Supporting teachers to increase retention in BC offshore schools
Abstract
This design project seeks to provide administrators in British Columbia offshore schools with
practical strategies to employ to support the teaching staff in their schools and potentially
reduce the high rate of staff turn-over that exists in them. Coupled with my own
observations based on ten years of experience working in Canadian schools in Asia, and a
survey of recent literature, staff turn-over in international schools comes as a result of culture
shock and the lack of job satisfaction. The literature review revealed a key finding with
regards to staff turn-over in international schools: teachers routinely leave when they feel
unsupported by school administration. This finding informed further examination into
pastoral care of teachers and distributed leadership in the school context. As well,
organizational blogging and podcasting have been researched as these are formats I have
employed to support overseas teachers. I used organizational blogging as a way to
communicate with staff about a variety of topics and I used podcasting as a way to publish an
article in a convenient and modern format for fellow administrators. The strategies I present
to administrators of BC Offshore schools are establishing an organizational blog for the
purpose of reducing culture shock and feelings of isolation among staff, establishing
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to promote staff bonding, establishing a
Leadership Club or Class to reduce the factors that may cause stress among teachers in
overseas schools, and practicing distributed leadership to increase feelings of importance and
inclusion among staff.