Retirement could wait: Meet Compass' new Executive Head of Secondary

Raj Patel wasn’t looking for one last job. In fact, after more than three decades in education, including a successful headship in the UK, he was preparing to retire. There would be more time for travel, more time with friends, and, presumably, rather fewer meetings.

Then he started talking to Nord Anglia. Those conversations eventually led him to Jamie Hughes, Principal of Compass International School Doha, and something clicked.

“For me, it was about what type of leader I was going to work with, and who I was going to work for,” Raj says. “The warmth of feeling I got from meeting the wider team here – it felt really right.”

Retirement could wait.

“I thought, ‘There’s still more work to be done.’”

A career built on learning

There is something fitting about Raj postponing retirement for an opportunity to keep learning. His own educational journey has been anything but conventional.

Growing up in the UK, he did not thrive academically at school and left with few formal qualifications. Along the way, however, teachers saw something in him that he had yet to see in himself.

“When somebody said to me, ‘You’re going to be a teacher one day,’ I said, ‘No, I’m never going to be a teacher!’”

He was wrong about that.

Raj began teaching in London in 1994, initially in IT and BTEC subjects. His career also included four years outside education with JP Morgan before he returned to schools, progressing through senior leadership and eventually becoming Headteacher of Pinner High School. More recently, he added an MBA to his qualifications.

More than 30 years after entering his first classroom, what excites him about education remains strikingly simple: young people who are curious enough to surprise him.

Why a little noise can be a very good thing

Ask Raj what great learning looks like and he doesn’t describe a silent classroom with every student facing the front.

“The noise, actually, is good,” he says.

He wants to see students so engrossed that they barely notice him enter. He wants them questioning one another, debating ideas, making mistakes, and thinking independently, with teachers creating the conditions in which these things can happen.

And he particularly likes the questions nobody expects.

Shortly after arriving at Compass, Raj asked students to tell him about their ambitions. Among the aspiring professionals and university plans was one question that stopped him.

“Sir, how do I become a storm chaser?”

Raj loved it. And his answer, essentially, was, “I don't know – but let’s find out!”

For Raj, the important thing was not knowing the answer himself. It was that a student felt comfortable enough to walk up to a new school leader and ask an unusual question without fear of being dismissed.

“That curiosity comes out,” he says. “I love that moment.”

Looking beyond the grades

Raj is equally interested in the questions parents ask about their children’s futures.

He understands why ambitious families focus on examination results – and is clear that academic standards are hugely important. But he believes preparing young people for a rapidly changing world requires schools to look further ahead.

“The world has changed,” he says. “Our children aren’t going to be doctors for 30 years. Their careers are changing.”

That means thinking about the adult a child might become at 25 or 35, not simply the grades they will receive at 16 or 18.

Alongside academic knowledge, Raj wants students to develop the qualities they will need to navigate that future: empathy, resilience, trust, collaboration, communication, and the confidence to connect with people from different backgrounds.

It’s why he talks about building oracy, critical thinking, reading, careers, and the arts across the curriculum rather than treating them as extras.

Learning from a new community

Three weeks into his first international school role at Compass, and Raj was already discovering that the learning runs both ways.

Students were teaching him about their cultures, families, and ambitions – and even telling him what they thought their new Executive Head should consider next. Parents, too, had challenged some of his preconceptions with their engagement and support for the school.

“They’re teaching me how to become a better head of school,” he says.

That willingness to listen is also shaping Raj’s first experience of Qatar. He wants to get beyond the obvious attractions and understand more about the country, its culture, and its people.

“I’m interested in meeting new people,” he says. “You have stereotypes about a country where you’ve never lived. Those have been disbanded, and I love that.”

Perhaps that explains why retirement proved less appealing than expected.

Raj came to Compass with decades of experience to share – from classroom teaching and business to school improvement and headship. But what seems to energise him most is how much there still is to discover. About a new country. About a new school. And, not least, about a student who wants to chase storms.