Richard Dyer | Principal
Dover Court International School

Principal of the wonderful and uniquely diverse and inclusive Dover Court International School in Singapore. I spent 21 years with the English Schools Foundation in HK. I was involved in developing school-self evaluation processes, training for staff appraisal, & developing courses in learning to learn, which brought meta-cognitive strategies to the classroom. A government award for leadership & management was conferred on WIS while I was Deputy Principal. Several years developing and teaching a school self-evaluation course for school Principals at HKU, teaching MA courses for Sunderland University and University of New England, and a productive association with Britain's Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, travelling to the USA on joint conference programmes. A member of the development team for Leading Upstream, a middle leadership programme co-authored with Prof. Allan Walker of Chinese University HK. This programme continued for many years since, with scores of department heads and other middle leaders benefiting from the experiential action learning approach. I have been Deputy Head/Deputy Principal in two international schools and Principal/Headteacher in three other international schools. I am now in my 4th international headship. I have presented on many areas at international conferences. Recent presentations & workshops include: technological tensions & digital dilemmas at the IB World Heads Conference; effective senior meetings at FOBISIA Leaders Conference. I have consulted on value added assessment data in India, on school inspection in the UAE and have inspected schools for ISI in Asia, Europe and Africa. I am enjoying various forays into well-being and in June 2018 presented at the 9th European Conference on Positive Psychology on an approach to developing organisational well-being. I am a qualified safeguarding lead and have trained as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead with the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. I am currently fascinated by the benefits of developing a coaching culture in schools. I am intensely curious about the concept of "belonging" and how that can be operationalised in large international school settings. I contribute courses for the PGCEi for the National Institute of Teaching and Education at Coventry University.  Admitted as Fellow Member of the College of Teachers (UK) in 2012.