For Margareth Harris, the International Baccalaureate co-ordinator at the Victoria Shanghai Academy, helping young people develop emotionally and intellectually is a daily joy.
I try to get to school before the actual school day starts, to catch up on e-mails from parents, teachers and students. I interact with them about International Baccalaureate (IB)-related matters all day, every day.
I represent the organisation with its mission and curriculum for the middle years programme. I make sure that the teaching and learning supports their needs. I also do a lot of professional development with teachers in IB teaching and learning objectives, and a lot of education for parents and students in the curriculum.
This job is about 10per cent paperwork and 80 to 90per cent working with people. There's a lot of interaction, planning and implementing, and ensuring that everything that needs to happen is happening. Also, there are several special projects.
The mission of the IB is to provide an intercultural awareness education, not just an international programme or an overseas certificate.
The three fundamental concepts which underpin our teaching and learning programmes are intercultural awareness, holistic learning and education. We have several ways of ensuring that these principles are taught, learnt and practised. These include focus weeks where students have the opportunity to get out of class, explore and learn in different ways.
It's always a challenge, in a positive sense, to keep people working together, to share understanding or vision, to have them all on the same path at the same time, and to allow for their individual differences and specialities to come through.