Emma Claudia Bentley

Digital Skills: Microsoft Office, Google Suite

Communication and interpersonal skills:

I am known for being articulate and clear in communication with others. One of the reasons I chose to pursue a linguistics and foreign languages career was a desire to communicate with others. This skill has improved my adaptability and integration ability in different cultures and countries whilst working abroad, but to also take on various portfolios, such as the one I held for a year at the International School of Cape Town. I was chairperson of the Staff forum. This was a discussion forum for which meetings were held, twice a term that enabled staff to voice their concerns and ask sensitive questions. Duties included taking the meeting minutes, playing down expectations on both ends or encouraging them to pursue requests and act as a liaison between staff and management. The goal was to facilitate communication to improve resources and benefits for staff on full and part-time contracts.

Organisational skills:
In my current job at the International School of Cape Town, both my organisational and management skills have been put to the test in the following ways.

• I headed the Additional Languages Department for which I had to list important dates that affected the language teachers, follow up on their teaching, assessment, examination setting and proofreading exam scripts, checking script mark allocation and holding meetings (for which an agenda was created) once a month or term to check that the schemes of work and assessments were running as planned.
• For one whole school year, I held the portfolio of managing and setting up termly parent-teacher meetings. This required liaising with other teachers, senior students and parents to not only arrange brief meetings, but to also devise a logical floor plan, set up tables, chairs, teacher and subject name tags for the meetings. I also had to liaise with several senior students whose role is to meet and greet parents, and serve beverages and food to both staff and parents.
• I also used to run the Staff Forum for just over a year, twice a school term. This is a human resources type of portfolio in which staff can anonymously discuss sensitive issues concerning the terms and conditions of their employment. I would then feed the minutes of these meetings back to management. After having then briefly met with management, I would communicate the outcome of both meetings to all staff and indicated which were viable and which were not.
• I also used to run individual and group or sibling photo days, for which I had to liaise with the photographers, staff and students to arrange a suitable term date and a schedule for the day that did not impact teaching too heavily. I also had to delegate small duties to senior students who assisted on the day.
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Other skills:
I have obtained a First Aid Certificate every second year whilst employed at the International School, in which teachers attend a first aid course to renew knowledge and ability to perform CPR if the need were to arise.