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speaker-0: Welcome to Heads and Tails with me, Henry Faber.
speaker-1: And me, Walter Carr.
speaker-0: At Opponent Education, we mentor young people in school and at home around the world, building confidence in the next generation.
speaker-1: And we also need mentors ourselves. So each week we chat to an inspiring leader in the world of education and then share that with you. On this episode of Heads and Tails, we delve into the fascinating launch of Harrow International School Dubai in an interview with Simon O'Connor, its founding headmaster. For anybody interested in setting up schools, this is a must. We discuss building culture from day one, developing a heritage brand with local roots, and why it's a mistake to think of franchise brands as anything but a name and a badge. Hope you enjoy. On this episode of Heads and Tails, we are delighted to be joined by Simon O'Connor to the guest seat, the founding headmaster of Harrow International School in Dubai, a new school that opened its doors this September. What a privilege it is to have you on the show. Simon spent seven years as principal of Pumera College before joining Deera International School in 2020. He was educated at the King's School in Rochester, read history and philosophy at Cardiff, trained at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar. I'd love to touch upon that later. And is, I believe, currently completing a doctorate at Buckingham on organizational culture and school improvement. He also set up the AFEF Center for Education Action Research, which brings together lots of research across many, many schools. And we'll be getting into all of that more in the next 20 minutes or so. So Simon, thank you for joining the podcast.
speaker-0: Well thank you so much, it's lovely to be here to be able to talk to you.
speaker-1: Well, let's start right at the front then. You are I can smell the fresh paint on you. you have literally just opened the doors of Harrow International School, the latest school in the Harrow brand. Tell me, what is it like to set up and launch a school? Can you take us behind the curtain of of the of the kind of complexities and the issues and the difficulties and everything around setting up a school?
speaker-0: Certainly, it's been absolutely fascinating. We moved in on the 31st of August, although that's when our pupils joined us. We moved our staff in a couple of weeks before that. It's been a really exhilarating time. Huge stresses, hugely diverse range of issues, but we're starting on with very much a blank piece of paper. So we've had to design curricula, we've had to look at the offering for our pupils, we've had to recruit just under 100 staff. We've had to talk to parents on a fairly consistent basis. who have been interested in sending their children to our school. Yeah, I've been working on it for just approximately a year prior to starting it, starting the academic year. And yeah, it's been enormously exciting. One of the fascinating things was on the 31st of August, we'd been heading towards that day for, as I say, for months. And about halfway through the day, I suddenly thought, I'm not really sure what I'm doing tomorrow. But that's back into the routine of running a school, which as you've said, I've done for a long time. So yeah, it's been really really enjoyable and actually even now despite the fact we're only two weeks into term We are we've already had meetings this week about the school We're opening in Abu Dhabi in 12 months time. So it continues but yes been very very interesting I've learned a huge amount and thoroughly enjoyed it as well
speaker-1: Can you tell us what you have learned for those who are looking to set up a similar school? What have you learnt about yourself or about the the system?
speaker-0: I think it is very root. It's about really having an understanding of what the school is going to be. As I'm sure everyone knows, mean, Dubai is a very diverse place. It has over 200 different nationalities and people from a whole range of backgrounds, whether that's cultural, whether that's financial context and things. And I think it's really important that you can articulate to your community, this is what your school is going to be. No school is a panacea, no school can or should try and offer everything to everyone because ultimately it will fail. So we spent a long time looking at that, spent a long time with Harrow in the UK, really getting under the skin of what they do, thinking about how we can bring that to Dubai. The reality is that Harrow in London is a boys boarding school for young men aged 13 to 18. We've opened a school for young people aged three to 18, boys and girls. In London, it's a boarding school, we're a day school. But that really brought us back to how it is, what it is we're going to be delivering. And we came up with this concept of essentially boarding without the sleeping. So the much fuller day, the longer day, a much more, I think, diverse and inclusive co-curricular program. But that, again, relied on, I think, an understanding of our desire to recognise that education exists well beyond the classroom. So where do we want to our pupils to go to gain that wider understanding that we're looking for? So yeah, really understanding the foundation of your school, I think, is essential.
speaker-1: Take us behind the lid of setting up a a school that is part of a brand that is a heritage brand, a kind of you know, such an established brand. Because the if I set up the cynical view, the the the the cynic would say, Well, it's it's a it's an extension of the school in in badge and badge alone. And yeah, there's some teacher substitutions and a bit of curriculum share, but really it's mothership is there, and then the the the brands internationally do their own thing. What what's your response to those?
speaker-0: I don't think it is cynical. I don't think it is unfair in the sense that we are aware that there are some independent
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schools in the UK that have gone down that route. And essentially it's a franchise with little more than a name in a badge. What's been lovely is being able to talk to our parents, both prospective parents and our current parents, about how that is simply not the reality here. Harrow, as you've mentioned, has a number of schools across the world. And there is an organisation called Harrow International Schools Limited, which we call HISSL. And I probably speak to HISSL every single week. HISSLE will sit on our governing body, so they will have a contribution to the strategic oversight of the school, and that's forever. We talk to them on a regular basis. They actually have in Harrow a set of standards that they will come out on a regular basis, so several times a year, to check and to support us in making sure that the Harrowian experience is consistent here as it is in the UK. But we also set up, very early in the development phase, a local advisory board which has Dubai based old herovians on it. So they've been a really, really invaluable touch point to ensure that the experience that the pupils here replicates most closely that it can do to that in the UK. So we had our first speech room assembly this week. We, as I say, we've looked at the curriculum, but actually it's more than that. The design of the build has been very deliberately constructed so that it echoes many of the themes that have that are in the UK. I had the great privilege of a couple of weeks ago showing our advisory board members around the school and I was actually most pleased when they said how familiar it felt. We will have constant touch points in the education that we delivered. We look at the history of Harrow, we look at the contribution that Harrow has made in the UK. So it's important to me that the pupils here feel that they are Horovians because they are. And I think that constant relationship that we have. enables that to happen. we did a staff induction, we've taken quite a number of staff from the UK and we were able to do that at Harrow. We have admissions opportunities for parents in the UK, we're able to do that at Harrow. So it is very much an ongoing and deeply embedded relationship. The other thing to say is that, as I've mentioned, there are many other Harrow schools and we will be developing relationships with them across the world and that gives great opportunities, whether it's competing in sports or academic competitions, but also opportunities for our beaks as we call them, our teachers, to interrelate and moderate and share ideas with beaks across the world. So it is a really in-depth relationship and one which I'm sure will just continue to grow as we move on.
speaker-1: I want to come to your music in a second. I I do think what you said about boarding without the sleeping is a lovely concept. I think a longer school day just in general is a good thing for students. you twice inherited schools that have been rated outstanding, I believe.
speaker-0: I inherited one school that was outstanding. When I got there, Deira International School wasn't outstanding, and we managed to move it to outstanding in 18 months. But yeah.
speaker-1: Does it feel like a startup when you start a school? there's no results, there's in theory, no culture, there's no alumni. Does it feel like a startup?
speaker-0: Well, it doesn't feel like it's been there for a while, but I think taking the experience of myself and the senior leaders and indeed the rest of the staff that we have here, we have very deliberately talked about the culture we want at the school, how we actually begin to construct that. And actually one of the things I've been most pleased with is the fact that I was indeed, I was having a conversation about 20 minutes ago with a member of staff who said that the culture is palpable already. You mentioned I've done a fair amount of research myself on organisational culture and there's this concept that Every institution has a culture, the question is are you looking at it, are you trying to influence it? And because I think there is that understanding, we were able to put into place some very clear elements of that culture, even from the offset of our staff induction. I mean, at its most crude definition, a culture is values plus behaviors. Well, we inherited the values that are existing, that have been inherent on the Hill for a long time. But actually to really unpick that, to have those conversations right from the outset. And yes, of course, we have to work out the bus rotors. We've got to work out where people are doing duties, the operational elements. Before we did that, we had conversations with the leadership. I had conversations with the staff talking about the behaviors of leadership, what they wanted to have at the school, how they would feel comfortable. And that's not at the expense of expectations in any way. But I think an understanding of culture is so important because it does mean, as you say, we're on our 12th day of the school day of the school, and yet we've been able to establish very clear routines, which I think makes life more straightforward for everyone.
speaker-1: Can I ask the the in all the conversations we have in these episodes, the the the culture of the institution is is obviously the most important thing. What I'm interested in and what I think our audiences are interested in, many of whom are going into teaching or looking actually to to t we actually we get a lot of people who prepare for interviews to be heads by listening to what people like you have to say. To that end then, are there any specific set pieces you do or the or the y that you either done or want to do in a week or in a day that manifest the culture that you set o over the top of it? Yeah.
speaker-0: I would come back to behaviours. We had two weeks with our beaks before school started. I had a week dedicated with my senior leadership team. And as I said, there's always the temptation to
go down to the operational complexities because there are a myriad of those. But in actual fact, what we wanted to do is to pause and look at the exact culture that we wanted to have and how we're to achieve that and to actually articulate very explicitly what the behaviours of senior leadership will be. And that can be from the fact that, what was lovely as well is that we then spoke to the beaks and said, what are you hoping for? And there was actually a alignment between both the senior leadership and the beaks. But for example, do we expect the senior leaders to be visible across the school? Well, I do, they want to be, and the beaks are hoping for that. Do we have a culture where the leadership is talking to and listening? I think that's the most important thing, listening to the beaks. Again, that was in alignment as well. So actually looking clearly, and of course there's always improvement plans, there's self-evaluation forms, there's quality assurance programs, and we need to do that. But taking that step back was important. One of the first things I actually did in that week with the senior leaders was to spend a day, which when I've only got five days was a huge proportion of that time, but to spend a day looking at understanding about a coaching relationship because... If we can establish coaching from the offset as the basis for our discussions, again, that becomes very embedded very quickly and helps to establish the culture of the school. I personally don't believe in this little top-down micromanagement that sometimes exists. This is the way I approach leadership. So rather than, as I say, focus on the operational, we focused on the culture that we were trying to establish. We trained people up in it, how to recognize it, and we continue to have those conversations when we meet. in a sense of how's it going, what could we do better, and then move on to the operational elements that will always be.
speaker-1: Nice. I'm hearing visibility of SLT, critical, self-evaluation. That's not new but important. Bottom up advice or rather yeah, network of advice and that coaching element. Lovely. Going back, I don't know if your teaching staff know about Simon O'Connor, the boy, or even the scholar, the musician. Can you talk into your childhood just for a little bit? Is there any kind of causation or correlation between what you were like as a boy and what you're like as a leader now? And if anyone who's listening at Jumara or one of your teachers now, they might like to know about you.
speaker-0: Certainly, and I do talk a lot about it. as you say, I went to King's School, Oxford. King's is a, certainly when I was there, it was a predominantly boy. I mean, we had girls in the sixth form, a few girls in sixth form, but it was a boys school. And it was a boarding school and I was a boarder there. And my memory of the school, yes, of course I did lessons, I emerged with qualifications. But actually, as you've alluded to already, for me, it was
much more about music. I was a music scholar, I was in the orchestra. I played the piano and actually for me the main focus was singing, which I've taken on and still continue to do. And when we're looking at Harrow, it was very much a kind of remembering that experience and saying that actually, qualifications are unquestionably important, but I think we can do far more than that. If a pupil emerges from this school simply with a passport of qualifications, they've missed so much and we failed in that respect. So yes, for me it was music, but also it was about opportunities that I wouldn't have elsewhere and some of that was travel. But also, I was on the fencing team. Where else in the world would you have an opportunity to experience fencing? And so quite deliberately, as a consequence of that, here at Arrow, we do have a fencing club. Because I think children, yes, they need to learn things, but one of the things they need to learn is their passions. What are they going to be interested in? What are they not going to be interested in? What do they dislike? And if we can set them up with the passions that hopefully, as music has done for me, will remain with them for the rest of their lives, then I think we've done a good thing. I think education does much more than that, whether it's in... Another thing that we've looked at specifically is about the skills of oracy and having a confidence in speaking, whether that's public speaking, whether that's in the theatre. So again, we've already got debating clubs going here. We've got work with public speaking. We've got... opportunities on the stage. And that's not because, and it would be lovely if some of the herovians that in the future emerge to be on Broadway or whatever, but actually I want people to be able to articulate their views with confidence and with competence. And that doesn't, it's not genetic, it doesn't just happen. We need to give pupils the opportunity to develop that. So I've very, very much leveraged my experience at school. I think as well is that I'll be utterly candid about this. And certainly those people I was at school with will. absolutely endorsed this. I wasn't the best pupil in the world. I think certainly when I was at school there was this perception that you finished your education at 18, you maybe went on to do a degree and that's a fairly arbitrarily decided point. I think different people blossom at different times and actually my education, I was in my 20s before I think I really hit my straps in terms of what I could do. But as you've alluded to I've continued with my education for the rest of my life. So that's I think it's important to reflect on that as well and to meet children at the speed at which they're learning I think is important.
speaker-1: I was gonna ask you whether there was anything from a report that a year five pupil would love to know about Simon O'Connor when you were that age. Yeah.
speaker-0: Possibly not focus as much as I should be on
academic studies. But, you know, and I think there's an important lesson, I would argue, though, things have turned out okay. And I think sometimes we overemphasize, and it's not to dismiss the importance, but we don't want children that are simply products of a conveyor belt. We want to enable children to discover their passions and their interests. And that was certainly the case for me. And as I said, things seem to have got okay despite that.
speaker-1: To me, there's a triple threat for Simon O'Connor, if I may, which is that you in a position now as a founding head in the leadership position of a heritage brand, if I if I would call it call it that, in an environment with high expectations, lots of competition, and lots of money. So there's a hell of lot of pressure on your plate. I wanted to ask a question about you as a leader. How do you how do you find space to reflect on your own leadership, particularly in environmentals in in environments like this.
speaker-0: I think you have to create that space. If you allow external factors to control you, they will. And I'm very lucky that I've had 13 years of leadership experience in a principal role before and have learned lots of lessons. And it can come down to minutia. was Mark Steed was a principal out here, now runs Steed Education. And one of the tips he once gave me was to actually don't just have a diary of events, have a diary of doing things. So if you need to create space in your calendar to do, let's say, a school improvement plan, actually put it in your calendar because otherwise you get to the end of your day and you've discovered that you haven't done any work yet. I think it's important to have hobbies. I think it's important to have distractions in your weekends and your evenings so that you actually remain energetic throughout. Another really important thing to me, and I think it is... Probably unusual is the community of schools that are in Dubai. you've called them competition. I don't really believe that schools do compete. But what there is here is a really good community of schools and consequently, principals that you can turn to, that you can talk to. There is actually very rarely a day when I don't talk to a principal of another Dubai school. And we share ideas, we share frustrations, and having that outlet is really important as well. I people often talk about the loneliness of leadership. In the time I've been in Dubai, that has never really been the case. And I think one of the things that when we went through COVID, we pulled together much more closely. And I'm really pleased that despite the end of COVID, that relationship with many principles is maintained to this day. And I said, it can be a fan call, it can be a dinner. And we don't even necessarily have to talk about work, but having that network of people, I think is really important as well. And we are more than the individual parts of... that into that. that's really important as well.
speaker-1: I love it. Love that. I'm gonna come to the final part of our episode, which is the the school bell in a second, but I do ask all our guests the same question. taking all the experiences you've had in positions of leadership and all the work that you've done around educational research, is there a controversial opinion you have that you'd be happy to stand on a soapbox and declare to an audience of listeners?
speaker-0: Well, I think it's actually becoming less controversial, but we have to look at technology within the schools. We have said very explicitly at at Harrow that yes, of course we will train up our pupils in the use of AI. We will ensure that they're digital natives when they leave the school. But I think it's an understanding that we as people and all people are far more than simply servants of technology. We should remember that technology is our servant. So the default and largely overwhelmingly proportion of people out work here is cursive script in an exercise book. And yes, we use technology, but unless it is being used, they're not in sites, they're in the lockers in the classrooms. Because there are so that I think technology has its abuses, but it's very isolating. It's very, one of the, think, holy grail in education is critical thinking. and critical thinking takes time. You need to doodle, you need to scribble, you need to think about it. Technology actually prevents that process happening by giving us an instant answer. So we are absolutely phone free, but we're more than that. We actually have very confined limitations on the amount that children will be using screens to enable the discourse, to enable the conversations that go between them, which not only I think is far more healthy, but in terms of neural development is absolutely crucial as well. I actually think there has been a backtracking in education, I think even 18 months ago, everyone was talking about going down the AI route, going down technology, devices everywhere. And I would like to see them very, very marginalized to the very corners of education and actually understand that education is so much more than being an inputter into a device.
speaker-1: Amen. I think Oppurin stands exactly behind that view. Right, Simon, to finish then. Five short, sharp questions to get even further behind the curtain of Simon O'Connor, the leader. So do you have a mentor who has been a mentor of yours?
speaker-0: I don't have a specific mentor, but as I alluded to earlier, the communication that I have with a variety of mentors, I would put many of the principals here in Dubai as my mentors, my touch points. But I do have a coach and I've worked with a coach for several years and find that relationship invaluable. I often describe it as, know, often our desks build up, we work and we want to remove the elements from our desk. Well, I think your mind does too. And a coach, a regular coaching session for me is is an ability to clear the decks mentally as well. So yeah, I would put
my colleagues across Dubai as very much my mentors, but my coach as well is someone that's absolutely vital in my leadership journey.
speaker-1: Great. Your favorite book?
speaker-0: I've seen some of your previous interviews and I know that others struggle with this. I read all the time. It is one of my go-to's for relaxation. If I was pushed, I was a history teacher for many years and I'm fascinated by early 20th century Russian history. And there was a brilliant book actually by an American author called A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. And I think one of the best things you can say about the book is how upset you are when you finish it. There's almost a sense of bereavement that you're no longer in that world. That is an absolutely wonderful book and I would highly recommend people to read it.
speaker-1: I also love that book. One thing that all schools should be doing.
speaker-0: I'm a huge fan of Simon Sinek. I appreciate he's often talking about business, but I think he has a lot of lessons that we can learn. And he talks about the imperfect game. I know this is a quick answer. But one of the things he talks about is worthy rivals. I've already said that I don't think schools compete, but we can always see a school and go round a school and think that's a great idea. I didn't know that. To actually magpie ideas from other people, I think is a really great thing and can only improve your practice all the time.
speaker-1: Very good. Very good. What's one thing you'd be doing if you weren't in education?
speaker-0: The honest answer to that is I had no idea, but actually if I look back on my formative years, working in an environment with children was certainly something that I was always fascinated I did summer clubs. It's been really interesting because actually for the last 10 months I've been planning this school and therefore not surrounded by children. And in some respects, some respects, the opportunity to just step back from that briefly has been lovely. But having a school with children, and again I can hear them on the corridors as we speak, is magic. Working with children creates an energy for you that I just think is unmatched. I'm not sure what it would be, but I don't think there's any question it would be in an environment where I'm working with young people, because I'm sure I take as much from them as I'm able to give as well.
speaker-1: Good. I hope you're still singing as well.
speaker-0: Yes, I am. I am. Not as frequently as I assume, but yes I am.
speaker-1: Good. And final question, sort of therapeutic one perhaps. what's one thing you tell your sixteen year old self, having had all the success that you have had?
speaker-0: I we recognise that the teenage years are a challenge, as they were for me. I think there's a reassurance element, which is if we'll all be okay. I think the other thing actually, and I live in Dubai, which is such a hub for transport, is get out and see the world. Because I've been so lucky both professionally and in my own travels to see a huge amount of the world. Not as much as I want to and not as much as I will. But it's a big world out there with people who are all going through the same challenges that we are. in different contexts and in different cultures and I don't think you do anything other than learn from that. yeah, it'll be okay but every opportunity you get to go somewhere sees it with both hands.
speaker-1: So I'm thank you f for your transparency and for your time. You're thirteen, fourteen days into the launch of an enormous school. What an exciting project. We'll be following you closely from the sidelines, cheering you on. Just leaves me to say thank you for appearing on this episode of Heads and Tails.
speaker-0: Thank you, it's been a great pleasure. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Heads and Tails. Thanks for listening and join us next time for more great stories from those on the front lines of education.