Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
From Classroom Teacher to School Leader: Steve Lupton's Journey
Steve Lupton, Principal at Repton Abu Dhabi, shares his journey from teaching in Australia and challenging schools in London to leadership roles in the UAE, highlighting the unpredictable yet rewarding nature of school leadership.
• Growing up in rural Australia with a multicultural background shaped Steve's perspective on diversity and inclusion
• Reconnecting with his father at age 33 after years of separation created a profound "sliding doors" moment in his life
• Career progression from classroom teacher to principal happened through seizing opportunities and being prepared for unexpected advancement
• Building authentic relationships is fundamental to successful leadership and creating a positive school culture
• The challenge of retaining talented teachers in classrooms when career progression typically means moving away from teaching
• Self-care and the ability to compartmentalize emotions are essential skills for maintaining leadership longevity and effectiveness
If you're interested in educational leadership or considering a career in school administration, connect with us at teachmiddleeast.com and follow us on social media.
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/
You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Teach Middle East podcast with me, lisa Grace. Today we're going behind the principal's desk again, but this time not very far from home. We're in Abu Dhabi and we're going behind the principal's desk at Repton, abu Dhabi, with Steve Lupton. Steve, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks, lisa. It's lovely to be here and welcome behind my desk On Sundays. I'm sure principals would love to swap seats. So welcome behind my principal On Sundays. I'm sure principals would love to swap seats. So welcome behind my principal's desk today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I think sometimes with the job of a principal, people often think it's one thing when it's another. I often tell people when I was a principal, people thought I sat behind my desk and gave orders when really I was rerouting buses and cleaning up paper that I've seen thrown on the floor and doing all sorts of things. What are some of the unusual things you have to do in that role that people don't even think about?
Speaker 3:Oh, it is a variety, isn't it? It's such a variety of aspects of job that you have day to day a variety of aspects of job that you have day to day yes, cleaning up, picking up rubbish. I'll give you a perfect example this morning. I was at the front door this morning and one of the boys two brothers had got a taxi to school and one was on his phone to his mom at reception because their Apple Pay wouldn't open on their phone so they couldn't pay the taxi. So I went out to the car park and paid their taxi fare this morning. So it's such a diverse array of tasks throughout your day. But lovely, I really absolutely love the job, the variety of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we need to always save space for that. You know that unpredictability of the role of principal, because you could walk in and you know what happened once in my in my time in Al Ain at my school, we had heavy rainfall and we didn't know because this was a brand new addict school, massive building, boys and girls, and it was over a thousand students and we were in the canteen. We were all kind of there and the rain was falling. You know the kids kind of go crazy when it's raining. Guess what happened A part of the roof caved in while we were in there and water flooded in the canteen. You can't make the script up up at all. Tell me, before your principal role, what were you doing?
Speaker 3:take me back to early days because I like to go back, back, back back back back to early days, um, back back back to, I guess, my childhood is. Uh, quite I guess it's an interesting childhood from my experience. I I grew up in Australia. I'm from Australia originally. I've spent sort of six years in the UK and now about eight years in the UAE.
Speaker 3:But I grew up born to my mother who emigrated, or her grandparents emigrated, from Holland, the Netherlands, after World War II in about 1950. And my father is Chinese, or from Hong Kong, and he was emigrated from Hong Kong to Australia. So I've grown up, this mixed race boy in country, new South Wales, surrounded by dairy farms. So that was quite an interesting childhood growing up and I guess some of the things that have had a real impact on me growing up and the person, the leader I've become is my parents split up when I was 18 months of age, so I was raised as an only child by my mother for many, many years. It wasn't until the age of 33 that I came back into contact with my father actually. So it's a bit of a it's a long story but it's a bit of a long lost family type of episode. But those type of moments and those type of experiences really impact you, and it's a sliding doors type of moment that's impacted me in a real positive way, I think.
Speaker 2:What's your relationship like now with your father?
Speaker 3:I have a fantastic relationship with my father. Yeah, I'd been looking for him for quite a long time for about eight years and my wife is from the UK, so we'd travel sort of between Australia and the UK quite often and we'd stopped in Hong Kong and I knew he was from Hong Kong and we stopped in Hong Kong on one of the journeys and I was thinking, imagine if my dad had walked past or sat down next to me. So that sort of got me thinking I should be trying to find him. And we spent about eight years trying to find him and couldn't find him. And then one day my grandfather on my mom's side, who's got a very recognizable Dutch name, van Denderen was S and M, so they're easy to find in the phone book. This was before social media and my grandfather had rang me and he said I was at work at the time. He said can you sit down? I've got something to tell you. And I genuinely thought, lisa, that he was going to tell me that he'd won the lottery. My grandfather always played the lottery every week and I thought he was going to tell me he'd won the lottery. But he said I found your dad. He's just rang me. Here's his number. He wants you to give him a call.
Speaker 3:So I rang him and by chance he lived like 12 kilometers from where I was in Sydney, and he said to me happy birthday, it was my 33rd birthday. He said happy birthday, what are you doing tonight for your birthday? And we were going to a restaurant just up the road and he said do you mind if I come and join you for dinner? And I was like, yeah, of course. So I really should have sort of said can you wear a red jumper or something? So I know who it is when you walk in the restaurant. So my wife, alex, and I were sitting in the restaurant waiting to see who comes through the door and yeah, it was immediately recognizable to me when he walked through the door that that he was my dad. So yeah, it was a. It was a lovely moment.
Speaker 3:I then found out that I have step sisters or half-sisters two half-sisters and a half-brother on my dad's side. We're here being married, so Christmas has become a lot more expensive at that point. But yeah, it was lovely and I think we've you know, it's sort of 12 years ago now and we've got a really strong connection. I'm really strongly connected to that side of my family. It's been a really interesting process of understanding that cultural aspect of my family, that Asian side of my family. So that's been quite an interesting process. Only two years after I sort of reconnected with my dad is when we had our eldest boy, and my dad and my oldest son, harvey, have got this really really close connection and I think it's probably part of my dad's way of sort of making sure he's giving back of maybe what he's missed out giving to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really, really beautiful story. It's interesting, you know, when you think about family and all the dynamics that go on. We all have such rich history that sometimes when you meet people you can never tell Like, that story you just told me is not one that I would have imagined. Do you know what I mean? And so these conversations are so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And I think growing up yeah, absolutely, I think growing up I probably tried to close that part of my heritage and culture off, because I grew up as a single child without a father. I was in a country, a very sort of Caucasian low socioeconomic area of country, new South Wales so I probably tried to shut that part of me off. But what I've realized it's reconnecting with my father at that point and having this beautiful family, diverse family, has definitely filled a hole in my heart that I probably didn't realize was there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and provided your kids with the grandfather figure that we all want to give our kids. I mean it's beautiful. Because I can't give my kids that? Because my dad died when I was 19 years old and he was the best dad and would have been the best grandfather. But you know, that's how the dice rolled and I lost him when I was before I even thought of having kids. I was just midway through university when he passed. So you spent time in the UK. What made you move from Australia to the UK?
Speaker 3:At the time and I moved to the UK when it was around 2000, early 2000s, so I'd finished university. Prior to that I had sport. Football particularly, had been my one sort of passion growing up as a child and I was fortunate that I was relatively good at it. I didn't have any other passions. I don't think I was really. I grew up in a very low socioeconomic area and I was probably at the low end of the low socioeconomic sort of spectrum of kids there. So I don't think I was really exposed to anything else but football. So that was sort of my only vision and dream of how I could get out of this sort of predicament, if you like I was in. How I could get out of this sort of predicament, if you like I was in. So I was fortunate enough to be given a full scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport. So I left home at the age of 16 and I moved down to the Australian Institute of Sport.
Speaker 3:It was in Canberra. It was set up for I think it was after sort of a failed Olympics Australia. It didn't win any gold medals in the 1978 Olympics or something along those lines. So the government set this up. Obviously, australia being very competitive. We can't have an Olympics where we don't win gold medals. So they set up the Australian Institute of Sport for all the Olympic sports and they had scholarships for all the top young athletes over the country. So it was a live-in sort of place. We trained full-time, it was very high-performance focused and you went to school down there.
Speaker 3:So I had that lovely opportunity to be able to do that, which really opened my eyes, and part of that we did a six-week trip to South America. So we traveled and we went and played against teams in Argentina and Brazil. So that really opened my eyes up to traveling. So after that had finished and I completed university, I really just wanted to go and travel and at the time it was very, very common for Australians, and Australian teachers in particular, to go over to the UK on a working holiday visa. We could stay over there on a uk on a working holiday visa. We could stay over there on a two year working holiday visa and work and then travel. So that's what took me to to london. Originally I had six years. I loved the six years that I had in london where?
Speaker 2:where were you in london, my city?
Speaker 3:your city my city well, I I ended up in a in a school called raven's park prep school, which is uh sort of between chiswick and hammersmith, but prior to that I worked in a number of places worked and lived in sydenham, uh, tufnell park, but uh, I think probably most memorable the schools I worked at. I worked in a school in Brixton for about six months and that was a great education in behavior management and, yeah, really challenging school, but some fantastic people, some fantastic kids. When you really win their respect, you win their hearts.
Speaker 2:What did you teach?
Speaker 3:I did a double degree, so I've got a primary school teaching degree and a physical education degree, so I've doubled in a bit of both. When I was in London primary school I also was a head of PE and now principal across two campuses. Of000 plus students from nursery through to year 13.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. But I wanted to go back to the Australian Olympics. Did you see the Australian breakdancing at the Sears Olympics? You have to tell me what you thought about that.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, unfortunately I did. Unfortunately I did. From what I can see is that they've taken breakdancing out of the next Olympics and I think everyone in Australia is quite happy about that.
Speaker 2:Listen, I saw that. I think that meme made my day for several days. I cracked up so much I thought you know what there has to be humour. I'm sure that's not what Australia was going for, but man, they nailed humour there for sure.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure what she was going for, but yeah, she certainly made a mark.
Speaker 2:She certainly did so. Your life in England led you to Abu Dhabi, or did you go somewhere else before you got here?
Speaker 3:No, I returned to Australia. I returned to Australia for around 10 years. So, quite nicely, the academic year obviously in the UK finishes in July and the Australian academic year is based on the calendar year, so it doesn't start until January, february. So I had a sort of a six month break where I went and traveled. I went and traveled through South America for six months and I think that is a huge part of who I am as well and who I've become is because of the amount of traveling that I've done and the experiences that I've had from traveling and the lessons that I've learned from traveling. It certainly has played a part on how I lead and how I connect with people. But I went back to Australia.
Speaker 3:I was very fortunate to be given a role at Sydney Grammar School in Sydney, which is one of Australia's longest established schools in Australia private schools. It's an academically selective school, some very bright boys. It's a boys' school, very bright boys along sort of alumni of very important people in Australian history. So, as an example, sir Edmund Barton, who was Australia's first prime minister, was from Sydney Grammar School. So in that way there's some alignment to where I am now at Repton, who has equally a very long history and a very impressive list of alumni.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where was your favorite place to travel? In South America. I love that part of the world as well.
Speaker 3:It's so diverse. I actually really love Bolivia.
Speaker 2:Really no, I haven't been to Bolivia. Have you traveled through Costa Rica and Panama?
Speaker 3:I have been not through Panama, but I have been through Costa Rica, el Salvador, honduras, all the way up through Mexico. I got caught in a hurricane in Mexico, in southern Mexico, that had to be locked down into a hotel for about four days, so that was quite an interesting experience. But I do love that sort of Central America, south America. I've been trying to learn Spanish for a number of years and spent some time in Cuenca in Ecuador trying to learn Spanish, so that was quite a nice experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I challenge you to your next set of adventure to do the Caribbean, yeah.
Speaker 3:I have touched on the Bahamas, but I need to explore. I'd love to go to Jamaica, actually.
Speaker 2:Jamaica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua and, if you can get down to St Vincent and the Grenadines. You, oh my God, you probably won't come back. You will love it that much.
Speaker 3:Well, I know all these places by name because growing up in Australia, we used to have this huge cricket rivalry with West Indies at the time. So Kirtley, ambrose, these type of guys and that was the era, and there were amazing athletes as well in the West Indies. But it's not a simple flight from here, is it?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I haven't been in a few years, unfortunately, but when you do go, you can go through. I normally either go through London, so from here to London and then from London you can get nonstop to Barbados or nonstop to Montego Bay, jamaica, or even nonstop to Cuba, or you can fly from here to the United States and then fly down from the United States to the Caribbean. But it's not as complicated as it might sound, it's just long. The flight is long but it's very easy. It's not a hard flight because it's just one connection. So from here to either of those and then another flight down to the Caribbean.
Speaker 3:It's just the cost. Now I've got two kids, so it's four flights here to either of those and then another flight down to the Caribbean. It's just the cost. Now I've got two kids, so it's four flights, and now we've got a dog as well, so I've got to try and work out what I do with my dog over the summer holidays.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh the dog. Yeah, you did mention that when we met the other day. I have this dog now. Yeah, that's a responsibility. I don't know how to help you with that. So what year did you come out here to Abu Dhabi?
Speaker 3:2017. So when Repton Fry Campus the senior school campus opened in September 2017 is when I arrived.
Speaker 2:What led you to Abu Dhabi? Why the UAE?
Speaker 3:Yeah, good question. I never saw myself working in the UAE actually, and I come through here. A former colleague friend of mine, robert Relton, who I worked with, who was the headmaster of Ravenscourt Park in London, and I worked with him for four or five years in London and he was, in terms of leadership and impact on me as a role model for a leader. He certainly left that really positive impact of a leader on me. He ended up coming to the UAE and was the founding principal of Repton, so he opened Repton in Abu Dhabi in 2013. When it first opened and we had flown, as I said, we were sort of going between Sydney and the UK because my wife was in the UK, so we stopped through here. It was one December on the way from Sydney to Manchester and we had our eldest boy at the time, who was about eight months old, and I remember thinking at the time it was really, really hot in December and now in December I've got like hoodies on and it's freezing. So you become acclimatized very quickly, don't you? But we had a lovely few days here in Abu Dhabi and Rob showed us around, but I never at that point thought that we would live here at any stage and then, out of the blue, one day he rang me up and an opportunity had come up to come and work here. I'd been at Sydney Grammar School for nearly nine years going on 10 years at this point and Sydney Grammar School is a place where not many people left, if you know what I mean. So they paid very well. It was an excellent school, so there wasn't much career development or progression happening.
Speaker 3:I just recently finished my master's in educational leadership and I was ready to do something else and we'd always with my wife's family in the UK. We'd always sort of talk about living overseas again, but we weren't really sure where. So I ended up having an interview with Rob and discussions, and I didn't tell my wife any of this at this point. So she was quite shocked when I said to her by the way, I've got a job offer in Abu Dhabi and, to be fair to her, she took it quite gracefully. We just had our second child at that point, so he was certainly about three months at the time when we had this discussion. But yeah, we got to a point where Sydney is very expensive as well. So we thought we'd try Abu Dhabi and eight years later we're still here. We absolutely love life living here. Our boys have grown up from you, know where they are three years and eight months when we arrived, to now 10 and eight years of age, and we feel very, very fortunate to be able to live in such a beautiful country.
Speaker 2:So that's actually quite typical of people who come to the UAE. For people listening to the podcast, who probably are maybe just starting their journey, thinking I'll be going out there for a year or two. Let me be the one to warn you that you probably will be here for eight, nine or, like me, 14 years and counting, without any plans of going anywhere. So tell me about your career progression at Repton, because when I met you, you were, I think, vice principal at the time.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I feel like I've played. To give it a metaphor, I feel like I've played every position on the pitch at Repton so far. So when I first arrived in 2017, I came as a teacher, so I was teaching a year five class. It was when we'd first opened Frye Campus. We had September 2017 and we had 160 students on Frye campus from year three through to year six, so we had two year five classes. I was teaching a year five classes with a colleague of mine, tanvir Jalani, who still works here now, and I had that lovely opportunity of sort of settling students into a new campus.
Speaker 3:It was quite an exciting time. I arrived and we did inset at the Rose campus, which is the earliest campus which was already open down at the bottom of Ream Island. We did inset down there because the Frye campus wasn't open yet and hadn't had a approval ADEC approval to open open yet and hadn't had a approval ad hoc approval to open. So, like things over here is quite last minute. We got ad hoc approval to open the campus two days before students were supposed to arrive before the start of the academic year.
Speaker 3:So everyone came in over those two days, 48 hours. No one really slept. Everyone was hands to the till um, trying to turn what was essentially a building site into a school to welcome new students, and we managed to do that, and I think that's why we've got so many staff with the loyalty and buy-in that we've got. We literally have had blood, sweat and tears being spilled in getting this campus to this school, to where it is, and I've still got some fantastic colleagues, a lot of fantastic colleagues who who with were with me at that point in time, who who still remain at the school and so how did?
Speaker 3:your career progress yeah, from there I I was, I had year five. For that year, I think I sort of picked up or I was promoted into an assistant head role within sort of the first six months and I took on some further responsibility and some responsibility, professional development, and then, I seem to, as the school grew quite quickly. Year on year the school expanded and grew quite rapidly. I then was promoted into a deputy head of academic role. I then was promoted into a deputy head of academic role which then ended up being a vice principal role overseeing both campuses, and this was working with Gillian Hammond, who's the principal at Repton Dubai. So I was working closely with her underneath her leadership.
Speaker 3:Yeah, gillian went to Repton Al-Basha and ultimately Repton Dubai, which gave me the opportunity to sort of become the principal, interim principal and now the full-time principal, which I've been for the last three years. So it's interesting how opportunities and sliding doors sort of happen here and I guess from anyone looking from an aspirational leadership perspective, I don't think I could have ever sort of coursed the map the way things have happened, and I think my sort of words of wisdom in that is you've just got to be trying to ensure that you are ready when opportunities rise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to actually ask you as well for new teachers coming out here who are worried about their career progressions what steps can they take to make sure that they're in the right place at the right time for these opportunities?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? It depends on the school that you're joining. But I've found over here and it's still the same. Here we have a very high staff retention rate. But there are always opportunities that arise to allow people to move into leadership roles. But I think what can they do? You don't have to have a title to be a leader. So, developing those leadership traits and developing those leadership experiences as much as you can, so that you are ready to take on when you are given that opportunity to take on those leadership experiences. I was fortunate to come from sort of a PE sporting background where you traditionally and my head director of sport today has just had 800 students out for the single school sports day. Organizing a whole school event like that, the logistics of it, the health and safety of it, it gives you such great experience for what's to come in terms of leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what advice would you give to school leaders who are looking not school leaders or teachers who are looking to get into school leadership, but they are very hesitant to take on these roles. What advice would you give them to kind of push them into, you know, stepping up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important to note two things, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Career progression doesn't necessarily mean you have to go upwards in an upward trajectory, because there are a lot of fantastic teachers out there and career progression for them they may not want the responsibility of leadership. Career progression for them might be more about breadth rather than going an upward trajectory. So I think that's very important For those that are looking to step up trajectory. So I think that's very important For those that are looking to step up into leadership. I think you've got to be really clear about why you want to be a leader, and I think, probably more than anything that I've learned on my journey is that you need to be really understanding of who you are as a person and what your values and morals are, because when you're placed in a position of leadership, particularly in quite a diverse environment that we live in, people will try and push you or sway you in terms of your values, and you need to know where you're lining the sand or where your sort of true North Star is, so that you can remain authentic as a leader.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love what you said you talked about going wider and deeper rather than going up because I'll tell you something that I've noticed there are some fantastic teachers and practitioners to grow in salary or grow professionally within many schools and so they go up to leadership and they bomb like they completely bomb, because that's not them. What can schools do to ensure they keep that talent and kind of compensate them to the level that is worthy of their skills and talents?
Speaker 3:I think it's really hard, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Because I don't think there's anywhere in the world that's really developed a salary scale.
Speaker 3:There will be an incremental scale depending on years of experience, but no one in the world or no system has really developed a salary scale that really can promote teachers to stay in the classroom. There's incremental salary point scales depending on years of experience, but I think it's something that could be done much better because, as you say, some people go into leadership roles and maybe not have the skill set or the authentic inclination as to why they're going into leadership roles. Additionally, it's taking some really quality people out of the most important role of the school and that is being at the chalk face teaching our students. So we're trying to give a breadth of experiences and opportunities. So, for example, we've got staff recently who have looked at developing more into the inclusion side of things, so doing training and degrees in inclusion, and they're then looking at sort of the breadth of what they can offer as a teacher in different capacity than solely as a classroom based teacher yeah, it's interesting because I think who was I talking to about this?
Speaker 2:I want to say Fiona Cotton, the Advanced Skills Teacher Program in the UK sort of did a bit of that. But you are right, there isn't anything that is so established that really speaks to keeping the talent and making the emphasis and the importance being placed on teacher and teaching, because we all know that there is no school that is better than the quality of its teachers. The quality of its teachers is what counts above everything else.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, and all the evidence points in that direction, and I've just had the pleasure of having Professor Rob Cohen here and I know he's joining you this week at the Middle East School Leadership Conference and you know a lot of the things that he's doing with the evidence-based education supports, trying to develop expertise in the classroom because we know how impactful it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely All right, we're going to change gears just a little bit and we're coming back to you as a leader. So this year, as you just mentioned the Leadership Conference, we're really focusing on legacy. So you're sitting in an important chair, they're all sat up right, it's your tie and everything looking important. What do you think your legacy? You won't know it for sure, but what would you like it to be? When you maybe exit the role, what would you want to leave as a lasting impact that you have created?
Speaker 3:it would be the car park that I've just opened. Adjacent Car parking around any school is a problem, isn't it? And I've been working for 18 months negotiating with the government about some additional parking facilities, which finally have come to fruition. But, in a realistic point of view, I think legacies are a really interesting aspect and I don't think I ever have gone into the job with the hope of leaving or the intention of leaving a legacy. But I think, if I, what would I want people to say about me when I leave? I think I would want them to say that he was hardworking, he was authentic, he had integrity, he did what he said he would do, and I think those are key aspects.
Speaker 3:I go back to sort of my childhood, growing up surrounded by dairy farmers and the first out of interest, lisa. The first job I had at 13 was shoveling manure into 40-kilogram a on a dairy farm and um the, the dairy farmer, john curtain, was paying me 50 cents for each 40 kilogram bag, which is about a dirham for every 40 kilogram bag. But the lessons I learned along that way of working hard, being on time, doing what you say, I told him I was going to work for him and do this job and turning up and making sure that you do it to the best of your ability and being proud of non-dependent of what your job is, being proud of what you do and doing it to the best of your ability and I think that I hope would be the legacy that I left here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's such a hard question. When we were coming up with the topic for the leadership conference, when we threw that one out, everybody was like, oh my God, it sounds very sort of final, like, oh, what's your legacy? It means you're dead, but it doesn't. You know, legacy is something that we're building, whether we know it or we don't. We are building it each and every day when we turn up to work, when we do what we do. The minute we step away, the impact we have positive or negative is being built will happen on Wednesday and Thursday when people start to grapple with that topic. But as leaders, we have to think about our impact, and the impact we have is the legacy that we leave. It's not separate from our impact. I looked behind you and I saw the man in the arena quote behind you one of my favorites not the critic that counts. Can you tell any aspiring leader what you would say are some sage advice for them if they are now about to step into a leadership role?
Speaker 3:sage advice, I think for me from my experience is is build relationships. Relationships are so important to having impact and you've touched on legacy having impact. You can have the best ideas and be the sharpest mind, but if you can't bring people on the journey with you and have those relationships and be able to persuade people into, sometimes, directions that maybe they don't want to go but you think and you know that possibly it's the best thing for the school, it's about having those real connections. So I think, from a real personal perspective and I touched on it before is, as a leader, really understanding who you are and what are the things that you stand for, what are the things that maybe you know makes your hair raise on the back of your neck, so that you know how to be able to manage those emotions.
Speaker 3:You really come across so many different interactions with people in this organization of a school. So yeah, 2,200 students here, I've got 250 staff and really my job on a day-to-day basis is managing people and talking with people and that's where I think, from a leadership perspective, I can have the biggest impact. How can I have the biggest impact as a leader? For me it is about trying to build this culture, this environment that allows people to flourish, because when my staff are flourishing, that's going to have a cascading effect onto the students.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do agree with you. I think relationships trump everything really. Gosh, I can't believe I used the word trump.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're just going to say trump the relationships in the same sense they do at the moment. I know.
Speaker 2:Right, okay, it's the tail end of the pod. What makes you angry? Because you seem so calm. I've never met you and you're not this very even. How do you maintain that?
Speaker 3:what makes you angry, steve, there has to be something what makes me angry I I honestly, I I don't get angry and I am pretty much like this the whole time, and I think this is really important I think, also as as a lesson in leadership, is that you can't get too high on the high and you can't get too low on the lows, because you really need to silo off emotions at different times when you're walking from one meeting to the next meeting. I can't carry baggage from one meeting to the next meeting. I can't carry baggage from one meeting into the next meeting because it's going to have an impact on the outcome of that meeting and I think that's really important for leaders.
Speaker 2:All right. Last question You're easy to talk to, like I could sit here. I was just looking at my wife. I was like, oh my God, 45 minutes. It was supposed to be a 30 minute podcast. You're very, very easy to talk to, steve.
Speaker 3:Thank you, you ask good questions.
Speaker 2:You're really easy, okay, when you are not at school and you are not taking care of your two kids and that dog, that I don't even know why you went the dog route, but that's on you. Dogs are lovely. I like dogs. It's just in UAE, dogs are expensive. When you're not doing any of that and you're not being a principal and no one is watching and there are no cameras, how?
Speaker 3:do you unwind? I think this comes back. This is a question that you're asking based on a comment I made on one of your linkedin posts, I think. Um, regarding saunas dry saunas yeah, uh, one of the things I do.
Speaker 3:I and I've become more cognizant of being able to switch off, and we just talked about siloing off emotions and really going home and some of the things you go through as a leader on a day-to-day basis. You have some really challenging experiences and some challenging conversations. I think I said this to one of my assistant principals the other day that I think if I had to say one superpower I had as a leader is my ability to sleep. I can really just switch off and sleep without any problems, which sort of obviously helps you get ready and prepared for the next day and refresh.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, one of the comments that I made on your LinkedIn post about a question you had asked about something along the same vein is one of the things that I've been doing quite recently and I've always been into physical activity. So staying fit, staying active, walking my dog, for example is a great down, down, down, a wind down for me, but one of the things I've been researching more of and been doing more of is is dry saunas. So I've I feel very privileged to have a dry sauna in our apartment complex. So, yeah, about 80 degrees Sauna's, about 80 degrees. By the time you get in 20 minutes in the sauna, you've got no access to IT. The kids can't get you, the phone can't get you, the computer can't get you. You have to sit with your own thoughts for about 20 minutes and just wind down and it is a really lovely way to sort of disconnect from everything. But there's a lot of research behind the impact on it and the longevity for physical benefits as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish I had one. When you wrote that I was like oh, I wish I had like a dry sauna close by. But I live in a villa and there is no dry sauna. It's hard unless I build one. And who's going to do that?
Speaker 3:Well, there are companies out there that are building them now for villas, like personal dry saunas.
Speaker 2:Really I wonder how much that costs Guys, we're going to investigate that, so we'll drop the comments below. If you know the cost of a dry sauna, it's middle-aged dry sauna.
Speaker 3:You could have some sort of marketing on it off the costs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll look into that.
Speaker 3:Steve, we could do podcasts from the dry sauna next time, can?
Speaker 2:you imagine? Can you imagine that, though? That would be like something else. I think what we need to do is come up with our top tips on health and fitness and just like compile them in like a nice little post so people can pick from them the things that it could, because so important it's so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is actually, and like one of the things I I've been sort of thinking more of since I've been in this role and I you know, I look at people like mark lapard and other heads who have been in posts for a long time and how, how do you maintain that longevity in the role? Yeah, with complexity and pressure of the position. What are the secrets of maintaining that longevity and that freshness Really important?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Mark talks about switching off a lot and about the fact that he's not afraid to show his staff that he takes care of himself, because he wants them to take care of themselves as well, which is so important, you know, for all involved. Absolutely. Thank you for being on the podcast, steve.
Speaker 3:It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:You are dead easy to talk to. You hear me, I am not joking. I've done many of these and I'm going to put it on record. You are one very, very easy person to talk to. Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I hope you've enjoyed it and I hope it's beneficial for some others as well.
Speaker 2:I've enjoyed it and I'm sure it will be of benefit to others.
Speaker 1: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.
