by Andrea Strachan, Vice Principal, Primary School, Lakeside Campus -

CIS takes pride in hiring the best international educators from around the world. We are also committed to offering high quality professional development to our teachers and all teachers take part in an annual review process. During this review, teachers share their professional goals, ways in which they are constantly striving to improve their practice, and the many ways in which they are contributing to the community life our school and Singapore. This year, I had the pleasure of meeting with Charlie Brown, one of our PYP PE teachers, and reflect on the amazing contributions he has made and is making to both our CIS rugby programme and to rugby in Singapore.

Mr. Brown grew up in Ireland and played rugby as a boy right up through high school. As an adult and a passionate PE teacher, he became interested in working as a rugby referee. He started refereeing in 2004 and has since refereed matches in America, P.R. China and other countries around Asia. Charlie joined CIS in 2012 and joined the Singapore Society of Rugby Union Referees. Last year, he was appointed as a referee on the International Panel of Rugby Referees and refereed his first test match between Malaysia and Thailand. This year, he has acted as a referee for the Asia International Rugby 7s, the qualifiers for the Olympics, and in the World Series Rugby 7s.

When Mr. Brown first joined CIS three years ago, our school rugby programme was just emerging. It consisted a group of about 20 high school boys that loved rugby. Mr. Brown worked with these boys and our teachers to grow this programme and we now have over 100 students participating in rugby and playing on 8 teams at CIS!

Starting from 2016-2017 academic year, Mr. Brown will begin working full-time as a professional referee and referee manager for Singapore Rugby. His hopes are to help build Singapore’s rugby programme, serving as a mentor and educator for a new generation of younger referees. Many of our young people dream of growing up to become professional athletes. Charlie Brown has shown our students that professional athletes come in many forms and can make a big impact on the lives of others – not only through playing sports, but also through education.