Where are you from and why do you find your field fulfilling?
I am from Liverpool in the north of England. I find education so vital in life. Helping young people realise their potential is an incredibly rewarding way to earn a living.
What was your journey to teaching and how did you end up in Prague/PBIS?
When I was in Year 12 at school, I started working and volunteering with young people in my spare and extra-curricular time. Then, whilst studying Fine Art, I often worked with children in my summers. Teaching art was the natural step for me to take as a career. After teaching and leading an art department in England for a few years, I wanted to use teaching as an opportunity to travel. I came to Prague in 2011 and never left! I love my job and my life here.
What do you enjoy most about your subject?
Well, my ‘subject’ now is the whole academic direction of our secondary school. What I enjoy most about that is getting to work with a diverse range of subject mindsets to purposefully and carefully craft an innovative education that is relevant to all of our students.
Specific story: Give an example from practice of how you helped a student develop a talent, overcome a fear or succeed.
I am thinking of a particular example where, in my leadership role, being expressly non-judgemental and seeing the bigger picture when a student had made a mistake allowed that student to directly address the mistake rather than hide it. It gave the student the confidence to try again, take risks, and ultimately the opportunity to become the best version of themselves. The student made us both (and their parents) very proud.
Why PBIS? One sentence describing what makes PBIS unique in your opinion.
We are THE school that has everything: broad and deep curriculum, excellent teachers, outstanding facilities, professional campus standards; and above all a warm, happy, inspiring community.
Where are you from and why do you find your field fulfilling?
I’m from the south of the UK. I would say 80% of both the curriculum and the stuff that we do beyond the curriculum is creative, and creativity in itself.
One of the most satisfying elements of my job is watching students solve problems themselves. That’s one of the most satisfying and most enjoyable elements of my job – taking off those reins. For example, students ask: how are we going to communicate this? How are we going to stick this piece of scenery to the rolling screen? How are we going to set our stage so that the audience can, the whole of the audience can see everything? What problems have we got that we need to solve? It is about identifying the problems, working around the problem, and then creating a solution.
So, students become huge problem solvers, they are later very employable.
What was your journey to teaching and how did you end up in Prague / at PBIS?
I have always been a performer. I’ve been on a stage since I was three years old.
I started dancing when I was three years old. I studied ballet, tap, modern, jazz, cecchetti, five nights a week, and Saturday mornings. I started teaching dance when I was 12. I wanted to be a ballerina, but I found out I couldn´t do point work. And my drama teacher took me under her wing and said, come to drama. So, I did IGCSE drama myself. I then went on and did A-level theatre studies and a diploma in drama. I then did a Higher National Diploma in Performing Arts. I then did a degree in performing arts. I then did my postgraduate certificate of education in drama 11 to 18 years at Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
I ended up at PBIS having spent three years in Malaysia and I was head of performing arts in Malaysia, and at PBIS were looking for someone who had BTEC experience, and I’d had previous experience of that. We came over from Malaysia straight to Prague.
My husband and I had been to Prague about six years before. We loved Prague. When the job came up in Prague, I was like, oh, there’s a job in Prague.
What do you enjoy most about your subject?
One of the most satisfying elements of my job is watching students solve problems, transform and grow.
Where is the power in Performing Arts?
The performing arts develop a child’s mind in a completely different way to any other subject. Any other subject. Drama, music, dance, art. It’s about self-expression.
I feel like the arts, you are putting yourself out there, and I think all those opportunities allow a student to feel that they’ve achieved something. There’s an element of achievement, self-satisfaction and growth. Like you can physically feel yourself growing from it.
It’s that growing in confidence, growing in the knowledge that your ideas are good, growing with the idea that you have a voice, you have an opinion, you have things to share with people, you have stories to tell, and that’s an important element of life.
And I think drama matters because here you learn how to express that and be confident with that and be comfortable in yourself. And I think there are so many adults in this world who are not confident in themselves, they’re not comfortable with who they are, and I think that is one thing that drama does, is build a sense of I’m okay to be me.
Specific story: Give an example from practice of how you helped a student develop a talent, overcome a fear or succeed.
I had a young man yesterday who is in year 10. We had the whole of year nine sat in the audience, and before he’d even got on stage, they started saying his name. The nerves that must have hit that young man at that point, I feel like that builds up such a moment of, oh my goodness, what if things go wrong. But do you know what? He got up onto that stage and he performed his heart out. He really took them on quite an emotional journey.
And seeing him go through that when I knew that, as soon as they made this initial response, my head went into my hand. I was like, oh no, is he going to get through this? And he did. And it was just amazing.
But just that moment where you know that you care so much about something that it doesn’t matter what other people think, and how they’re making you feel, you still get through it and you still give off a really good performance. I think that’s the ultimate outcome in drama.
Another example is a student from Year 13. When she joined, she was very unsure often doubting whether she can do some things. She took part in IGCSE Drama and the large class gave her a safe space to grow.
She started coming into her own and eventually, through theatre, through her IB, she really started to grow. In her solo performance she created a dance and I had no idea she had this amazing dance style, because she had always been fixed to a drama script. She focused on her favourite artist, did this amazing research, and produced this piece of dance. At the end of it, I was just like, wow. She performed with so much confidence. The video was what people see externally, and the dance was what was going on internally.
Her articulation of what she wanted to communicate was out of this world.
To have seen her on that journey , it’s just been amazing.
Why PBIS? One sentence describing what makes PBIS unique in your opinion.
I think the arts are well respected here, and senior management are very supportive. They completely trust my creative process, and that trust allows me that creative openness and to give opportunity for students to do something different and not just your normal run-of-the-mill stuff all the time.
Where are you from and why do you find your field fulfilling?
I am from Liverpool, England and I am a PE teacher at Kamýk and Libuš and the Head of Sports for the whole school.
The most exciting part of my job is seeing students develop year on year, watching them grow and improve their skills. I also value the opportunity to represent the school across Primary, Middle and High school levels.
What was your journey to teaching and how did you end up in Prague / at PBIS?
My journey started as a football and swimming coach. I became qualified in both and moved to Prague after establishing my own professional football school. I worked alongside Sparta Prague, using their training facilities as a base.
Many students from the school attended my football training camp. The head of the school visited, observed my work, and invited me to join full-time. My sports science degree supported this transition, and I later completed a teaching qualification.
I progressed from coaching into teaching, and then into leadership, eventually becoming Head of Sports.
What do you enjoy most about your subject?
Being part of the sports department is highly fulfilling. I have the opportunity to see students develop from a young age across both campuses, participate in a variety of sports, and progress to competing at high-level tournaments.
Having been here for almost 20 years, I’ve been able to follow students’ journeys from early development through to competing in Prague and across Europe.
Can you share a specific story?
One of the most memorable moments this year was with the Under-11 girls’ team. They competed in football and basketball at a tournament in Budapest.
They went on to win the entire basketball tournament. What made this achievement remarkable was that most of the team were primarily football players who were still developing their basketball skills.
Despite this, they outperformed all eight schools and won the final. Seeing a team at the early stages of developing a sport achieve such success was incredible.
What do students gain from sports for their life?
Students build resilience and get experience from competing. Not just always winning, but they learn from losing as well.
Students are going into a challenging environment where there’s lots of people watching. They are moving from level 1 practice against another school in Prague to a European tournament with 10 international schools coming from all around Europe, including coaches and parents. The atmosphere is very exciting, but it’s very intimidating as well. Students, when they start in the first game, they do become very nervous. But we always say that every opportunity is another learning curve. Whether you win, or you lose, you’re still learning and the different experiences you feel will improve you for the next time. Every event, every opportunity is another step on the development ladder. We never say we lose, we always say we learn. We either win or we learn.
How do the students feel after a victory or a loss?
Obviously, the enjoyment, is a memory that they’ll never forget. When they win, they take that and it’s like a lasting memory. And the tournaments where we’ve lost, the students seem to come back stronger the next tournament because they’ve learned how to lose. So, when they win again, it’s much sweeter.
Why PBIS? One sentence describing what makes PBIS unique in your opinion.
I think within the sports programme, PBIS stands out for offering opportunities for all students through its structured sports programme, ensuring every level of ability can develop, compete, and succeed in many sports. Whether the student is starting, developing for the next key stage level, or is reaching for the European tournaments, there´s opportunities for everybody here.