If you are an alumnus — or alumna — of the British International School in Jeddah and under 40 years old, you will probably remember Russ Law. It is typical of the care and attention of the man and the school under his directorship that the website insists on you getting the gender — and whether you are single or plural — right, without pedantry or condescension.
“The Conti”, as the school is popularly known, has developed from a “villa school” with a handful of students in October 1977 into a sophisticated modern international school with 1,400 students from over 50 nations. Russ Law, now leaving the Kingdom as director of the school, has been with the school first as teacher and now director, for almost all its growth. He is a modest, fit looking man who sits in an unassuming office and emanates a relaxed calm combined with an alertness to the daily challenges.
“I’ve been lucky,” he said. “I didn’t start my working life intending to become a headmaster or director of an international school.”
His professional life began teaching various subjects in a middle school in Castleford, Yorkshire, whose most famous alumnus was the sculptor Henry Moore. From there, he moved to the city center of Leeds, and there he might have stayed but for a chance conversation that moved him to apply for and get a teaching post in Tehran.
The political and social upheaval in Iran after the fall of the Shah meant that Law spent rather less than a year in his new post. Returning to the UK, he saw an opportunity advertised in the Kingdom. “Against a lot of advice,” he said, “I came to Saudi Arabia.” And so the stage was set.
“The lucky bit was that the school was at the stage of development that it was when we turned up,” he reflected. “It was just starting to recruit people from outside Jeddah. Also, the new head — Trevor Williams — was the same chap who had been head of the school we taught at in Tehran.”
It was a fortunate set of circumstances. Law said there was an active group of lively and dynamic people who wanted to be teachers and help in the growth and development of the school.
Over the last 25 years the school has grown out of all recognition. Law sees part of the contribution to its success the social environment. “We have always found that the people in Jeddah tend to be open to visitors,” he mused. “Traditionally they are used to people coming and going with Haj visitors and trade. The attitude seems to be that we just get on with business and don’t get hung up on any cultural tension.”
The conditions here for teaching were and still are very different from the UK. Law identified class sizes, parental backing and the resources as major factors in the success of the educative process.
In England he saw that most students preferred it when they did not have to go to school. Here, the situation is the reverse. “It’s wonderful to be in a place where you have to usher the students off the premises at the end of the day and where you can have a teacher to student relationship that doesn’t require as much of an authoritarian atmosphere as elsewhere. You walk into a lesson here and get on with the jobs of teaching and learning without having to spend time establishing law and order.”
The only challenge Law saw in terms of teaching and learning — which turned out to be quite manageable in reality — was in caring for children whose first language was not English. “There were many children who came to the Conti with little or no English. However, we have found that many of the approaches that are good practice with young speakers of English as their mother tongue are also good for speakers of English as an additional language — and, importantly, vice versa. We include this in the school’s program of staff development, and we have several teachers who are qualified to give training to others. We will continue this next year.”
Other challenges have included the need for the school’s board and management to be able to plan carefully and to cope with the ever-increasing costs of education. Since the school has no source of income other than school fees, it has had to work hard to contain increases in the face of rises in exchange rates, security concerns, the difficulty of attracting teachers from the West, and numerous other costs to the school each year. “I think that the school has done well in this respect,” said Law.
“Challenge in the area of teaching itself seems almost irrelevant, when one considers the fact that the raw materials and conditions for success are so positive,” he continued. “Children who like coming to school; small class sizes and good staffing ratios; well-qualified staff (the school is recognized as a training center for those seeking postgraduate teaching certification); teams of teachers planning and working together, and so sharing their expertise; supportive parents and great resources.”
Although the official name includes the word “British,” the school hosts many nationalities. British and Egyptian students are among the biggest sectors, and the proportion of Saudi students has increased greatly in the last five years.
Law praised the Ministry of Education for the procedures they have put in place for Saudi pupils to apply to the school. “There are certain criteria that have to be satisfied — but if they can be, the ministry is quite open to Saudis attending.” The result is that there are now around a hundred Saudi pupils.
“I think there is a genuine commitment from the educational authorities in the Kingdom to the steady development of schooling here with openness to consider the styles and methods of other systems.”
“The broad ethos of the school and the mixture of subjects and expectations we have,” said Law, “is a judicious balance between old-fashioned good manners and self-discipline and a degree of informality.” The pupils of all nationalities subscribe to them and rub along. “That probably places us somewhere between what some see as an American style of informality and the tradition of sitting in rows and speaking when you are spoken to.” He said that he would see that now as an over-formal approach. Law continued, “The students like to have their say but they also like the teacher to say, when necessary, ‘Enough; let’s get on with it.’”
Russ Law’s and his wife’s (Annette, also a teacher) own educational beliefs and instincts, borne out by what they have found as both teachers and parents, are that the school’s curriculum is best seen in its broadest sense. That includes all those experiences which a student has in relation to the school; not only instruction, but also the underlying messages and relationships, motivations, enquiry, extracurricular opportunities, a blend of arts, sciences, creativity, sport and interaction with ‘the outside.’”
“The messages I receive from former students indicate over and over again that their school days meant far more than the mere learning of subject matter,” said Law. “There was a sense of belonging to a Conti Community that endures years later, and that equipped them for the modern, international world.”
Law felt that the very internationalism of the school meant that when there was a change in the demography of the community, as there has been in the last five years — the school has been in a position to manage it. “That is why we have not suffered the impact of a falling roll as gravely as we might have.”
“I think there has been a very useful return to the philosophy of wise educators of yesteryear — the recognition that it is the child or the student who must be at the center of the process of teaching and learning and that assessment needs to be not just ‘assessment of learning,’ but what is now called ‘assessment for learning,’ with the emphasis on the preposition.”
Law feels that what will become increasingly important is not a matter of subjects listed on the school’s curriculum, but the ongoing need to cope with change, to manage continuity, to be accessible and empathetic to the families one serves, and to insist on the maintenance of the values that have served good international schools well for many years.
“That is why the school’s accreditation cycle is so important. We have to satisfy the bodies that have granted accredited status to the school over and over again, as it is not a one-off ‘rubber stamp.’”
Russ Law leaves, but the school goes on. Bruce Gamwell, Law’s successor, is particularly experienced in the field of school development and accreditation. Next year, he will start the next phase of school self-evaluation in readiness for a visit by the accrediting personnel from the Council of International Schools and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
“He and I have been working closely together on this and many other matters, and I am pleased that we have such a strong and sympathetic leader to take over.”
