Margaret Rafee

After a long and varied career in education, with many years in school leadership in the UK and internationally, I retired from full-time work in July 2021. I have always been passionate about teacher development as I believe the most significant factor in learner success is to have well-qualified, well-trained, happy and healthy teachers. As a Headteacher in the UK, I led a School’s Direct teacher training programme and, as an international school Principal, I ensured the continuous development of Teach First teachers as well as local staff without UK QTS.

Throughout my international school leadership career, I saw the need for a way to allow teachers working abroad to gain full QTS, so I was delighted to be invited to sit on the DfE Expert Working group tasked with developing the IQTS qualification. I continue to be a part of this Expert Working Group developing the inspection and quality assurance framework for the qualification which will be piloted from September 2022.

I am now an Individual Member of FOBISIA (Federation of British International Schools in Asia) and, for three years, I was a member of the FOBISIA board with the Communications brief. I am passionate about collaboration and have always recognised the importance of networks to support teacher development. I was also Vice-Chair of AIMS ( Association of International Malaysian Schools). In both these roles, I conducted school visits to assess that the schools met the criteria for membership of the organisations.