Deira International School Dubai Jeff Smith Director Welcome I am Jeff Smith the Director at Deira International School For those who don’t know the school we are fortunate to be located in Dubai Festival City. We are a 3-18 school offering a British Curriculum Model and IBDP and IBCC at Years 12 and 13. We have 1500 students and 150 teaching staff.

DFC The school has extensive grounds opposite Al Badia Golf Course. We have plenty of land for future development.

Acceptable to Good to Outstanding more outstanding features This presentation is about our journey from acceptable to good. Of course at DIS we do not talk about the journey to good, we only talk about our journey to outstanding. We have achieved good for the last two inspections and have increased the number of outstanding features. I will show you in this presentation that we are working to a timescale to become outstanding, and that we are on track.

first impressions on appointment What was good: standard of teaching focus on teaching & learning excellent facilities (except no performance hall) well qualified teaching staff When I applied for the position as Director one attraction was that I could see there was work to be done to be good/ then outstanding. My first impressions at interview were: What was already good about the school: The standard of teaching was good in both the primary and secondary school, I noted some poor performance in certain subjects. This came down to some poor teaching and teachers who did not have the correct work ethic. The school was quite rightly focusing on teaching and learning. I knew the role of teaching and learning coordinators could be extended further. The school has excellent facilities, except the school lacked a performance hall for the performing arts

Why were we acceptable no real belief in our Vision, Mission statements – no connection to policy and practice teachers did not relate vision and mission to what they did in the classroom confusion – KHDA targets, CIS targets, School Improvement Plan targets student attitudes to learning, some teachers professional attitudes We had a Vision and a mission statement but there was no evidence that staff paid much attention to them. Some Staff could not relate these statements to what they were doing in the classroom. The Vision and mission statements were quite generic, found on every schools websites across the world. They needed to be broken down into our new core values and aims. All new policies and practice needed to relate back to these core values and aims. Staff appeared to be confused about all the different targets. DSIB targets – CIS targets and our own School Improvement planning targets. There was an abundance of working parties working on many new strategies. Nobody really seemed to be focused on key things that would move us forward. Inspection reports showed that some students had poor attitudes to learning and this led to some attendance and behaviour issues. This was not helped by the ‘slack’ attitude of a few teachers. Some students were not dealt with for turning up late for lessons or for no HW etc. Some teachers turned up late for duties or went to lesson late or finished them early.

Why were we acceptable poor structure of school timetable in the Secondary School Year 6 students in Secondary School instead of Primary School & Middle School concept were not working Overall – school grew too quickly in student numbers and staffing! This was not backed up by strong bedrock policies and procedures for: Assessment, Reporting and tracking School Improvement planning and Department Improvement Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy The Secondary School ran a middle school and senior school timetable. Some students were in lessons when others were on breaks. The timetable was over complex and created many problems. Year 6 students were part of the Secondary School and not the Primary School as part of the middle school arrangement at DIS. There was no evidence that this model worked and in fact compelling evidence that this caused problems and reduced progression in the middle school years. This model was not working but had not been changed. The school numbers grew quickly but the strong foundation of good practice and policies had not grown at the same rate. The school had good teaching but no policies and practice to support the teachers effectively. Key policies and practice had not been developed. Assessment was not rigorous enough and needed to be centrally controlled and automated. There was no data tracking system that could give us the value added data we needed to analyse our performance (e.g. CEM) Reporting need to improve to give better feedback to students and parents. Poor assessment records meant that we could not track progress effectively, and set up student monitoring and mentoring procedures. SIP and DIP needed a consistent approach that linked into the SEF We needed to develop a new monitoring and evaluation strategy so that we could make accurate judgments about our school.

Quickly moving to good Immediate Actions required – one timetable for Secondary School focus on staff professionalism raise students expectations on behaviour and attitudes (Director controls behaviour not parents) Year 6 back into Primary School End the Middle School concept keep the focus on Teaching & Learning assessment -immediate plans to introduce CEMS across whole school all SMT teach - including the Director new management structure (21 new positions inc. CPD manager) The next term (term 3) we created one secondary school timetable. All students were in lessons or being talk. There was an immediate impact creating a calm working environment. It was made clear to all teachers the professional standards we were looking for at DIS. Children who turned up late to lessons or forgot homework's were given detentions. Staff were made accountable for student attitudes and behaviour or their contract would not be renewed. Some parents who refused to allow their children to do a school detention were told to remove their children from the school. The staff were in charge of school discipline not the parents. By September 2013 Year 6 had Primary School home based teachers. The middle school concept was dropped. One primary school and one secondary school. The strong focus on T & Learning remained. CEMS was introduced across the school as an assessment system. All SMT were instructed to get back into the classroom to model outstanding teaching. (including me the Director who took on a IGCSE Physics group). A new management structure was introduced to give more opportunities for staff as stepping stones in the career path. This improved retention, only eight teachers out of 150 are leaving in July. We put a much bigger focus on continuing professional development including appointing a Whole School CPD Manager.

One key change that had the biggest immediate impact a new style 1 -3 Year DIS Strategic plan and new 1 year action plan linked to the DIS Strategic Plan, that: everybody understood everybody believed in everybody understands and plays their part on the journey to ‘outstanding’ The new 1-3 Year Strategic Plan was the one thing that had the biggest and quickest impact on driving the school forward and engaging staff with school improvement. We created one document that everybody could refer to- including Board members, parents and students. We created a clear link between the 1-3 Year Strategic Plan and the one year action plan. Everybody understood the plan format, what the plan meant and could see a sensible timescale for improvement. The most empowering aspect was that that everybody bought into the plan and believed we could put it in place. There was a sudden surge of self belief and excitement about the school that had apparently been missing for some time. Importantly, everybody understood that they had an important part to play in making the plan work on our journey to outstanding.

Suddenly Everybody knew: where we were going how we would get there why we were making changes. The biggest challenge in managing change is taking everybody with you. The strategic plan seemed to be the one document that brought us all together. Teachers will go along with change if they understand why there is a need for change.

One important page in the plan shows how we created 10 key areas for school improvement. (in white) This page shows how these 10 areas are linked to the DSIB key questions and quality indicators . Also how our 10 areas of school improvement are linked to CIS evaluation targets. Previously staff were confused. Are we working to the DSIB quality indicators or CIS targets. Staff now know we work to our own 10 improvement areas (in white). School departments now produce action plans under these 10 headings.

This page shows how we will move from acceptable to outstanding over a 3 year time period for each of our 10 target areas of school improvement. The grid at the top explains the red labels we use to say when we will be good, good with some outstanding features, and outstanding. This grid shows the gradual development of a target are over a 3 year period.

Some targets will take 3 years to become outstanding and some will take 2 years. It took one year to change students attitudes to learning and behaviour from acceptable to outstanding!

This sheet shows the format of our one year action plan which is created form one column of the strategic plan. The information at the bottom of the page show how our action plan is linked to the DSIB key questions and quality indicators.

Deira International School Dubai At DIS the students are the most important people and the staff are our biggest asset. Thank You Jeff Smith Director At DIS the students are the most important Thank you for listening