Case Studies: International

The Challenge

Dar Al Marefa is a Private School in Dubai.  An initiative of Al Ghurair, Dar Al Marefa is a key school that contributes to the quality educational provision offered to the growing UAE community. With the opportunity to expand their middle years provision and staff turnover, a school with 200 students needed to recruit to 20 positions. Quality mattered greatly and the school wanted to ensure that they recruited top international talent to develop the school and continue its journey of improvement.  The vacancies ranged from Head of Primary to classroom teachers.

How we helped 

• TES Prime was appointed to lead the recruitment of all 20 roles. We employed different strategies according to the needs of the role.
• Executive Search was used to recruit to senior leadership and programme co-ordinator roles. In this international search we approached suitable candidates from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
• We designed an advertising campaign in line with the school’s existing branding. The recruitment brochure we created allowed for personalised JDs and Person Specifications for each role. We ran an advertising campaign over a sequence of weeks.
• TES Prime approached candidates from our existing networks to bolster the effectiveness of the search and advertising, helping to create additional buzz about the opportunity.  Being part of the TES group helped – we have the world’s largest network of teachers with 1.7 million users from 196 countries!
• We managed the entire process, and led first stage interviews from our London offices. The interviews resulted in a written report to the client with recommendations about candidate suitability. 

The results

The extensive search work resulted in a broad and varied field.  The rigorous process meant that many of the posts were filled at the first attempt. More importantly, the posts were filled with candidates who could demonstrate sympathy for the school ethos and demonstrate a strong track record of school improvement. There were some roles where we felt the candidates did not fully meet the brief; in this case we re-ran the campaign to make sure that the right candidates were engaged.

The school has ambitious aims; and, following a successful round of recruitment, the school is well on its way to realising them.