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Saudi Gazette
04-05-2025
- General
- Saudi Gazette
British International School Al Khobar achieves historic milestone
The British International School Al Khobar (BISAK), founded in 1977, has made history by becoming the first Braitish school in Saudi Arabia to receive an 'Outstanding' rating in all areas of inspection by the UK Department for Education's British School Overseas (BSO) program. The inspection took place in February 2025, and the report has now been officially published. This prestigious recognition highlights BISAK's unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional education while fostering a nurturing and inclusive environment. The BSO inspection evaluated the school across several key criteria, including the quality of education, pupils' spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development, as well as welfare, health and safety, and the quality of leadership and management. According to the BSO report, 'BISAK provides an environment where pupils thrive, due to the positive commitment of staff to develop them as confident, compassionate learners.' Stephen Viner, Principal and CEO of BISAK, said the achievement reflected the entire school community's dedication and effort.'This achievement is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our entire school community,' Viner said. 'We are thrilled to be recognised for our excellence and will continue to strive for the highest standards of education and care throughout our school. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the General Administration of Education in the Eastern Province for their ongoing support and guidance. Their collaboration has been vital in helping us achieve this historic milestone.'T. Naidoo, Head of Prep, commended the commitment of both pupils and staff, noting the emphasis placed on holistic development.'I am very proud of the effort of all our pupils and staff during the inspection period and throughout the year,' said Naidoo. 'Our dedicated prep staff have worked extremely hard to enhance pupil learning. Our focus on pastoral care and enrichment of the curriculum have also been highlighted as strengths. Overall, this inspection report reflects the high-quality provision in the Prep School.'L. Marsh, Head of Senior, emphasized the consistent quality of teaching and student conduct witnessed by inspectors.'Our pupils and staff could not have done more to showcase how special our school is,' Marsh said. 'The inspection team saw what we do every day, which is hard work, excellent manners, and great teaching and learning. A massive thank you to everyone involved in Senior School and Sixth Form. We will continue to strive for further improvement.'S. Barton, Bursar, expressed pride in the school's broader development strategy and the recognition it has now received.'I am overjoyed to be part of this excellent team effort in getting BISAK to where it is today,' said Barton. 'Gaining external recognition for the hard work and improvements made in school is a fine testament to the staff and the extended team that work with us as part of our improvement strategy. The hard work starts now in preparing for the next inspection.'The inspection outcome has been met with widespread praise from both parents and pupils. One parent shared their thoughts on the school's impact: 'BISAK has always been a place where my children have been encouraged to reach their full potential. This recognition is well-deserved.'Building on this milestone, BISAK remains dedicated to its guiding vision: 'Empower our pupils to become confident, compassionate learners and proactive global citizens prepared to thrive in an ever-changing world.' The school's long-standing motto, 'Let there be peace on earth,' continues to serve as a source of inspiration for the entire community in its pursuit of academic excellence, character development, and global access to the full BSO inspection report, visit:
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Yahoo
Schools in Scotland witness ‘exponential increase' in pupil violence
Scottish schools are facing 'an exponential increase' in pupil violence, with classroom behaviour deteriorating 'massively' and absences outstripping England and Wales, according to teaching unions, behaviour experts and opposition politicians. Headline figures from a forthcoming survey for the NASUWT union reveal 44% of Scottish respondents have experienced physical abuse or violence in the last 12 months while 90% had been verbally abused. Related: Scotland exam results: pass rate falls as attainment gap widens across board NASUWT members at Kirkintilloch high school, East Dunbartonshire, began industrial action earlier this week in protest at 'a culture of abuse and violence from pupils', including 'constant' misogynist abuse of female teachers, but the union said such behaviour was by no means exclusive to this school. 'We do know that the behaviour of Scottish schools has deteriorated massively and in my experience compared with England it is much worse,' says Tom Bennett, an independent behavioural adviser to the UK Department for Education. Bennett adds that, while England 'isn't perfect by any means', it has 'started to take the behavioural climate of schools seriously'. Persistent absence rates – which Bennett says are 'undoubtedly' affected by the crisis in classroom behaviour – are much higher in Scotland. Overall, 31.4% of all primary and secondary pupils were absent for more than 10% of school sessions in 2023-24, compared with 19.2% across England. Since taking over the shadow education brief in October, the Conservative MSP Miles Briggs has made a series of interventions at Holyrood focusing on classroom behaviour, revealing through freedom of information research that a physical or verbal assault took place every two minutes of the school day in 2024, while instances of weapons being used in schools have increased by 50% since pre-pandemic levels. Andrea Bradley, the general secretary of the EIS, Scotland's largest teaching union, says she has seen an 'exponential increase' in pupil violence since the pandemic and that while Covid exacerbated pre-existing issues, it was not the catalyst: 'Since the onset of austerity, we've seen rising incidents of violent, aggressive, dysregulated, distressed behaviour in classrooms and growing incidents of additional support needs,' she says. By the end of 2024, the number of pupils with additional support needs (ASN) reached more than 40% for the first time. Scotland employs a more inclusive approach to ASN with a presumption that all children should be taught in mainstream schools. Bradley suggests that some challenging behaviour comes about because 'a large number of young people are not having their additional support needs met because of insufficient resources', and also highlights poor provision for neurodiversity and mental ill-health affecting in-school attitudes as well as absences. Last August, the Scottish government's education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, published a long-awaited action plan on pupil behaviour, with a progress report anticipated this spring. The Scottish government now says that local authorities should be putting policies in place 'which determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour', as well as publishing new guidance on gender-based violence, mobile phones and anti-bullying itself, and funding training for support staff. 'What's happening in East Dunbartonshire is a sign that teachers have had enough,' says Briggs. 'The Scottish government blaming councils isn't good enough. Teachers want a national policy on this – we need government to say what behaviour is unacceptable, what is the pathway to correcting it.' This chimes with increasing doubts among unions and experts about the popularity in Scottish education policy of restorative approaches to behaviour management, which focus on structured conversations between staff and pupils to address incidents of poor behaviour. 'The wholesale adoption of the restorative approach to pupil discipline has definitely been a problem,' says Mike Corbett of NASUWT Scotland. 'You can't offer a quiet chat and no serious consequences for this level of disruptive behaviour.' 'There has to be a much stronger focus now on consequences,' says Bradley. 'We are pushing for a nationally agreed set of parameters of what is unacceptable behaviour and a range of consequences up to and including exclusion,' she says, while emphasising that exclusion, which is used significantly less in Scotland, must be a sanction of absolute last resort. She points to the SNP's unfulfilled 2021 manifesto pledge to recruit 3,500 additional teachers for three years in a row as a part of the problem, while EIS members in Glasgow earlier this week voted to strike over city council cuts to teaching posts. 'We are quite clear that we're not going to be able to change the distressing dynamics unfolding in schools and make them safer places for students and teachers without sufficient numbers of responsible, suitably trained adults to support that process.'
The Guardian
06-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Schools in Scotland witness ‘exponential increase' in pupil violence
Scottish schools are facing 'an exponential increase' in pupil violence, with classroom behaviour deteriorating 'massively' and absences outstripping England and Wales according to teaching unions, behaviour experts and opposition politicians. Headline figures from a forthcoming survey for the NASUWT union reveal 44% of Scottish respondents have experienced physical abuse or violence in the last 12 months while 90% had been verbally abused. NASUWT members at Kirkintilloch high school, East Dunbartonshire, began industrial action earlier this week in protest at 'a culture of abuse and violence from pupils', including 'constant' misogynist abuse of female teachers, but the union said such behaviour was by no means exclusive to this school. 'We do know that the behaviour of Scottish schools has deteriorated massively and in my experience compared with England it is much worse,' says Tom Bennett, an independent behavioural adviser to the UK Department for Education. Bennett adds that, while England 'isn't perfect by any means', it has 'started to take the behavioural climate of schools seriously'. Persistent absence rates – which Bennett says are 'undoubtedly' affected by the crisis in classroom behaviour – are much higher in Scotland. Overall, 31.4% of all primary and secondary pupils were absent for more than 10% of school sessions in 2023-24, compared with 19.2% across England and Wales. Since taking over the shadow education brief in October, the Conservative MSP Miles Briggs has made a series of interventions at Holyrood focusing on classroom behaviour, revealing through freedom of information research that a physical or verbal assault took place every two minutes of the school day in 2024, while instances of weapons being used in schools have increased by 50% since pre-pandemic levels. Andrea Bradley, the general secretary of the EIS, Scotland's largest teaching union, says she has seen an 'exponential increase' in pupil violence since the pandemic and that while Covid exacerbated pre-existing issues, it was not the catalyst: 'Since the onset of austerity, we've seen rising incidents of violent, aggressive, disregulated, distressed behaviour in classrooms and growing incidents of additional support needs,' she says. By the end of 2024, the number of pupils with additional support needs (ASN) reached more than 40% for the first time. Scotland employs a more inclusive approach to ASN with a presumption that all children should be taught in mainstream schools. Bradley suggests that some challenging behaviour comes about because 'a large number of young people are not having their additional support needs met because of insufficient resources', and also highlights poor provision for neurodiversity and mental ill-health affecting in-school attitudes as well as absences. Last August, the Scottish government's education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, published a long-awaited action plan on pupil behaviour, with a progress report anticipated this spring. The Scottish government now says that local authorities should be putting policies in place 'which determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour', as well as publishing new guidance on gender-based violence, mobile phones and anti-bullying itself, and funding training for support staff. 'What's happening in East Dunbartonshire is a sign that teachers have had enough,' says Briggs. 'The Scottish government blaming councils isn't good enough. Teachers want a national policy on this – we need government to say what behaviour is unacceptable, what is the pathway to correcting it.' This chimes with increasing doubts among unions and experts about the popularity in Scottish education policy of restorative approaches to behaviour management, which focus on structured conversations between staff and pupils to address incidents of poor behaviour. 'The wholesale adoption of the restorative approach to pupil discipline has definitely been a problem,' says Mike Corbett of NASUWT Scotland. 'You can't offer a quiet chat and no serious consequences for this level of disruptive behaviour.' 'There has to be a much stronger focus now on consequences,' says Bradley. 'We are pushing for a nationally agreed set of parameters of what is unacceptable behaviour and a range of consequences up to and including exclusion,' she says, while emphasising that exclusion, which is used significantly less in Scotland, must be a sanction of absolute last resort. She points to the SNP's unfulfilled 2021 manifesto pledge to recruit 3,500 additional teachers for three years in a row as a part of the problem, while EIS members in Glasgow earlier this week voted to strike over city council cuts to teaching posts. 'We are quite clear that we're not going to be able to change the distressing dynamics unfolding in schools and make them safer places for students and teachers without sufficient numbers of responsible, suitably trained adults to support that process.'
