A Fresh Perspective on Teaching and Learning With Clemmie Stewart

Clemmie Stewart, a seasoned educator and the Executive Principal at Beech Hall School, Riyadh, joins Leisa Grace on the Teach Middle East Podcast to talk about how to shake up traditional teaching and learning as we enter a new academic year. They stir the pot, traversing the delicate terrain between conventional and cutting-edge learning techniques while emphasising the critical importance of a fundamental knowledge base for efficient classroom technology use. Clemmie proposes how to introduce technology as early as kindergarten but in a safe way!

The conversation does not stop at challenging the standard education protocol; it takes a step further by questioning the conventional definition of success. They've got you covered on digital literacy, mental health, and the art of teaching students 'how to learn' instead of 'what to learn'. They top it off by discussing the empowerment and development of teachers. An episode packed with insights. You don't want to miss out!

Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.

Visit our website: https://linktr.ee/teachmiddleeast

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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

Connect with Leisa Grace:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leisagrace/

Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.

Visit our website https://linktr.ee/teachmiddleeast.

Tweet us: https://twitter.com/teachmiddleeast

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachmiddleeast/.

Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

Connect with Leisa Grace:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leisagrace/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Well, hello party people. It's Lisa Grace. Welcome back to the Teach Middle East podcast and welcome to the new academic year. How have you been? How has your summer been? Where did you fly off? To? What did you do? Hit me up in the comments, let me know, because I'm curious and nosy all at the same time. And today I have with me Clemi Stewart and we're going to be talking about teaching and learning, because you need to talk about teaching and learning at the start of the new year, because that's what we're going back into schools to do. And so, in order to set ourselves up for a fabulous new year, we're going to be talking all things blended and traditional learning. We're going to talk about academics, future ready curriculum, personalized learning, a little tech, a little this, a little that. Clemi is now the executive principal of Beach Halls Beach Hall School, in Saudi, actually and I'm going to ask her to introduce herself.

Speaker 2: 1:26

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.

Speaker 3: 1:37

Welcome, clemi. Well, thank you so much for having me, lisa. So my name is Clemi and, as you rightly point out, I'm the newly appointed executive principal of Beach Hall School Readd, and before that I was director of learning and teaching for Chatsworth schools and Benham schools, who have 14 schools and nurseries across the United Kingdom, and then, obviously, our beloved Beach Hall School Readd. So nice to meet you.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Lovely to meet you People. Readd is jumping off. Readd is popping nowadays. I'm coming over there later on in the school year to do a teach meet. So, yeah, we might. We might be heading over to the British International School of Readd. So watch this space. That one right there and we are definitely looking forward to meeting all the educators over there in Readd. We were over in Doha in the last academic year. We had a fabulous teach meet over there, a Parkhouse English School, and so we're headed to Readd See what teaching and learning is looking like over there in Saudi Arabia. Okay, clemi, we're going to jump in with all your experience, with all your expertise and with all that's happening. Let's start off with talking about the changes that we're seeing in teaching and learning, and we want to know how we balance things. So nowadays, with all the advancement in technology and everything that's going on, people are saying, oh, we need to change. We need to change. How do we balance changing with the traditional methods that have served us well so far?

Speaker 3: 3:09

Such a brilliant question and I think you know what we have to do at the risk of bringing up the word COVID so early on in our discussion is take the learning that we all experienced during COVID, because I think for me that really exemplified how you marry tried and tested traditional pedagogy, but through a completely different delivery mode, and I think we did it really well.

Speaker 3: 3:29

So you know, a huge shout out to educators around the world for what they did and also for our young people and our children. You know I always joke that they're the superhero generation. They're not the COVID generation, they're the superhero generation because they just moved over to that modem of delivery with such agility and flexibility and confidence that they too have seen the possibilities of technology. So I think what all schools should do is look at what do they hold dear in terms of fundamental traditional pedagogy and what we know of cognitive science, but then think about how technology can become a really useful tool to help drive the learning and teaching through. So, whether it's the children becoming producers or children becoming consumers of technology, how they can use that as the vehicle for driving what we know works in a pedagogical way.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Yeah, I always wonder when people talk about getting rid of teaching knowledge and moving to just skills, how do we rationalize not teaching any content versus only focusing on skills? Give me some ideas around that.

Speaker 3: 4:38

Such a good question.

Speaker 3: 4:39

So for me, I always believe that knowledge gives you contextualization.

Speaker 3: 4:45

So if you take something like AI and children just being able to use that to find content very quickly, if they don't have a base level of knowledge they can't then start to fact check that bias. They can't think that makes sense or that doesn't make sense. So, for instance, my husband is currently using chat GPT to plan our move to Riyadh, but my contextual knowledge of Riyadh has enabled me to say no, that's not quite right, we need to change the search parameters or we need to change our command a little bit there, because that's not quite right for Riyadh. And so I think you still have a need for knowledge and a knowledge base. But equally, teaching children to recite all the kings of Queens of England up to now is a complete waste of time because they can just search that up. So I think it's about teaching them the need to have knowledge and have that hint of land and that kind of cultural canon and all those important things that will fill their mind, but also know when they can use technology to work smarter, not harder.

Speaker 1: 5:41

You're so right, and I also wonder what your thoughts are on when we should start integrating this high level of technology, at what stage in the school classes?

Speaker 3: 5:53

This won't make me popular, but I think right from the very beginning, right down in kindergarten, because we're finding that when children come to school, they're already integrating technology into their daily lives. I remember once reading with one of my reception pupils at the school I was head of in London, and she used her fingers to try and expand the page of her book because she was trying to enlarge the text and hadn't made the link between the fact she wasn't on an iPad. She was in a book. So children will be surrounded by technology for their whole life. So we need to normalize it and contextualize it, but also build effective habits of how to use it so that it just becomes part of their daily routine.

Speaker 1: 6:30

We were friends right until you said that.

Speaker 3: 6:33

What do you do differently? I was heading over to Lead.

Speaker 1: 6:37

I was taking you out for coffee. I was hanging out with you. We were best buds, Clemi. Then you told me that my three and my four-year-olds should have technology in their hands. I'm like, okay, I'm actually not visiting you. I'm out.

Speaker 3: 6:55

I think for me you can hide from it Again. We know in schools where no technology exists at all, but ultimately the children will be surrounded by it through their working lives and it's about developing effective habits. Don't get me wrong. I want to walk into a kindergarten classroom and find children discovering through play. I want to see them building junk models. I want them to see them doing do-disco and developing those gross motor skills and planting seeds and playing in the role play. But equally, they need to incorporate some form of technology so they deliver effective habits. There are some things like phonics and numbers that they really enjoy using a little bit of iPad time. But don't worry, I'm not expecting you to walk into a technology factory farm in any of our schools anytime soon.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Give me percentage. What percentage of their time should be spent on these devices in school? Outside of school, we have not too much control, but in school, what percentage?

Speaker 3: 7:51

I wouldn't imagine them using it any more than 15, 20 minutes a day as part of one of their round robin activities, but then I would expect to see the smart screen on which they would be incorporating. They might be using talking tins to record their stories. So, again, it's not just being linked to an iPad, but different types of adaptive technologies that can help an inclusive learning environment are also critical. So I don't want to see them rooted to iPads all day, of course not, but bringing in little pieces of technology that help drive their learning forward and help develop engagement for some of our children will always be a positive, I think.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Yeah, I mean, I can't hide from it. I know a bit of a hippie. People who know me, they know that they know I'd rather have my kids running around in a forest and foraging than be on an iPad. But we are where we are and we have what we have, and so, yes, there is room for them to have a bit of tech, because they are not going to avoid it, it's inevitable. But what I wanted to find out from you as well, when it comes on to the skills, the tech skills that they need, what do you think are the key skills that students are going to be needing going forward?

Speaker 3: 8:58

Sure. So one of the things we've done at Chatsworth and Blenheim is create what we call our tapestry, which are the fundamental areas of curriculum development that we think are utterly critical for our children as we look to their futures, and one of them is digital literacy, and for us it's about that balance between their ability to produce content using technology, to present, to explain, to hypothesize and rationalize and to collaborate, but then also their ability to consume technology and have that critical eye. For me that's a huge, huge thing. My father works in journalism and has done for 40 years, and we've always talked about that knowledge of bias in what you're reading and the importance of fact checking, and I think the advances in technology have made that so hard. Just look at some of the political situations we've seen involved in the UK. People have read at face value what they've been told and made really crucial democratic decisions based on that. Sometimes it's then come out that that was completely false or completely untrue. So I think our children have to be able to navigate that digital world and ask those questions and interrogate what's in front of them.

Speaker 3: 10:03

I think the other critical thing for me goes back to your previous point around digital health and understanding when they have consumed too much technology, when they're on a screen for too long, when it's not doing them any favors, and also their ability to keep safe online, and I think that's crucial.

Speaker 3: 10:18

I went to a fascinating AI conference recently. One of the teachers was talking about the fact that Snapchat your top friend on Snapchat now is your AI virtual assistant, who will give you advice on dating and relationships, and how. That terrifies me to my core the idea that a 12 or 13-year-old can be asking some really difficult questions of a bot rather than a parent or a trusted adult. So, again, I think we have to make our children aware of the dangers and how to keep safe. The final thing for me is always that digital tattoo as well, and then understanding that in their hand is a weapon actually in some ways, and they can post an image, they can post a comment that will follow them forever, and understanding how seriously they've got to take that for me as a critical role that we as educators have to honor.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Yeah, no, you're very, very right. I very much shudder. I don't have Snapchat, nor have I ever been on the app, which is not very good because I think eventually my kids are going to end up wanting to explore these things and it's good for me to know what's going on, but technology is pervasive and there is nothing we can do. So let's have a think about our curriculum. I think what you should say how are we making it future ready? So we talked a bit about sort of the balance between traditional, the balance between knowledge and skills, but in order for the curriculum to serve the students going forward, we have to change it because really, whether we like it or not, the world has changed. We love to do this whole future thing where we go. It's changing. No, no, no, no, no, no. Change the world has changed, yeah, and so how are we adapting the curriculum? How are you adapting the curriculum as a teaching and learning professional, to prepare students for future careers?

Speaker 3: 12:07

So, as I said, our tapestry is a critical part of that. So we explicitly teach our children six core strands, one of which is digital literacy. Another key one for me is mental health and wellbeing. Mindset. Another one to teach our children how they learn as opposed to what they learn, so they understand their own cognitive abilities, they understand their learning habits, what can serve them, but also what can get in the way of that. That's another critical part. But I think, generally speaking, what we have to start doing a lot more proactively is looking to the future of the types of jobs our children will do, the flexibility and agility that they will have to be able to show as the tools around them change. You think how often we have to do that now and then maximize that, because they'll be using the most incredible technologies that will update and shift and change and they will have to be able to adapt with that. I think the other key change that needs to happen in the curriculum is looking at those things that can't be digitized, that can't be automated, and enhance our ability to do those things. So think creatively, lead with empathy, those human skills that touch wood for now remain ours and ours alone and think about how we're constantly teaching the children how to act in that way so that they can go on and be successful. I think the other key thing that we're doing as a group and hopefully people are starting to do more broadly is thinking about a much more holistic approach to outcomes, to which I hope.

Speaker 3: 13:33

Gone are the days of the only decent outcome at the end of school going to a Harvard University. Now, I'm not down doing a Harvard University. I think that's amazing. Oxbridge, ivy League, all of those places are absolutely the right destination for some of our children.

Speaker 3: 13:47

For other children it's not going to university. It's following a vocational route. For other students, it's having an enterprise project, because they've already got a few side hustles going on the latter stages of their education, and I think we as a profession need to not only normalize that but celebrate it and enable children to follow the path that's right for them. I look at my own experience. I had to go to university because I wanted to be a teacher, but I then did my masters a couple of years ago. I got so much more out of doing my masters in my 30s than I did my degree in my 20s, so enabling children to think of that as an option go and work for 10 years and then go and do some further study. You know we've got to change this pathway to just provide so many different options for all of our different children. I think that's critical.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Yeah, that really leads me nicely into my next thing, because, you know, I'm one of those strange people. I think about these things a lot. So, like what are we doing? What are we shifting, what are we changing? We can't now still tell kids you need to get four solid A levels and you need to aspire to a red brick, and you need to go to an oxbridge and you need the. We have to stop telling kids those things. We have to say this is a pathway. If that resonates with you, follow that path. Here's another pathway and here's another one over here and another one over here, and they themselves will choose the path. And here's the clincher, though, clemi they can get on that path and decide hmm, wrong path, turn around and go another way, and it's OK.

Speaker 3: 15:26

I literally couldn't agree more. I'm a perfect example of that. So I went to a very traditional independent school. My career's advice was which A levels are you doing and which one of those will you study at university? And I kind of blindly followed down that path. And then, about two weeks before I was supposed to go to university, I realised I was following completely the wrong path. I didn't want to study music at Bristol at all. I had no passion for it. I had no desire to do it. Why was I doing it? And so I changed course, went to do teacher training, and I have never looked back.

Speaker 3: 15:56

I'm the biggest advocate of changing your mind and I think again we need to reflect that in our curriculum. It's OK to try something. So if you look at a co-curricular offering, my rule when I was a head teacher previously was you've got to sign up for a club and you have to commit to it for a certain number of sessions. But if after that you want to change, then change. But at least make your change based on fact. Don't just tell me that it wasn't fun for half an hour. You need to do it a little bit more and try it and see. But then, if you still aren't passionate about it, choose something different. And I think it's our job as educators to give so many different opportunities that children start to realise what they're passionate about, what ignites that love of learning and curiosity, and then scaffold them through that process. But changing your mind is the best thing in the world.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Yes, and having options. So I love that whole provision of various pathways and then giving the freedom you know what, you can try it. If you don't like it, you can change. And also Getting kids to understand that they are not fixed on a career. Yeah, I've done so many jobs. I mean, a part of that is my just my ability to get bored easily. I've done so many things and I'm just I'm richer for it, like I am happy as the fact that I've worked in an airline before and I've taught, and then I've led schools and now I edit a magazine, and now we're moving online for it by the time. You're hearing this podcast teach me leases, fully digital, up and all, and now I host a podcast and then I do seminars and conferences and I'm not bored anymore because I have the option to do all these things and so do our students, and so we don't need to shove this one thing down their throats anymore.

Speaker 3: 17:42

I totally agree. I suppose the only other aspect to add to that is Schools are one part of that triangulated process. The students are obviously the most important part of that. But that third element is the parents. And again there's a lot of work to do around parental expectation. You'll often hear children say well, I'm gonna be a lawyer because you know my parents always be a lawyer and their lawyers and my grandparents are lawyers. If you want to be a lawyer, great, but it can't be because of those reasons. It has to be because you're passionate about Secure, you know law or whatever it might be. And I think we have to work with parents to help them understand that their definition of success is their definition of success and not necessarily their child's definition of success, and enabling them to see that that variety of pathway will lead to a far more fulfilling and enriched life, rather than making them go down a specific route, because that's what the expectation is true, true, true, true, true.

Speaker 1: 18:36

I think we're becoming friends again, let me again. We're coming around. We're coming around. You know, I'm a forgiving person, like if you write that you could take your iPad out of my Three-year-olds hand.

Speaker 1: 18:47

I can forgive you and we can be good. Let's talk about personalized learning, because I watched a video with the guy who created Khan Academy. I can't remember his name now eludes me, but he was talking about creating personalized learning Experiences for students, and I know that's what schools want to do. I know it's tremendously hard to do it in school, but student engagement is so much more heightened when the pathways are personalized. So how are your schools leveraging data and technology to provide personalized learning Experiences and what challenges have you encountered in the process? Because there's some challenges with setting up personalized learning in schools.

Speaker 3: 19:31

Sure, absolutely so. The one thing that links all of those schools and nurseries that I currently work with is that we're non-selective. So we are proudly non-selective across all of our schools. If we've got space and your child wants to come, providing we can meet need they come. We don't test them, there isn't a pass mark, they just come and they're part of our communities, in our family from day one and we absolutely make that guarantee that we will fix what we're doing around your child rather than asking your child to conform to us.

Speaker 3: 20:00

I think that's the first major difference. The other thing that we do is fully embrace inclusion as a key facet of a quality education. So often people will talk about having really good learning support Departments that are at the end of a corridor, at the end of the school, and occasionally children will go down the corridor and then Then emerge 30 minutes later and everyone will hope that something good happened in the corridor. That means they're going to be better at fitting in and I think while that works for some schools, that doesn't work for us at all. So our inclusion happens in the classroom, obviously through first quality teaching that everybody does, but through having highly trained staff who understand inclusion, who understand that having the highest expectations of every child is critical but that the scaffolding and the support to get there might look different for every child, and then using really informative data to plot exactly where children are at any given point and then project where they could get to and start to think creatively about how we're going to get them there. So whether that's a class level of just in hot and cold tasks, so knowing where they are at the start of a unit of work and therefore not going over old material if they don't need it, or putting in some additional support through a flip learning model where they might need it, so that they're hitting the ground running always, which I think is critical, and then having really powerful pupil voice.

Speaker 3: 21:17

So again one of our schools, crown House in England they do the most brilliant student reflections in year six where they have to think deeply about what they've learned over the last couple of weeks, what's enabled that learning to happen, what they've realized about themselves as learners, as well as just the content they've developed, and therefore what they need to be working on next.

Speaker 3: 21:36

And the children's comments about their own learning are so perceptive that you can then build on that and create opportunities. So one I read said you know, I've learned law and I did really well in my writing, but I'm still too nervous to present it to my class. So the teacher reads that he then builds in some, some additional support around being able to articulate your opinions and doing that with confidence, and then provides an opportunity where she can speak in front of the class. She doesn't realize that that's what has happened, but she's realized at the end of next week. She feels a bit more confident speaking in front of others and it's that level of tailoring and personalization that will enable every child to feel and taste success as they go through their school journeys.

Speaker 1: 22:12

Yeah, that's actually very, very important. I love the fact that your inclusion is not down the end of a corridor A man have I seen a lot of those where they're pulled out. I'm going to inclusion class. I'm like that's actually exclusion. They're being taken out Okay, and you know. And then they come back and they changed it from inclusion class to pullouts and push-ins.

Speaker 3: 22:39

and I've heard all the names On the children. No, they know exactly what's happening and they feel excluded. And I think you know, even when we designed Beach Hall School Readd, we worked with a company called Space Zero who were just amazing in terms of their designs. But we told them from the start the remit was true inclusion. So they've built in the most incredible opportunities for children to be fully included in all learning, regardless of what they're experiencing. So even things like they've done sort of sound tasks where they've put silent padding on the walls above so that sounds absorbed.

Speaker 3: 23:08

So if you're neurodivergent and struggle with sensory overload, that's taken account of. There are no big bright primary colors. Everything's muted and pastoral. So it's still warm and inviting but it's not overwhelming. And even where there are little spaces for group work, we've then had little cutouts put in where, if a child needs to slightly remove themselves but still be part of the session, they're literally in the furniture with everybody but still have a little bit of cutoff. So it's just about thinking creatively to ensure that your environment fits every child and every adult, because, let's not forget, we have neurodivergent adults as well. Yes, we do.

Speaker 1: 23:43

And we have neurodivergent teachers. I was talking to one the other day and she was like I can't even tell them I'm on the spectrum in my school, they don't even know. And I was like, see, that doesn't really help, because you're going to need that space and that safety to be fully yourself.

Speaker 3: 24:03

Exactly that we make reasonable adjustments. I think as a profession we're much better now at making reasonable adjustments for our children and I'm sure you ask any head they would do the same for the adults. But they need that information to be able to do that. And I always think if you've got our culture right, when one of our staff says to us I'm on the spectrum or I'm dyslexic or I have a physical challenge, that makes being in that classroom too difficult, I think, a thank goodness you can tell us, because now we can do something about it, and B what role model you are to the children around you. You're reflecting. They need to see themselves, and I think that's a really powerful message too, extremely powerful.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Let's talk a little bit. See. All right, we're friends again, clement, we are. Let's talk teacher development, because this is the start of the year. A lot of things have changed with teacher development. How are you ensuring that your teachers are well developed and that they actually feel as if they have autonomy over their own professional development?

Speaker 3: 25:03

So this is a critical one for me Again. You know the Middle East may well be different, but certainly I know from my experience in the UK recently recruitment and retention is a complete nightmare. It's a huge challenge and we have to work harder to be the place of choice for staff. We want staff to come and be with us, but we want them to stay, and I'm very proud of the retention that we've experienced at Beach Hall School Reads, because the vast majority of our staff have chosen to stay with us, which is amazing, and I think the reason why they have is because we do invest in their development hugely.

Speaker 3: 25:33

I was with them recently in a PD session where every member of staff led on an area where they were sharing their best practice with their colleagues, and I think that's critical. What we've also tried to do is really contextualize and personalize their learning development to where they are. So when we first set up the school last year, the PD we led the first session we ever did was looking at the Saudi 2030 vision and what that meant for educators and therefore what we as educators could do to build on that and enhance that and ensure that we were delivering it, and I think that went a huge way to show our local staff how much we valued their starting point and their culture. I think that's critical. And then I think it's very similar to my previous answer about our children. It's about knowing their starting point and projecting to where they want to go in their career and their development, empowering them to lead that but also putting in every opportunity to help them reach their potential and their aspirations. Developing a culture of candor, but kind candor. Again, I'm sure lots of you have read it, but Kim Scott's Radical Candor, I think, is one of the best books I've ever read. When you think about staff development, it's having that psychological safety to be able to give feedback in a way that it lands well, that it lands from a place of genuine care and interest in that person and wanting to help them be the best that they can be and, I think, finally, role-modelling it.

Speaker 3: 26:51

As an executive principal, I will be teaching six and a half hours a week. I think it's critical that I'm in the classroom too, and I will expect my door to be open. I'll expect colleagues to come in and see me teach and share with me what they think and enter into some good dialogue about what I could do differently, what I could try differently and, in that coaching approach, ensure that we're all working collectively to be the best we can be for our children. I think that's absolutely essential.

Speaker 3: 27:14

I think the final point I would say is being absolutely clear in your vision, where are you as a school going and how can all staff feed into that? So, as I've said already, inclusion is a huge part of that. Therefore, I need to teach our staff how inclusive practices need to run through everything they do. So we're working with Daniel Sobel's project, the Global Inclusive Teaching Initiative. All of our staff have access to that CPD. All of our staff are working through those modules to truly understand what inclusive practice needs to look like, and that gives us a shared narrative, it gives us a shared vision and it gives us expertise and academic research to support what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Yeah, I know, daniel. Shout out to Daniel as a friend of mine. Amazing, I love it. I'll send him a WhatsApp when I'm done. Say someone just called your name on my podcast. Yeah, I do. No, but it's actually a very good thing to do is to get everybody on the same page, but, once they are, to allow them to grow and blossom in their own way, take it personal for me, clemi. What are some of your favorite CPD activities? What are you doing to keep yourself developed?

Speaker 3: 28:17

So my master's was a critical part of that a couple of years ago and that was looking at educational leadership and how to bring others on around me, and I think that's absolutely critical.

Speaker 3: 28:25

I use coaching for that and in fact it then led to looking at a coaching model for CPD.

Speaker 3: 28:30

So having peer groups that go in and see each other's practice and we use Tom Sherrington's walkthroughs as almost a scaffold of something to specifically pick on and let's look at questioning together and then we go and look at each other and I think that was really, really important. I think the key piece of personal development for me over the coming months is understanding how education works in Saudi Arabia. I don't want to be that person that comes from the UK and then just as well in the UK we do it this way and try and deliver a model that would work in the UK that may well not work in Saudi. So it's seeking first to understand and knowing the expectations of the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia, but then also thinking about how I can draw in my own experience to enhance what I can offer in the classroom. But I'm a huge believer that we're all lifelong learners. You never become the best teacher in the world. You can just keep striving to be the best teacher in the world, so that's certainly what I'll be doing.

Speaker 1: 29:19

Brilliant. It's a great place to end the podcast.

Speaker 3: 29:21

Thank you, Clemi. Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to hopefully meet you in person.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Yes, I'm making that trip to Riyadh. We've come full circle. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:34

Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmiddleeastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.