Angus Carmichael is middle and high school principal at the International School of Aberdeen, which started in 1972 as the American School in Aberdeen before changing its name in 1996.

He talks about the value of “international mindedness” in education, why “servant leadership” is a guiding philosophy in his job and how Covid might have permanently reset approaches to education.

1. Who was your most memorable teacher and why?

My chemistry teacher, Dr Wooster, really stood out as someone who said, “Look, you can do this” - he had a level of interest and tailored personal advice in a way that really, really struck me and has stayed with me.

I was at Downham Market Sixth Form College, in Norfolk, in the early 1990s, and I really admired the rapport our head, Mr Leggat, had with quite a motley bunch of 16- to 18-year-olds. I remember some members of our year group were being a bit boisterous on their way into school in the mornings and the local residents had complained. Mr Leggat spoke calmly and with good humour to the whole sixth form about it. The strong platform of mutual respect he had built meant a quiet word was all that was needed to resolve the problem; we looked up to him and wanted to meet his expectations. Certainly, for my teaching, that’s something that stayed with me: a strong teacher-student relationship is integral to a productive learning environment.

2. What were the best and worst things about your time at school?

It’s perhaps the same for both. The worst were things that I didn’t really like doing - we did these assault courses, for example - but now, looking back, that exposure to taking myself out of my comfort zone was a hugely important part of my education.

3. Why do you work in education?

No two days are the same. You walk in and you never know what challenges are going to be there. You can have your lessons planned out, think it’s going to be the smoothest day ever, and that’s most likely when things will go sideways. When I worked in Tanzania, I walked into a chemistry lab that had two feet of water standing in it on more than one occasion - that makes you change your plans quite quickly.

I like that variety, I like challenge and I like working with other teachers: there’s a nice collegial atmosphere, and everyone has that same goal in mind, of supporting these young people and then putting them at the heart of our decisions. You can see growth in students - you see the students change over the years and the young adults they are becoming, and think, “Yeah, I’ve made a contribution to that.”

4. Could you tell us about an issue particular to working in a school like yours?

At our school, we have students who join us throughout the year and others who move on, as some families relocate to different parts of the world, so we’re always supporting transitions both in and out of the school. Those kids have had different experiences, they’re having to make new friendship groups, maybe coming from different exam systems. But it’s amazing just how resilient the students are.

5. What are you proudest of in your career and what is your biggest regret?

I’m pleased I took the chance to work overseas. My partner and I did four years in Tanzania, then four years in Malaysia, then we looked to come back to Europe and there was an opening in Aberdeen. I’ve been at the school nine years now.

Having that experience of working in different parts of the world was phenomenal. You get exposure to a range of different perspectives, you work with a variety of people from different backgrounds and with different expectations of what a school should look like. It’s about finding ways to make all that work together to get the best from all those systems that are on offer.

In terms of regrets, I don’t really have them - anything that’s happened, it’s always something that I’ve learned from. We work together and problem solve in the school, and that’s part of the job.

6. Who would be your colleagues in the perfect staffroom?

There can be only one answer to this as the principal: my current staff. They are child focused - all of them have that same “what’s best for the students?” motivation. They are giving of their time, they are patient, they are kind, they are caring, collegial and flexible, as well as supportive of each other.

We look for teachers who have got that international mindedness from having worked overseas in an international school prior to moving to Aberdeen - so we have a lot of people that maybe have British passports but have worked elsewhere. They’ve got that perspective.

By international mindedness, I mean valuing a variety of cultures, understanding that there are different ways of learning, different ways of teaching. I’m not saying you have to have lived overseas to do that kind of thing. But it does help to be aware that there is a variety of ways of tackling a problem and, as a teacher, to bring some of that into your lessons - those different cultures, those different perspectives.

When a teacher is arriving from elsewhere, we don’t want that “suitcase teacher” who says, “This is my course, this is what we’re doing.” We’re careful that when people come in, they’re bringing their ideas but they’re also building the programmes that we’ve got here at the moment. We’re a small school [the roll is about 500] and we’re fairly dynamic, and it’s great to hear fresh ideas and new approaches, but we can’t be changing direction every year.

7. Your own teachers aside, who in education has influenced you the most?

With my colleagues and line managers over the past 20 years or so - as with my teachers as a child - you pick up a little bit from all of them. Some more than others, but there’s something to learn from everyone and how they do things. I’ve been very, very lucky that the people I’ve worked with have been very supportive and excellent role models.

Other than colleagues, when I started teaching, I was quite interested in the work of Rick Wormeli - that idea of fairest and always equal; how do you support every student to be successful? Reading some of his books really opened my eyes.

More recently, the idea of servant leadership [whereby a leader’s goal is first to serve people], from Robert Greenleaf, struck a chord with me. I’ll give you an example. Our outstanding student this year - there are various awards we have - is extraordinary. In his first few years of high school, he was involved with all manner of different clubs and societies, mostly about betterment of the community. In his last year, he became a student council president. He wanted to help and took on positions of responsibility to do that. He wasn’t driven by “I want to be in charge of things” but by “How can I help other students through service?”

8. If you became education secretary, what would be the first thing you’d do?

I’ve been so fortunate to be involved in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which is a wonderful programme. To go off at a tangent, I was once with a Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold group, walking across the Selous [game reserve] in Tanzania, with a guide who was armed with what I think was a rifle from the First World War.

One day, there was a water buffalo ahead of us, and I remember the guy being quite anxious about that. We had to backpedal and we kind of walked through a muddy riverbed, and I got stuck. I was stuck in the mud, with the buffalo homing in, wondering what to do, but luckily, one of the students - a Tanzanian girl called Fatemah - came back and pulled me out, and we then scrambled away to safety.

I would love to see the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award as almost part of every school’s curriculum, not as an optional thing for the kids. We should be getting them out doing physical recreation, skills development and the character-building expedition.

I’m also a huge fan of the IB (International Baccalaureate) Diploma programme. When I was in school, I did A levels in maths, physics, chemistry and biology - very much my comfort zone. It would have been much better for me to have been stretched, to have also kept going in a modern language, for example. The IB Diploma is such a good preparation for university and life in general, and it would be great if there were means by which some more schools had the opportunity to offer it.

9. What will our schools be like in 30 years?

The Covid lockdowns have been a bit of a testing ground, forcing a few new approaches. I think the move towards enquiry-based learning [where students take on more responsibility for directing their own learning] will continue to grow. I think we might start to see more blended - and maybe flipped - learning going on, where students have more control over what they’re learning rather than the teacher needing to be the sage on stage, directing everything. I think we’re going see more self-directed learning from the kids in the future, given our experiences over the past year or two.

10. What one person do you think has made the most difference to our schools since Covid hit?

Anyone who has thought about the wellbeing of young people and the teachers who have persevered. It’s hard teaching online but people have developed new approaches and the key thing is that they’ve also shared new approaches, then other people have taken them on and they have learned from one another - those guys are some of the heroes of the past year or two.

Without wellbeing being in place first, students aren’t going to learn - we’ve got to get that right, we’ve got to get kids back on track. We’re going to maybe have to be a little bit forgiving in terms of some of the academics with some students, and make sure that wellbeing is in place as we emerge from the pandemic.

Angus Carmichael was speaking to Tes Scotland news editor Henry Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 30 July 2021 issue