Founding Principal - Part 1

I guess I’m not alone in saying this year has not started as I expected. I was expecting to lead a school through the very difficult process of transferring management of a school and virtually starting from scratch. However, I find myself working with a school through the very initial developmental stages.

The new situation is a private school in Taiwan interested in providing an international curriculum to students in Tainan. Though the owner, the principal and the financial backer have experience in education, that experience is limited to the local ecosystem. They need someone like me with experience in running an international school. The challenge will come from starting a school from scratch. 

So this is my journey. It will involve new learning as well as reflection on what I want to improve from my previous experiences. 

My experience in international education is extensively in IB programmes. So when the Tainan school wanted an international education I said I could help, but I thought their best option was the IB. The owner was impressed. So the first thing to do is to have a plan then convince the board of your plan. I tried making the presentation for the principal and some other finance people, like a story, I’m not sure if it worked but it seemed to. Next time I would make the arch like the TDTs or the inquiry cycle. 

We are awaiting the decision of the board. The next step will be evaluating what we have and making a plan for the next 12 months. 

1. Facilitate a fact finding and generation session with the board to focus on exactly what type of school they want and when, include what is necessary for mission statement and vision. 
2. Assess our current situation and where we are in the process of creating an international school as this is a school that wants to become an international school.
3. Incorporated the ideas of the people we have currently have in the organisation dn finalise guiding statements by end of September.
4. Start the process of writing the curriculum for 1-9
5. • MYP by September 2020
   • PYP by October 2020

Some things to do

• Start advertising MYP in October 
• Find out when we can start advertising for the PYP. 
• Find out information required by the IB and register for interested status. 
• Develop action plan, my plan and school calendar. 
• Write policies and procedures. 
• Think about who can promote our school.