Meet the principal: Glen Radojkovich

Glen Radojkovich has joined GEMS International School Al Khail as the new principal of what will be the largest IB curriculum school in the UAE when it reaches capacity. This is Radojkovich's first role in the Middle East. He has previously led schools in South Korea and Singapore, after 11 years at Pinehurst School in his native New Zealand, which was the top performing Cambridge International Examinations school during the last nine years of his tenure.

Commenting on his move to GEMS, Radojkovich tells EJME: "To me it's an organisation that has always been on the periphery of my radar. And increasingly, people that I respect in education — some very strong leaders — have joined the organisation and it continues to grow and is now the largest K-12 education provider globally. So there's a lot of scope to be able to collaborate with other principals and that's something you don't often get as an educator — you're quite often isolated to your own school. So being part of the GEMS network is really powerful and obviously there's other career opportunities within it."

Having settled into his new roles, Radojkovich is now busy speaking to parents and members of the school community to introduce initiatives and change certain policies.

Radojkovich explains: "We're looking to strengthen the mother tongue programme here. We offer a number of languages already, but with 93 nationalities at the moment we'd like to grow the number of languages offered, and IB schools do that. There are 56 languages you can offer in the diploma programme, so there's scope to develop language pathways that really support our international community.

"We're also looking at growing the innovation and technology programme. We have facilities throughout the network in terms of design and innovation and a really big focus for us in the school is to utilise that technology and do some exciting things with that. We're working with Singularity University on developing an international curriculum that we're embedding in the Middle Years Programme."


BIOGRAPHY

For 11 years, Glen Radojkovich's commitment to excellence was demonstrated as headmaster at Pinehurst School in New Zealand, which consecutively received the Cambridge University International Examinations' Top School Award for the last nine years of his tenure. Familiar with both the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge University International Examinations, a former chairman for the Cambridge University International Examinations (CIELSNZ) and National Chairman for the IB Korean Principals and Heads Association, he has a strong interest in curriculum development. As founding head of Branksome Hall Asia, Radojkovich was involved in the development of the school from 2010 to 2014. Following this time, he led the Canadian International School in Singapore, a highly regarded three programme, IB World school.