International Accreditation Advisor, Leiden

What does this role entail? Within the CIS membership, many schools are working towards and achieving CIS International Accreditation. This accreditation process illustrates an ongoing commitment to school improvement and an achievement of standards grounded in pursuit of continuous growth and high-quality education.

As an International Accreditation Advisor, you will draw on your experience as an educational leader to guide schools through a rigorous, evidence-informed improvement process, ensuring the integrity, credibility, and developmental intent of CIS International Accreditation. By applying professional judgement, fostering collaborative partnerships, and ensuring the quality of insights and evaluations, you will strengthen CIS’s ability to support organizational learning across its membership and contribute to the evolution and reliability of CIS accreditation frameworks and practices.

What will you be doing? As an International Accreditation Advisor you will be part of a global School Support and Evaluation (SSE) team which includes a Director, Associate Directors, educational leaders and professional staff based at the CIS office in Leiden, The Netherlands, and in regional locations around the world.

Competencies and Responsibilities 1. Stewardship of the CIS Accreditation Protocol

Ensure fidelity to the CIS International Accreditation Protocol, safeguarding its purpose, coherence, and credibility across all engagements.

Uphold the integrity of the accreditation process, ensuring all school engagements align with CIS standards, Cornerstone Expectations, and the Innovation Cycle.

Serve as the authoritative interpreter of protocol expectations for schools, peers, and partner agencies.

Maintain a developmental, evidence-informed approach that centres organizational learning over compliance.

2. Strategic Guidance for School Development

Co-create an Accreditation Plan with every school in your portfolio, ensuring its goals are aspirational, achievable, aligned with school context, and rooted in the CIS International Accreditation Framework.

Support schools to identify, evidence, and monitor progress on Development Initiatives.

Provide strategic insights that help school leaders interpret data, reflect on priorities, and adjust course responsibly over the self-study period.

Offer developmental challenge and principled questioning that elevates schools’ organizational learning.

3. Quality Assurance of Evidence, Insight, and Evaluative Judgement

Evaluate the school’s evidence of Cornerstone Expectations, ensuring authenticity, sufficiency, and impact—not just documentation.

Offer professional judgement on a school’s readiness for evaluation stages.

Contribute evaluative insight that supports clarity, fairness, and accuracy at the Team Evaluation stage.

Safeguard the credibility of CIS decisions by acting as a key assurance step between volunteer evaluators and CIS leadership.

4. Partnership-Centred Relationship Building

Provide ongoing, responsive support to schools across the multi-year cycle.

Build rapport with diverse school communities, adapting communication and interaction styles to different cultural and organizational contexts.

Guide partner agencies and peers to work in aligned, cohesive, and respectful ways by modelling collaborative behaviours within joint accreditation models.

Model CIS values through culturally-responsive and ethically-grounded engagement.

5. Facilitation of Dialogue that Elevates Community Voice

Facilitate conversations around schools’ core strategic and operational systems, milestone check-ins, and learning dialogues that surface meaningful narratives and community perspectives.

Support leaders to create psychologically safe spaces for honest reflection and collective sense-making.

Encourage diverse groups, including learners and families, to contribute authentically to accreditation.

6. Cross-Team Collaboration and Organizational Learning

Provide constructive, evidence-based feedback to the leadership of the School Support and Evaluation team and cross-functional teams that informs framework evolution, resource refinement, and protocol updates.

Participate actively in the upskilling of International Accreditation Advisors, evaluator training, and cross-agency collaboration, sharing practices and supporting peer learning.

Use patterns from school engagements to inform CIS-wide learning, sharing insights and contributing to collective reflection around accreditation, safeguarding, evaluation practice, and strategic initiatives.

7. Ethical Leadership and Safeguarding Oversight

Identify and elevate safeguarding concerns appropriately.

Model ethical judgement, transparency, and responsible use of emerging technologies.

Ensure that all accreditation advice strengthens conditions for safe, inclusive learning communities.

8. Model Professional Communication and Documentation

Provide developmental commentary to support schools’ development through accreditation.

Communicate expectations, timelines, and feedback with clarity, consistency, and care.

Ensure that documentation produced and reviewed contributes to schools’ long-term learning and improvement.

Use technology effectively to support report-writing, record-keeping, collaboration and sharing feedback, adapting quickly to new digital tools and platforms that enhance the accreditation process.

9. Professional Resilience and Self-Management

Manage a global portfolio of schools with flexibility and resilience to meet business objectives and shifting demands.

Demonstrate effective self-management by balancing periods of intensive engagement with schools, evaluators, and partner agencies across time zones.

Maintain personal well-being and reflective professional habits that support sound judgement, ethical practice, and consistency in accreditation work.

Are you eligible? You are welcome to apply, regardless of your background, if you meet the following criteria.

Residency

You are a legal resident in a country that provides reasonable ease of access to Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, with authorization to work as an independent contractor.

Your residence and work permits will be in place by the time you start your engagement with CIS, at your expense, including all relocation expenses. Your residence has convenient access to an international airport.

Educational Qualifications

Master’s degree including a specialised credential in education (Education, Educational Leadership, International Education, Curriculum&Instruction, Quality Assurance, or a closely related field).

Professional Experience

Broad educational experience, including experience at one or more international schools.

10+ years of experience in school leadership and/or system leadership.

Experience of school improvement, accreditation, inspection, evaluation, or quality assurance processes in an advisory/evaluative capacity, preferably beyond a single school.

Substantial experience facilitating professional dialogue with school leaders, governing bodies, or cross-functional teams.

Experience collaborating with external agencies, ministries, or accreditation organizations.

International and intercultural working experience in educational environments.

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