Edarabia had the opportunity to interview Brett Girven, the Principal of Dubai British School Emirates Hills, to gain insights into the school’s plans for 2025, academic focus, challenges in education, and strategies for student well-being and success.
We have a very big year ahead for 2025 as we open our new campus, the DBS Islands campus, and we carry out a lot of the development work here at our existing, original campus, DBS Emirates Hills. There are many exciting new additions to the school as we make sure we maintain the small community feel while growing the number of students. By a small amount, which is fantastic, because it gives us more new athletes, more new thespians and actors, more new musicians, and more new friends for our existing children. It also allows us to bring in new energy and new teachers to help DBSEH continue with its outstanding outlook. Finally, we’ll be able to develop some of our facilities within additional sports facility upgrades to existing rooms, for example, 3 new science labs, additional performing arts and expressive arts specialist spaces, and some upgrades to other parts of the facilities here at DBS Emirates Hills campus. At the new Islands campus, we will be renovating all of the classrooms to make them fit for purpose, and although we are managing our expectations to ensure that we are ready for day one, the long-term plan is for a really exciting and innovative campus.
Each year and on a much longer-term basis, we carry out our self-evaluation, which essentially is a gap analysis to see where we’ve done well and where perhaps we can continue to put our focus. There might be something like identifying gaps in data collection for student well-being, up to putting a long-term focus on the improvement of facilities and our sporting performances. Obviously, we also have to factor in changes in the world around us and the areas that are critical both to the government of the UAE and to the world at large. It’s quite a challenging task to continue to scan the horizon for things that are likely to pop up and be critical in the future, as well as manage the needs and wants of today. The most important thing is keeping our students and their experience with us at the heart of this and ensuring that all our decisions are made with the idea of optimising and achieving our vision and mission, which is for students to enjoy and aspire, and achieve at whichever level is relevant.
The things on everybody’s radar at the moment are, of course, artificial intelligence and its impact on not only teaching and learning but also the administration and management of schools. We are looking at how to make sure that AI is a force for good in all its aspects. Secondly, it’s ensuring that we keep pace with the changing narrative of education around the globe and ensure we educate well the set of timeless skills as much as we educate to ensure our children have a rich knowledge base from which to then take action. Thirdly are trying to ensure that our children are forces for good and bringing about a more abundant future, IE, looking at sustainability, climate change, and the polycrisis that is occurring across our planet currently.
Just like in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we have to ensure that we get the mix just right for each child, which is an ongoing challenge for all educators. The content that they’re learning has to be engaging, relevant, authentic, and meaningful. And it needs to be in the zone of proximal development for each child. Not too hard, not too easy. We are extremely fortunate at DBSEH that our children, in general, have a fantastic attitude towards learning, and our teachers both inculcate and capitalize on that so that there is a real air of motivation and diligence across the school.
DBS Emirates Hills is known as a Community-based School where every child is known and, for many of them, their siblings have been through the school, and their parents are known by their first name at the front gate. You make the students feel welcome by ensuring they know you care, and this comes not from any particular initiative but from a disposition where each adult and other child on site knows that this is a place where they care for each other. We, of course, have several events and activities throughout the year that help to build belonging. And we make sure we focus on ensuring that every child has the chance to succeed, because success looks different for each child.
We are very proactive in preventing bullying at school. There is a big difference between what we would define as bullying and what can be seen as children being unkind to each other. Bullying is different in that it is a repeated action that is targeted and negative. Our approaches are largely restorative, meaning it’s not about finding blame but about helping the perpetrator to understand the impact of their unkind words or deeds. At the same time, we need to make sure that the victim feels that there has been a resolution. We also proactively teach children how to speak out. If they think bullying is occurring. We deal with student stress in many of the same ways, that is, proactively and as I talk curriculum. We, of course, also have our social–emotional counsellors who do a fantastic job, and we have a very powerful team of student peer mentors who reach out to help students with their stress and mental well-being.
At DBS, we have the Aspire curriculum, which is a curriculum centered around the holistic skills of developing a well-rounded individual. This ranges with age group, so we cover age-appropriate activities and help to build age-appropriate skill sets progressively as they move through the school. Everything from digital literacy to financial literacy to changing a light bulb.
We like to think that our community are continuously engaged in different ways to make the school better. Their children, for the staff, and for the community at large. I’m sure our community would probably say we surveyed too often to gather their voice, but it really is useful in shaping how we continuously evaluate and improve our school. We have a school Advisory Board, which is made up of five parents of the school who provide advice to the senior leadership on strategic direction and key priority areas. Recently, as another example, we have hosted a parent strategy session for sports Success to design A shared action plan to continue to excel on the sports field while ensuring all children have the chance to participate.
This is the secret sauce of a great school! It’s difficult to put your finger on any one activity that will resolve this challenge because it is in fact a composite of everything you do in school. From supporting staff if they have a challenging class, to ensuring that they feel they have autonomy over their own professional growth, to ensuring that we continuously keep our compensation package at a competitive position in the marketplace. Whatever it is, I’m privileged in that our staff tend to stay at the school for significant periods of time, indicating we’re getting something right.
Yes, but this is one of the challenges of getting everything right in the previous question. With a limited number of leadership positions and great people already in those positions, eventually, there will be nowhere left for aspirational teachers to grow. My advice to aspiring leaders is that the journey to the next role always starts with being amazing at the one in which you are currently working. If they can fulfil that, then they will always have my support, either to grow within my school if I can find an opportunity, or to continue to aspire to great things elsewhere. I don’t want to lose great teachers, but I cannot ask for more than them being their best every day while they’re with me and our children.
That’s a very difficult question to answer. Because there are so many different elements to success. Personally, I want to feel that I serve my team, my students, and my community, and I would like their feedback to reflect that. As the leader of the school, I would like for us to have success by all of the common measures, but also be successful in defining our own purpose and authentically moving towards it. I see our role as helping our young people to grow into the people that they eventually will become, and therefore, any measures of impact are really much further down the line. What I do enjoy seeing every day is a smile on children’s faces whilst they’re in our school, and so that for me is a huge part of success.
My sentence is to inspire the world. Our world is a beautiful, abundant place – do everything you can to make that a reality for all.
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