises
and families on schooling for internationally mobile children. Link
to Richard Pearce's home
page
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