Why International Education? — A Conversation with Ian Hopkins

In the very first episode of The Common Room, host Joshua Sussex sits down with Ian Hopkins — a school leader with almost 30 years in education and over 20 years in senior leadership across the UK, Africa, the Middle East, China, and Malaysia. 

Ian has served as Headteacher, Principal, and Acting Principal in British and international schools, leading learning from Early Years to Year 13 across British, Cambridge, and IB curricula. He is currently Primary Principal at Sri KDU International School Penang and is completing an MBA at Heriot-Watt University.

Together, Joshua and Ian unpack the question: why international education? From a sports injury that accidentally led Ian into teaching, to headship in the UK, to thirteen years leading schools across Kenya, Jordan, China, and Malaysia — this conversation covers culture shock, the hidden challenges of the "trailing spouse," what it really means to live out of a suitcase, and the shift from being done to, to being done with, when it comes to leadership and accreditation.

This episode also explores the human side of international education: third culture kids, family sacrifice, and why wellbeing — not just career progression — has become the real measure of success for leaders working abroad.

Whether you're a teacher considering your first international move, or a school leader trying to build a stronger sense of belonging for your staff and families, this conversation offers an honest, grounded starting point.

Next episode: Joshua goes solo, unpacking leading in British-branded schools in China and introducing Culturally Mediated Leadership — a framework being developed through his ongoing doctoral research at the University of Bath.

The Common Room is hosted by Joshua Sussex — Deputy Head of Secondary and EdD candidate: researching leadership in international schools.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

International education. The classrooms, the staff rooms, the lives built far from home. This is the Common Room. I'm Joshua Sussex. Let's talk. Welcoming to the first ever episode of the Common Room Podcast. Absolutely delighted to have you on today.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Thanks, Josh. Great pleasure to join you.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

So today's episode is focused on why international education. And I know your many years of experience in international education. But before we get into that, could you just give me a bit of background of yourself, where you started, and your journey to get into that first international role?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Firstly, let me just make it very clear. I wasn't began to become a teacher. All my initial years in up to GCSE, then in my first year available, was always looking towards chartered accountancy. And I fell into the love of teaching through an injury, a sports injury, that affected me. I couldn't play for sports teams at college, and I had to do something. So college advised me to do what they call community service. I was placed into a primary school near where I live. And I just I actually fell in love with working with kids. Fell in love with working within that team of adults, the conversations in the staff room, the conversations about kids, the successes, the challenges, the achievements of kids. And in a relatively small and short time, I changed my direction for my university applications into teaching with primary education, with mathematics, and in 1993 at Liverpool Hope University, four years as a bachelor of education, qualified with a decent degree, got my first job, and that was it. And in 1997, on the 1st of September, becoming a fully qualified teacher with a class. Suddenly, when that door shut, with I think it was 34 children in a class of year three, that was a journey that I don't ever look back on with any regret. And to get where I am today as an international, it took me on a journey through different positions in the UK. Very fortunate that I fell into headship quite early. I was able to gain positions quite quickly. Had my first headship at the age of 31. And by the time I left the UK, I had left with having led three schools in the UK as a primary headteacher. And yeah, decided to try something different. There was a lot of things in the UK that frustrated me. I felt I was being controlled and directed a lot by in terms of leading the school, Ofsted sitting on my shoulder, that always waiting for the next inspection, local authority who have got Ofsted on their shoulders, coming in, talking to you about what they're expecting to see. There was autonomy, but not the autonomy that I feel I had now. And there was also that thing of as a primary head teacher, my year sixes would often go to two or three, or even four or five, secondary schools. And the moment they left me, that was it. There was no involvement with me anymore. They used to come back in and see us because there was that kind of affiliation and love of the primary school, which I always loved that they felt part of our community. But there was something about not seeing that transition through that ultimately, when I decided to go internationally, I looked for schools that were all through schools from three to eighteen, purposely so I could see children go through. And my first post took me to Kenya, which actually my role there was pre-prep and prep, so ages three to thirteen. And from there to here, where I'm 12 years starting my 13th year internationally in August.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Brilliant. So I'd imagine quite a big change from Liverpool to Kenya. And my question to you would be: what is the hardest change, the most significant differences between living and working in Liverpool and living and working in Kenya?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I mean, well, actually, I wasn't living in Liverpool by the time I left. I was actually down in Buckinghamshire. I moved all around in the UK, but ended up four years in Buckinghamshire before I left. But there was a very much four-bedroom detached house on an ISA stay, two cars, normal journey to work in the morning, normal journey to work at at home, weekends, shopping, cleaning, that sort of stuff. Kenya, I don't think anything prepared me for Kenya. Beautiful scenery, amazing people, but culture shocks like electricity going off, not power shedding as you have in South Africa, but just no power. And you don't get any notice. You have to ring them up and ask them what's going on, and or your power's outside, be out for maybe 24 to 48 hours. So that driving, big matatus, buses, driving on the side of you, dirt tracks, mud, heat, just things that I don't think prepared me, if I'm honest, fully for that move. And I think that's probably what it was. It wasn't moving to Kenya that was the big challenge. It was living there initially. That was the challenge. It was the culture of being an expatriate in a different country where suddenly there's languages being spoken, which is Swahili. But then Kenya is a country made up of 52 tribes. So every tribe has its own dialect. So when I went into the staff room, I'm not hearing Swahili, I'm hearing tribal dialects. And you're suddenly thrown into a staff room where from a narrow element of in the UK, well, you've got people different dialects, don't get me wrong, but it's English. This wasn't even just there's so many different things that that I would just sit there and listen. And I'd find myself lost and immersed in the culture in the staff room. So hardest thing fitting in with the normality of living in Kenya, which is a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

And what about in your day-to-day operational in-school? What differences did you notice with the students that you were teaching and leading?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

I'm in Nairobi. I'm in a school that is an international school, but is predominantly maybe 80-85% Kenyan students, then you've got students coming from all over the world. We had students from Israel, Italy, America, you name it, we had them. Maybe about 30 different nationalities. So you've got different languages being spoken in the playground. You've got children who've come with very little English at times. The curriculum we were leading was predominantly the same. What was a massive difference to me was this the amount of specialism. So art, DT, there were two languages taught us, Swahili and French. And children had specialist English teachers, specialist maths teachers. So there was a lot more mobility than I was used to in the UK. In the UK, children stayed in their classroom. Their teacher taught everything. Suddenly, children in predominantly from year three were having five, six, seven different teachers. And you would see children moving around at transition time. And that was a big difference for me. The understanding of you've got teachers who were from Kenya teaching English national curriculum but not having learned it or taught it themselves. And you know, part of the reason why I was taking to that school was to bring in a consistent term of teaching and learning. So to try and get that drive and balance between our expatriate teachers who were there, and there was an increase in expatriate teachers brought in as well within our local teachers.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And that difference in culture and language, as you mentioned, what did you notice the differences with the parent involvement with their children of the school?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Quite interesting, really, of the parents, because we often had a really good attendance in terms of things like assemblies. And a lot of parents would stay around and have an informal walk around the school afterwards. We had we were an open campus in that respect. So there was a very much a buy-in from the parents. Every sporting event, huge turnout of support for by the parent body. What we often found was there was the training spouse. So the training spouses were often the ones in school. When you got to know them because you were seeing them drop off and pick up, and they'd they'd have that conversation with hi-an, how are you? What's going on? And can I have a lot of chat with so and so? Um, a lot of nannies, which I'd never seen before, drivers collecting children, like just things that you just had never experienced before. But the parrot buy-in was really good. Uh I can't even say it's because they're paying for their education. I don't want to say that. I just think they had more time to be there and be more present. And I think the children saw that. The children saw that the parents were there every opportunity. They would be there for like an hour before, and they'd be socializing outside. So it was really quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

You talk about that trailing spouse. How do you prepare for that in a leadership role in international education? Because I would imagine you don't have to prepare for that in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

In the last 13 years, so it's this is my fifth school that I've worked in in that time. And I think one of the things I'm conscious of now is when I'm interviewing staff for recruitment purposes, it's talking about their families. And if you've got a family who's coming out, a family who's not working, it's ensuring that they are aware what it means to be and what the challenges are going to be faced for them. Because my own wife is what she would call a trailing spouse. She's she's not working in Malaysia, so it's making sure that she has things to do when I'm at work because my hours are long at times. So the trailing spouse is a really important thing because it's about families, isn't it? You know, international education is not just about the teacher or the leader, it's about the family that are with them often. So I don't know how you prepare for that. I think it comes down to I've seen schools do it really well, and I've seen that schools not really care.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Give me some examples of good practice.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

The the best practice I've seen is where um you will link not just the teacher to a buddy in the school, but also the wife or the husband to somebody who is also a non-working or a trailing spouse in the school as well. So you gain that community of support for them because it is important that they have things to do, that they get out, that they can explore, they can be part of the wider community of the area that they're living in, but also feel that they are part of the school community. So it's important that they come to school events, that they have groups that they can see and take part in when their husband or their wife is at work. I think that's when I've seen it done best. When I've seen it not done best is when the family number just joins and they're left to find their own. And I think that's when you get a lot of adversity from that trading spouse because that's when they suddenly become a distance between them and their family member who's going to school every day as part of a community. That's when they feel left because it's, you know, when you're moving internationally, you're leaving family behind. And that trading spouse might have been working in the UK, or they might not have been working in the UK, but they might have had friends, neighbours, family in the local vicinity.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So you finished your time in Kenya, you were head of years three to thirteen. Do you experience that transition phase between the traditional year six to year seven that you so wanted to be part of? Where did you go next on your journey from Kenya?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

From Kenya, it was the Middle East, to Jordan. I was fortunate to join a great school which was very diverse. I mean, that was 67 different nationalities, children coming from all over the world. We were the school of choice, I think, for like the consulates and the embassies, British Curriculum School again, and yeah, four years in in that school, ahead of primary, finished as acting principal during COVID, which was a challenge and an interesting period of my educational leadership journey. And then from Jordan to China for four years, and then from China to Malaysia.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Wow. So you've had quite a lot of diverse experiences. What would be the top three challenges you faced when you reflect on your time in international education?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

When you move internationally, you're moving into accommodation. I was always fortunate to be able to find my own accommodation, but that's somebody else's apartment that you're moving into. It's not your home. So there's a challenge of making it feel like your home. Because ultimately you arrive with suitcases. As the years have gone, I've collected more and more stuff. So every time I've moved now, there's three suitcases plus nine to eleven boxes that come with me. I don't tend to have big pieces of furniture. I did have, sold some of those, left them in the UK in storage. But it it is that point of living out of a suitcase, which I think a lot of the families and children also experience. Then there's the challenge of for every school that you go into, every country, there is a culture that you have to try and find a way to understand. Because there is that point as I've moved internationally, I've realized I am a visitor in somebody else's country. So therefore, I think the onus is on me and my family to immerse ourselves in that culture, to understand that culture. You can't take British culture and just go, right, well, I'm in China now, I'm gonna live a British culture. You can't do that. You can have values, which obviously you have, but it's wrong to live my life of my culture in that country. It's just not doable. So you have to find a way to understand the culture. So that's a challenge. And then there's language, I suppose. I mean, I've been fortunate, Middle East was Arabic, but the school and the community loved speaking English. In fact, once they knew your English, they would try and speak in English to you in whatever fractured way it was. China was the interesting one, it's just not a common language in China. Mandarin is the language. Full stop. In China, there were times I would laugh at just the total lack of misconception or translation. WeChat translation doesn't always get necessarily what the translation actually is meant to be. Um, because WeChat just directly translates, doesn't put it into the grammatical side of it. It's just a direct translation. So sometimes you get translations which you have a giggle at. But I found a way, you know, I found a way to manage. And I have lots of friends still in Shanghai who we would communicate through WeChat and broken English.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Brilliant. So the sort of top three that you'd identify would be living out of a suitcase, the culture that you have to immerse yourself in, and the language challenge that comes, particularly in China.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

What about the more positive experiences, the life experiences that you've had from being in international education?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

I mean, that goes back to culture. I mean, I I've loved the cultures that I've worked in, immersing myself in them and learning so much more about when I was in Kenya. I travelled a lot around Kenya. Very fortunate, I had great neighbours, and we would go on holidays, weekends, and trips together. And it was lovely. And meeting people was amazing. The travel, the places I've seen, waking up at 6:30 on that Saturday morning and driving to a national park 30 minutes away, 15 minutes later, in the national park, sunrise, sun coming up, and you're seeing lionesses coming back from the hunt. Then water buffalo, giraffes, zebras. Just that for me was something I never got fed up of in those two years. Every opportunity I would go to the national park, you know, I've been fortunate to go to so many more countries, not because I've had to massively travel, but in the Middle East, my faith is something that I've always talked about and it means a lot to me. So as a Christian, I was able to travel into Jerusalem and to Bethlehem and to see places that I'd only read about. And I think those memories will live with me forever. There were always things that I'd maybe plan to do in retirement after finishing my career in the UK. And I think that's the massive thing that I've got out of it. I've been very lucky that I've been able to do that, to travel and to maximize the use of being internationally to see so much more of the world. The world, when I was internationally, does not seem so big because you're in a place where you can get to so many more places without that big, massive difference. I mean, in the UK, my holidays were predominantly Euro, and that was only in my late 20s, early 30s. So, yeah, I think travel, culture, people, friends. My friends now from the last 12 years are all over the world. Different people from different places. And people, you know, that I probably wouldn't ever have imagined myself meeting. My wife I met in China. So I think I've been very fortunate. International education has given me opportunities to travel, meet people, immerse myself to learn about culture. I love things like buildings and architecture. So I've always loved wandering around the places that I'm in, particularly in the Middle East, particularly in China. And I love where I am now in Malaysia, where there's such a quite a rich, diverse architecture, particularly old and new, that I just love seeing things. My phone is full of pictures of doorways, of Chinese temples, of rich British architecture in the middle of a Malaysian town.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

What about the differences in education? So your leadership style or your approach in your everyday situation in work. How much has that differed if you reflect on your time as a head of primary in the UK to now being a head of primary in Malaysia?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

As a leader, I have changed massively. And I would say that from myself in terms of being reflective. Predominantly I've been very fortunate. But our China, most of the schools I've worked in or were British national curriculum schools. So we've led a formal national curriculum that's IPC, British National Curriculum, PYP, but effectively curricula that are linked to the UK standards and objectives and effectively outcomes. But the job in terms of delivery has not necessarily changed. There's been challenges. Like I say, language, quality teaching and learning has been sometimes at that point, assessment, because when I left the UK, we don't do Key State 2 SATs anymore, which I'm not upset about. First year of doing that, but different forms of assessment then suddenly become important because you've still got to track your progress. You want to talk about students' well-being, and that's a big thing. I think internationally I've been able to do more of that. But my leadership has changed a lot more because I have more autonomy to work with my leadership teams to give them more autonomy to drive curricula and curriculum. That's something in my leadership in the UK that I probably didn't do. UK, I felt very um driven by paperwork, very driven by outside standards like Ofsted and the Ceph and continue keeping that updated. But as a leader overseas, yes, I've always worked in schools that have external accreditations. But the difference there was I'm very much involved in those accreditations, not being accredited or inspected per se, and therefore invited into conversation. I'm part of the visit that they have. So my leadership has, I suppose, changed for many different reasons. I would say, in terms of my professional development, the trajectory's been like a massive upward slant. I've learnt more about well-being, thinking about leadership in terms of well-being, thinking more about the use of data and how we utilize that data, how we check in terms of teaching and learning, but making it not a process that feels it's done to, but done with. So I think that's the biggest thing. You know, I talk about accreditations and done with, well and done to. That's I suppose most of my changes in leadership have have been affected by that.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Brilliant. Thank you. So this episode is called Why International Education? And I purposely selected that title. That's quite a broad and vague title and can cover so much ground as we have started to here, and I think we can come back to this in an episode in the future. But my question to finish with you is why is it worth it?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Do you know it's now coming to 13 years since I I left the UK. And I talk about gratitude a lot in my own life. You know, what things I'm grateful for. But I think I am grateful for having made that decision to leave the UK to go internationally. Not always been easy, Josh. There's been challenges along the way, of course, and there's been trials and tribulations. But it's been worth it because of the experiences that I've gained out of it. The friendships, the family. And I talk about family now. These are people that are not just colleagues or friends. These are people who become my family because I've left my family behind in the UK. They're there. They can't, I could talk to them whenever I want to. But yeah, I think gratitude of being able to do what I've done. I would also say that well-being shift, my own mental health, my own well being has become far more of a focal point for me internationally. And particularly maybe in the last 10 years, that I do consider that I put myself and my own health above my job. And I'm not saying I don't care about my job. I love my job. And I do. I'm very fortunate because there's always a conversation that can happen in that day, it's gonna change my mind. How I'm feeling, particularly in the in the primary sector, but also in the secondary school as well. So I think putting my well-being at the forefront and that of my family, first and foremost, has been the biggest shift.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Perfect. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Ian Hopkins.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Thank you, Josh. I I've really enjoyed it. There's so much more that, you know, this idea of the conversation about why international education. There's not a short element of talking about it because there is so much more that can come out of it. As I say, we're almost the same in terms of our years of international education, and yet you're somewhat bit younger than me. So the I think there's so many more topics that will come out of it as well. You know, choosing the right school, the advice that you give to somebody moving overseas. So I look forward to the next podcast and listening in and on my driving to work, putting on the common room, and hearing who's next. So it's been a pleasure to be first part of this and part and parcel of the conversations that are to come.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Ian, thank you. What a way to open this podcast. Before I wrap up, I just want to properly place who we've been listening to today. Ian Hopkins has spent almost 30 years in education, over 20 of those in senior leadership, as a headteacher, principal and acting principal across the UK, Africa, the Middle East, China, and now Malaysia, where he's currently primary principal here in Penang. He's led learning from early years right through to year 13, across British, Cambridge and IB curricula, with real depth in accreditation, safeguarding and school improvement. And even now, deep into that career, he's completing an MBA, still actively learning. So when Ian talks about what it takes to lead internationally, that's 30 years and five continents of context behind it. So, why international education? That was the question we set out to answer. And I don't think there's a single tidy answer. But three things from this conversation stood out to me, and I think they get us close. First, it's not really a career move, it's a way of life that asks something of your whole family. Ian talked about still living out of a suitcase after thirteen years, about the training spouse, and the schools that get this right are the ones that build community around the whole family, not just the person who signed the contract. Second, that distinction Ian kept returning to being done to versus being done with. In the UK, he felt shaped by Ofsted, by inspection, by outside standards looking in. Internationally he found himself inside the conversation, part of the accreditation process, not just subject to it. That shift from compliance to ownership might be the single biggest thing that's changed about how he leads. And third, this one surprised me a little. The answer to why isn't really about career trajectory at all. It's gratitude. It's well-being. Ian said something that's genuinely stuck with me, that putting his own health and his family first, ahead of the job, has been the biggest shift in over a decade abroad. That's not the answer you'd expect from a head teacher talking about his career. And I think that's exactly why it matters. So, why international education? Ask ten people and you'll get ten different answers. And honestly, that's the point of this podcast. This is just the first conversation. We're going to keep coming back to this question with different guests, different countries, different angles, because 30 minutes barely scratches the surface of what it actually means to build a life and a career this way. That's episode one of the common room. If any of this resonated with you, please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. It genuinely helps us reach more people having this conversation. Next episode, I'm going solo. I'll be unpacking what three years leading in British branded schools in China actually taught me about leadership and introducing a framework I've been developing through my doctoral research called Culturally Mediated Leadership. It's called Leading Between Two Systems What China Taught Me About Leadership. I'm Joshua Sussex. Thanks for being with us in the common room.