Exploring the Intersection of Education, Sports and Leadership with Simon O'Connor

What happens when you combine a love for sports, a passion for education, and an unwavering commitment to integrity and honesty? You get a fascinating conversation with Simon O'Connor, the principal of Deira International School in Dubai. This episode peels back the layers of Simon, taking you on a journey from his early days teaching in rural Zimbabwe to his current vision for schools. We discuss his passion for education, his love for sports like rugby and cricket, and the books he'd pick to take on a deserted island.

We also explore the deeper, more serious aspects of Simon's journey. This includes his views on leadership. Simon lets us into his future plans, revealing his thoughts on retirement, continued contribution to the education sector, and his unfinished business with a doctorate in school leadership. So join us as we explore the life, leadership, and future plans of a man who's as passionate about Chelsea Football as he is about education!

Bio: Simon is the Director at Deira International School and Chief Education Officer for AFEF

Connect with Simon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-o-connor-fcct-15578656/

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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Teach Middle East podcast. I am chatting with Simon O'Connor from Deira International School, Dubai. We're going behind the principal's desk to get to know the man in the role. What makes him tick, what does he enjoy? Who is he really? The man, the mystery? No, I'm joking. Really. We want to just step away from all the pedagogical talk and just talk a little bit about the person who occupies the role. So welcome to the podcast, Simon.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Thank you very much. I was going to say I'm looking forward to this with a certain sense of trepidation, but let's see how we get on.

Speaker 1: 1:06

I'm a nice person. My listeners know I am a nice person. I do not ask questions about people's deep, dark, private lives. I'm never going to ask you when you lost your virginity, but my mind says 14 and we won't go into that. But really, all fun and jokes aside, let's kick off with something really easy, and that is why did you go into education? What made you choose this profession of all the professions?

Speaker 2: 1:35

That's a really good question and actually I'll be utterly candid. I went into teaching for two reasons. When I was 18, rather than go straight to university, I took a year off and actually went and taught in a rural school in Zimbabwe. It was 40 kilometers from the nearest town, it was 12 kilometers from the nearest road and it was brilliant. I mean, I was hopeless. I'd had very little. I did two days of teach training. The theory behind it was that these were schools which couldn't attract teachers and therefore, frankly, putting in an 18-year-old with SMA levels was better than nothing. We can dispute whether or not it was or not at another time and I absolutely loved it. I really, really enjoyed it. I absolutely just got such a buzz from standing in front of students, helping them, teaching them, and it was in such a different context. But I then went to university.

Speaker 2: 2:33

For three years I hadn't thought about teaching, but really got to a point where thinking look, I love doing this in the past, but I know how important it is. I'm going to do a PGCE with a view to. This will take me one way or the other. I'm going to spend a year training up. I'll either, at the end of this year know that I love this and this is something I want to do or and I suspected probably the second response, which is that I would get to the end of it, hate it and never want to go back to it again.

Speaker 2: 2:59

But fortunately I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed it enormously. I taught in some very challenging schools in my teaching in my PGCE year and just kept on loving it and actually for the first 10 years of my career I taught in really really challenging environments to schools that were that were very tough in Kent, in the southeast of England, teaching history and then politics and history and that buzz continued and I have to say it still continues to this day, and I know we're not talking purely about education now, but still working with students, talking into classrooms, talking to students. That buzz remains and as long as it does, I'll keep doing it.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Let it be known that Simon just told a girl from Tottenham that he taught in a tough school in leafy Kent. There are no tough schools in Kent.

Speaker 2: 3:48

People, you see, everyone makes this mistake. There are some nice parts of Kent. There's some pretty tough parts of Kent as well, so I'll challenge you on that one.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Really Okay. What school team do you support? Chelsea, why? What's wrong with you?

Speaker 2: 4:05

Actually, those two questions are linked. When I started teaching in my first school, a boy came up to me and said who do you support? I never thought about it. Football is not my main sport but you could not teach in that school. It was an all-boys school this is in Kent where there was selection and these students had either not been put into or had failed 11 plus Everyone else selected off the high school. Football was absolutely part of the DNA of that community. You could not be credible unless you were able to talk about your team, who you supported.

Speaker 2: 4:39

Actually, I grew up for the first 10 years of my life about 100 yards away from the stadium of Oxford United. There was no way I could tell that I supported Oxford as well. Oxford were much better now, but they certainly were at a very high time. I basically chose the team for a couple of reasons to do with my childhood. My wife is an Arsenal fan, so that constantly causes discussion. I know misguided Chelsea always have. Since then, we have not had a great couple of seasons, but Fingers Cross were beginning to pull back again. You see Arsenal fans. However, it is still before Christmas. You are doing well at the moment. We all know what will happen in January. Always does.

Speaker 1: 5:22

We support our team through thick and thin. Let's just say you have done something good in your life. You married an Arsenal fan.

Speaker 2: 5:30

You now have a little grace, she would agree. What is your game?

Speaker 1: 5:34

What is your sport? Clearly it is not football. If you are supporting Chelsea.

Speaker 2: 5:40

My two loves rugby and cricket. I absolutely love watching rugby particularly. We have just been knocked out of the World Cup, I think. Some amazing matches. I love watching rugby. England I am a Harlequin's fan, but cricket as well. I follow all formats of England cricket. I lived in Kent regularly. I used to watch Kent cricket. I love it. The great thing about being in Dubai there is a lot of cricket played here. During Covid we had the 2020 World Cup Finals moved here, which was a great opportunity. Rugby and cricket are huge sports for me. I spent possibly too long watching them.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Do you play any sports?

Speaker 2: 6:26

I have played a little bit of cricket in the past, but not at any quality whatsoever. I played a bit while I was at university but not really played much since then. It is much more of an armchair contributor than anything else.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Where have you gone to watch cricket? That, you would say, would be exotic, an exotic place that you have gone off to and watched a live.

Speaker 2: 6:47

That is a plan for the future. I have watched cricket at Lords in London. That is an amazing stadium. It is a great place to watch cricket. I have seen rugby in Auckland in New Zealand. That was amazing as well. But certainly my plan, whenever that may be, is to go on a Lions tour or watch an England cricket tour. I would love to go to the West Indies. I would go to Sri Lanka actually. It would be a great opportunity. But I think the real place for cricket to go more is to go to India. An India cricket tour would be an amazing opportunity. It is something I would love to do in the future.

Speaker 1: 7:26

You talk about having time. If you have time and we know your role is super busy how do you relax? How do you take care of Simon? Thank you.

Speaker 2: 7:37

First and foremost, spending time with my family. I have two daughters and a wife, who I already mentioned, and actually my favorite thing is to spend time with them. Join to that is I really enjoy travel Again an amazing opportunity that Dubai gives us. This is the opportunity to get to different countries relatively straight, easily, and we've traveled Europe a lot. We spent a few years sort of traveling around Spain. That was great fun. But since we've been in Dubai, I mean I've been to Africa a couple of times, we've been to India, we go to Sri Lanka, we've been to Singapore, we've been to Bali and actually the opportunity to take my family to my second love, which is traveling and discovering different cultures, is a real favorite to me and that's something I love to do and ultimately as well, I really really enjoy reading. One of the best things I have ever bought was a Kindle, which means that I can not only buy books very quickly, but also I actually find that I've read considerably more. Now I've moved away from paper books and I appreciate this is a divide the room moments. People either want paper books or they want electronic versions, but for me, the Kindle has enabled me to keep reading and I read a whole variety of things.

Speaker 2: 8:53

I mentioned earlier, I was a history teacher. History fascinates me. I read, much to my very, very literate wife's disgust, a whole series of poor historical novels, but I love sort of immersing myself in those kind of cultures. But yeah, I just keep reading as well. I really enjoy reading that set. That's a great love of mine too, I suppose. The other one is music. My family are very musical. I grew up doing a lot of music. I played the piano, I've played a number of instruments, and but I did a lot of singing as well, and so, yeah, music is another passion of mine, and the opportunity to both listen to music but also to and this one's not something I do an awful lot of, but, as I say, the opportunity to take part in musical opportunities is a great love of mine as well. There you go. That's a long answer.

Speaker 1: 9:43

No, it's a good answer. So forget your Kindle, because you mentioned travel and you mentioned reading, so I want to put the two together. If you were stranded on an island, you can't bring your Kindle, but you must take two books with you. What two books would you take? Because, remember, you're not getting off this island. You have to keep reading those books.

Speaker 2: 10:04

You have to keep reading those books, so it's going to have to be something long. So the complete works of Shakespeare, which interests me, I've always enjoyed. I think that combines a love of brilliant. I mean, I'm not going to start going into why Shakespeare is great, but I haven't read all of those. Yeah, another one would be a sort of series of history of the world, because, I said, history is a real fascination for me, inevitably, despite the fact I've taught history for over 25 years, my knowledge of history is still fairly scant. So the opportunity to really submersible myself in more history and to learn more of history, if I had two, those would be my two.

Speaker 1: 10:45

All right, I'm going to be fair and say what's one other thing you would take with you on this island.

Speaker 2: 10:52

I was at a desert island, a speedboat to get off it, because I think my support and skills are barely here. We'd almost certainly mean that I'd barely get into a couple of chapters of that history book before I struck real problems. Yeah, I think something like that always sounds idyllic and I suspect that after about 36 hours that romance would disappear very quickly. So, yeah, I'm going to have a speedboat to get me home.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, you can't, you can't, kind of you can't see yourself staying on a desert island. Do you do any kind of meditation? Do you do any kind of yoga, breath work? Do you do any of these things?

Speaker 2: 11:32

Sometimes, yeah. So meditation, sometimes a little bit. Actually, I think one of the best things I have is actually I don't know whether this counts, but I actually regularly have sessions with a leadership coach. That just gives me an opportunity to. So I've been working with Will for several years and I actually think it's, and I encourage anyone that is involved. Well, I was going to say leadership, but while we, on that, have an opportunity to have someone to coach you because I encourage all of my senior team We've done a lot of work at the International School and indeed, universal American School both the Outfit Aime Education Foundation Schools to try and instill coaching, and I think it's so important and the reason it's linked to that question is I describe it as you know, we all have incredibly busy lives.

Speaker 2: 12:17

We have lots going on from. You know, I'm sitting at my desk and your desk piles up with stuff, but I think your mind does as well, and for me, coaching is an opportunity to clear that mental desk, is to resolve issues, to talk it through with someone who's disconnected, who enables you to see things in a different light, and it's so important. So, yes, I absolutely do do I don't do yoga, but certainly do do personal meditation and things like that, but for me, it's coaching. That is the important bit, because it just enables you to clear your mind. I was quite I mean, I really enjoy walking Now the temperature is coming down and podcasts and things like that. Listening to podcasts whether it's about history, whether it's about politics, whether it's about education, the opportunity just to be on your own, stick your headphones in and listen to another view is something I really enjoy as well and find relaxing, and education as well.

Speaker 1: 13:15

So I've known you since, like Jamera College days coming up and you're, you're quite. You know you're. You're a real like strong leader because your schools have done well, you've done well and as a leader, people see the strong side of you. They don't normally see the vulnerable side. When was the last time you cried and what made you cry?

Speaker 2: 13:38

It's a very good question. I mean, I'm very happy to admit I think people do see the strong side of me, but I think people that work with me would see the, the, the, the nervous side, the unsure side. I think I'm trying desperately to think of the last time I cried, by the way, whilst I answer this question. But I also think any leader, you know, we, we talk about the imposter syndrome as well and I think, however long you've done a job like this, you question yourself all the time.

Speaker 2: 14:08

I honestly cannot think of the last time I cried and I don't want you to give you a false answer, no, but I will happily very honestly say that yeah, I do cry and there are things that cause me upset and nervousness. But I think, actually, to come back to your question about leadership, I think for me leadership has to be transparent as well and it has to be honest and it has to show vulnerability. And I think I mean I talk to people I work with and say one of the most important things that they have to do is to tell me when I'm getting things wrong, because I do get things wrong all the time. Everyone does, and I think one of the slightly strange positions about a principal or a director or whatever you wish to call him, is that you've got no one necessarily sitting above you saying you know this could be better, this could be better. I try and be as transparent and as honest as I can be. Can't think the last time I cried, but it wasn't to them.

Speaker 1: 15:04

I got another question for you, though. You know how you talk about coaching and its value. I'm really big on coaching and I do believe there is great value in it. In doing that work, have you discovered what your top, maybe three, values are? What do you have in the list?

Speaker 2: 15:26

I think I've kind of alluded to it already. I think integrity is absolutely vital. We live together, I mean. Again, that prompts the question what do we mean by integrity? But I think we all know what is right and wrong, and for me integrity is doing the right thing. When no one's watching, you know doing it. Someone once said to me, and it really stayed with me you know, do the right thing, because then you don't have to remember why you did it, and there's a kind of smacks of laziness, but at the same time it's just do the right thing.

Speaker 2: 15:52

We talk about integrity here at the school a lot. I think the second one is excellence. I'm involved in a school. Students get one opportunity at this, and as a history teacher you might deliver that year eight lesson four or five times, possibly in one week, but that student gets one shot set, and so we have to do the best we can for every student because they only get one shot set. So excellence is another thing.

Speaker 2: 16:21

I love working with people as well and therefore collaboration, the opportunity to listen to other people and to work with other people. I absolutely, and I think this is a misconception that people sometimes have, and I've talked to staff here about this. People in my position do not have a book with the answers in it. We might have some experience which lead us to think what those answers are, but actually we are far more than simply the sum of our parts if we work together as a team.

Speaker 2: 16:47

I can't teach physics, you know assembly, I can't teach year one but, but we've got a school with great physics teachers and other subjects. We've got great teachers. We all have a role within that, but it's it's not about an individual, um, it's not about me. It's about the collective and it's about ensuring our students are and and you know, I just include the students in that collaboration as well, and we've had some wonderful projects at the school where students have been able to, you know, not just have an input but actually have led projects for us with amazing results. So, yeah, collaborations are another really important value for me. Working together, we're much more than the simple sum of our parts, um, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:28

And and you as a person what do you value as an individual or within your family? What, what's, what's the big thing that you value most there?

Speaker 2: 17:39

I think those three things in terms of excellence, integrity, collaboration are important. Um, I think time is important as well. I mean, I, I love spending time with my family there, my most important thing, inevitably Um so spending time with them, having fun. I mean, you know, we're we're on a rock that we won't get to spend a huge amount of time with and, you know, actually creating memories for each other, spending time together and this can be my family, but it's people I, you know, spend time with.

Speaker 2: 18:07

I think it's important we create memories that we can look back on. You know, I'm constantly mindful of that thing. Very few people have lain on there, um in their final stages in life, which they'd worked harder. Um, we want to create memories, we want to create opportunities and have fun. Um, I was watching something yesterday that someone sent me which said you know, charlie Chaplin said that, you know, most lives are up close of tragedy, but when you pull the camera back, they're a comedy. You know, let's not take ourselves too seriously. Um, I also also believe, and I think, whether that's an education, you know, chances are it will be all right in the end. Um, you know, so we just keep. You know, I think people can become over obsessed by the money. You see, I have stuff, um, and, and actually you know we keep going until it is all right. So I think positivity is important as well. Um, but yeah, have fun, create memories, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Quick fire session oh, here we go. Oh, dear, here we go. No, but these ones are personal and they're easy. Okay, favorite song.

Speaker 2: 19:03

Uh, favorite song and that's too difficult. That's like, um, it could be anything. Um, I'm a big colflake colflake fan. I absolutely recently loved their music of the Sphere album. So let's go with that. Let's go with um Something from their People of the Pride by Colflake.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Okay, cool, favorite meal probably Indian.

Speaker 2: 19:26

so curry of some variety, Chicken gel frizzy with garlic nod.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Next holiday destination.

Speaker 2: 19:34

What's it going to be? What do I hope it's going to be? I haven't spent enough time exploring Africa. I've explored quite a lot of southern Africa, but I would like to go to more of Africa. The other place I would love to go to, which I've yet to go to and I will go to, is South America. There's a culture I haven't seen that just fascinates me. It's a little bit far away, so it takes a bit more planning. But okay, let's go Brazil.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Brazil. Okay, cool AI. Does it scare you or excite you?

Speaker 2: 20:08

Massively excites me, hugely excites me. It excites me personally because I just think it's going to change. I think it will be a seismic shift as the development of the internet, but equally, I think the education is going to be completely transformed by this. Teachers love teaching. That's why they do it.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Any teacher will tell you there's a certain proportion of what we do which is bureaucratic, fairly mindless, has to be done, and I think the first stages of AI in education will take a lot of those mundane, bureaucratic tasks that teachers have to do and I don't think anyone questioned they need to be done and do it that much quicker for them. And the advantage of that is it will free teachers up to spend time doing what they absolutely love doing, which is the interaction with students, helping the students themselves, not writing schemes of work, not writing or certainly curating, as opposed to creating things like reports, marking work. It's really important, but AI will be able to do that and that will free up teachers, and I just think it will. I think it's going to change all that we do, so I'm hugely excited by it.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Yeah, me too. I'm like, I'm a super fan of AI, but I'm also a little scared because I don't know where it will all end up. Do you know what I mean? I?

Speaker 2: 21:24

don't know. That's exciting, isn't that exciting too? That's scary.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Who will it displace? You know there are little issues, but that's a whole other podcast because I think, yeah, there will be displacements. Let's have that chat in another podcast then. Yeah, all right. Last question, and I want you to just kind of dream and imagine with me is Simon in retirement, what would he be doing?

Speaker 2: 21:51

Simon in retirement and I think this is by the people that know me best. It is a horrible concept because the one thing I can tell you is that I'm worse when I'm bored. So what, where will I do? Well, I already alluded to the fact that when I've got more time which may be retirement to spend some more time watching Sport Live, I'd love to do that, but I'm actually quite deliberately preparing for this.

Speaker 2: 22:14

I'm doing a doctorate at the moment investigating an element of school leadership which fascinates me, and I actually like to keep going with that. So possibly, you know, rather than retirement, scaling back this kind of bit of job a little bit to actually develop that, because I think it's a really interesting, I'm looking at the role of organizational culture in schools as a leadership, school improvement element, and I'd actually like to spend time, continue. I can't see a time when I'm not working in schools or working with schools or working for schools of some capacity, because it's I mentioned that buzz that I got in the beginning of 1990 and it stays with me. So, yeah, let's say, let's say I spend my time working with schools, talking to schools, whilst traveling the world, watching watching England play rugby and cricket.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Brilliant. That's a good place to end the part. Thank you, simon, that's exciting.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Yeah, absolutely Well, thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I've enjoyed talking about.