As all international educators will know, one of the oddities about working outside of your country of origin is that, regardless of how much homework you do, you never really know what to expect until your feet touch the ground.

For school leaders, this means we are always running the risk of appointing someone who just doesn’t settle and disappears in the night after a few weeks - or never even makes it onto a plane to start their post at all.

It is an inevitable tightrope that schools walk, spending time, energy and money trying to avoid it and, thanks to ever more sophisticated recruitment processes, perhaps it happens less than it did in the past.

But it does still happen, and schools and teachers must be prepared for the fallout when it does.

Spotting concerns 

So what is it that makes international teachers walk away, how can you spot the warning signs and what, if anything, can senior and middle leaders do to try to reduce the risk and minimise the damage?

Starting at the interview stage, it is important to ensure you have a consistent approach to how staff are selected and the types of staff that will fit in with the school culture.

This can mitigate the risk of recruiting an outlier. This means understanding your current staff cohort - particularly those teachers at school who have settled in and appear content. What has made them so settled, and can you find similar types of teachers in your interviewees?

From here, you need to ensure you really try to understand people’s motivations for applying for your school and within your country or region.

Have they done their homework about what living there will be like, rather than just working? Have they been in your region before, and do they have connections to the area already?

Making arrival easy 

Let’s assume this all goes to plan and all your first-choice teacher arrives.

You’re confident they will fit in well, but it’s still worth keeping an eye out for any behaviours that may suggest someone is not quite right. There’s no set list, but asking the following questions can definitely help spot someone who is potentially struggling.

• Has your new colleague been proactive in their approach to joining you?
• Have they communicated with you or your colleagues or has there been radio silence since the job offer was made?
• Have they seemed twitchy about aspects of their contract, their relocation or have they shown hesitation on aspects of the onboarding process?
• Have they reached out and begun to make connections with new colleagues.
• Have they attended settling in activities and social events or have they isolated themselves?

All of these give us a good indicator of whether your new hire is likely to last and could well be a sign that homesickness has hit them hard.

There is a saying in international education circles that you shouldn’t think about home until at least Christmas, but for many overseas educators, especially those new to the circuit, this can be a real challenge.

Homesickness can strike at any time and for a variety of reasons and while seasoned international teachers have developed strategies and methods of coping, it can be really daunting however many times you’ve moved countries.

How to take action

So if you are concerned, what can you do to help a staff member who may be struggling? There are many things you can do, such as the following:

• Find regular opportunities to interact with new colleagues and really assess how well they are coping mentally and practically.
• Communicate with different school sections. Are there patterns developing with new colleagues. Are they struggling in more than one area and could this be down to their difficulties settling in?
• Keep your onboarding process going once staff have arrived. Do they have a buddy; do they have regular one-to-one meetings with line managers or wellbeing supervisors?
• Speak to more established staff within their departments or year groups. How are they talking about their experiences? Are they raising concerns that perhaps they won’t with line managers or senior leaders?
• Line managers have a huge role to play in this - ensuring good basic support is offered and keeping a check on how this is being used. Are they adopting your school’s processes or always looking back to a previous experience for ideas?

Hopefully following this can spot any struggling staff and help them get through those tough early weeks and months.

However, sometimes of course even with the best support, staff will leave.

Given this, it’s never a bad idea to have a plan for what you would do if a new staff member left suddenly so that normal operations are not affected.

Teaching and learning is ultimately the most important thing and how are you going to avoid impacting the pupils’ experiences? Do you have the bandwidth to cope if a new colleague departs suddenly? How will you communicate it to staff or pupils?

Overall, there is no set playbook when it comes to onboarding and settling in new staff. Every school undoubtedly tries their best within their own unique context but sometimes things just don’t work out.

Most importantly though, if we can be proactive at every level with our new staff and really aware of their situations, we can reduce the chance of “the runner” and at the very least, be ready in case we get one.

Philip Mathe is director of sport at Brighton College Al Ain in the UAE