International Recruitment: Festival of Education

On Thursday 4^th July and Friday 5^th July, North West London Teaching School Hub attended the 14^th Festival of Education as a Premium Exhibitor. The Festival of Education is the biggest professional learning event in secondary education in the UK, it takes place every year at Wellington College, hosting over 300 leading speakers and thousands of attended from the world of education.

For us, this was a fantastic opportunity to speak with individuals from across the wider education sector, networking and developing innovative insights into the direction of travel in the sector, as well as discussing our professional development and wider offer.

Pivotally, we also attended to specifically explore the opportunities associated with international recruitment. This feeds into a wider MAT strategy to recruit internationally for north west London schools, as ‘North West London: Come to Teach’.

Why international recruitment?

English schools are facing a significant teacher recruitment and retention crisis. The DfE is increasing encouraging school leaders to develop an international recruitment strategy, with schools and MAT engaging with this strategy to varying degrees. International recruitment of teachers can be seen as expensive, and can come with risks (e.g., retention, not understanding the English school system/ National Curriculum). We have found that schools and MATs which have been most successful in their strategy have had centralised resourcing for international recruitment, developed strong relationships with specific agencies, and have the support required to support new staff.

Our international recruitment imitative aims to develop an offer for schools in north west London, which addresses the challenges and barriers that schools face developing their own international recruitment strategy.

Panel Discussion – International recruitment, is it the answer?

At the Festival of Education, we delivered a panel discussion, exploring the extent to which international recruitment could support schools to tackle some of the challenges associated with the recruitment and retention crisis in English schools.

Chaired by our WMAT Director (Sahreen Siddiqui), we collated voices across the sector, including:

• Mark Steed – Consultant and Director (Steed Education)
• Christopher Woolf – International Director, Wellington College International
• Julie McCulloch – Director of Policy, Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)
• James Zuccollo – Director of School Workforce, Education Policy Institute (EPI)
• Penny Swain – Education Talent Solutions – Business Development Director, Supporting Education Group

After an insightful panel discussion, we were left with numerous takeaways, including the importance of ensuring headteachers recognise the value of international teaching experience, the inevitability of international recruitment in an increasingly globalised world, and the importance of developing an ethical and sustainable international recruitment strategy.

We are still in the infancy of this project, however we are excited to watch this grow. To speak to us about how you can get involved, please contact general@northwestlondontsh.org.uk