Why international school leaders tell the best stories

“I should write a book!” Anyone who has worked in an international school has probably had that thought at one time or another.

Bring together students, parents, and teachers from several different (often very different) countries and cultures and it should not surprise that misunderstandings, conflicts, and moments of surreal humour occur.

In 2022 I published a novel about a fictitious international school in an imaginary country in southern Africa. It was called The Needful. (Those of us who have worked in East Africa or India will recognise the term.) It was based on my memories of thirty-one years spent as a teacher, programme coordinator, secondary principal, and then school head in six international schools in six countries on four continents.

Don’t forget the guest of honour and main speaker at a graduation ceremony who turned up drunk.

For example: The board chair who towards the end of a board meeting uttered an expletive, stood up, and slammed the door as he left. “Should we take that as a resignation?” asked the vice-chair.

Then there was the student, recently returned to his home country, who hacked into his mother’s email account and wrote to a favourite teacher, pretending to be his mother, that “he” had died of a drug overdose.

And don’t forget the guest of honour and main speaker at a graduation ceremony who turned up drunk and incoherent. Or the newly-hired IB Diploma teacher who crashed into my office on the Saturday before the school year was due to start on the Monday and tearfully pleaded that he had made a terrible mistake and he was going to leave immediately.

Two parents asked if the school taught creationism and were shocked to hear that it didn’t.

There was the teacher of IB Diploma biology who furiously insisted that he “could not possibly be held responsible” for the scores his students achieved in their Diploma exams, then the two parents who asked if the school taught creationism and were shocked to hear that it didn’t.

There was a Japanese board member who explained to me that his role was not to think for himself but to agree with whatever the board chair said. Indeed, the several committee meetings I was obliged to attend that were conducted entirely in Japanese. “Are we an international school that happens to be in Japan or are we a Japanese school that happens to offer the programmes of the IB?” I asked. I never did get an answer.

Anyone who has spent a few years in an international school will doubtless be able to compile a similar list of their own.

The school is emerging from bankruptcy and all but one of the board are new.

The Needful takes the reader through a school year and mostly follows the experiences of a newly-appointed head from his arrival to the last day of the school year as he sits in his office and reflects on the year just finished.

It is his first headship, his wife is ambivalent about the move, and he has never worked in Africa before. And, just to add a further challenge, the school is emerging from bankruptcy and all but one of the board are new.

For the record, I assumed my first leadership position in 1998 in a school that had recently declared bankruptcy. The head had been fired, the entire board had resigned, and there was no money. Interesting times.

The books might help board members better understand the complex dynamics of an international school.

A sequel novel, Mr In-Between, follows the same head through his second year. A good work of fiction, I like to think, should entertain but also inform. I hope the stories are entertaining but it was also important to me that each book should lift the curtain a little on what goes on in the head’s office and in board meetings.

In one sense, and not unintentionally, the two books constitute a collection of case studies. I like to think of readers pausing and thinking, “Hmm, how would I have handled that?”

I’d be especially pleased if the books help board members better understand their role and the complex dynamics of an international school. But I’ll settle for heads around the world sighing gratefully and realising that their parents are not uniquely mad and their board is not unusually demanding.

Mr In-Between was published in December 2025.