Staff Profile: Michael Pinnock, Science and IB Biology Teacher

Staff Profile: Michael Pinnock, Science and IB Biology Teacher Each week we will feature a member of staff across all areas of the school including teachers, admin staff, support staff and more, to get to know members of our school family a little better. Our profile this week is Michael Pinnock, a Science and IB Biology Teacher. Each week we will feature a member of staff across all areas of the school including teachers, admin staff, support staff and more, to get to know members of our school family a little better. Our profile this week is Michael Pinnock, a Science and IB Biology Teacher.

Hello. I am from London where I studied Chemistry at the University of Greenwich and have been teaching for 27 years, mainly in the North East of England after completing my B.Ed at The University of Sunderland. As well as being a Science Teacher, I have held a variety of other roles including Head of Year, Head of House and Head of Department.  

During my time as a Middle Leader in the UK, I was given the opportunity of attending courses and gaining extensive CPD at the National Science Learning Centre at the University of York. This culminated in me being joint guest speaker for the National STEM Centre annual conference, hosted at the Natural History Museum in London and I was nominated for an Enthuse Secondary Science Leader Award. In July 2013, I was one of the guest speakers involved in the launch of the White Paper “The Future influence of STEM subjects” at the House of Commons. In June 2014, I was invited as a Leading Science Teacher, back to the House of Commons to honour that year’s crop of Secondary Science Leaders. 

My International teaching career started soon after this, and in 2014 I began teaching at The British School of Beijing in China (also a Nord Anglia Education School). It was here that I feel I was able to fully blossom as a science teacher. Together with the richness and variety of the Chinese culture, friendly but curious nation, and the wonder and splendour that south east Asia has in its abundance, was the real making of me both personally and professionally. Living, working and travelling in that region of world is enough to be able to satisfy anyone’s thirst for wanderlust!

My time at BSB was very productive. I was able to provide my students with the opportunity to visit Geneva and CERN (BSB still being the only school in China to visit The Large Hadron Collider) but it has also provided me with the ultimate in CPD with a week-long residential course in delivering STEAM provided by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, USA. My other contributions to the school were to also include sitting on the organizing committees for the now infamous British Ball, and St. Georges Day Dinner, which involved planning and organising formal events for up to 800 people!

In 2018 it was time to leave Beijing, and after a short hiatus working in Cairo, I am very pleased and proud to be working here at BIS Abu Dhabi and back for Nord Anglia Education.

I strongly believe that education doesn’t start and end in the classroom, hence I have a passion for engaging with students outside of the classroom. Whether it be the numerous CCAs that I have contributed to which include, football, basketball, volleyball etc, or organizing and running school trips and residentials. To date I have organized trips to London, Paris, New York, Barcelona (14 of those in total!) and CERN in Switzerland. I have also had a helping hand and been on the NAE Les Martinez trekking trips and the Tanzania trip that goes out annually. 

Other passions include cooking, listening to and collecting rare jazz and RnB vinyl records (if you’ve never heard an old track its new music to you!) travelling to new and wonderous places and talking to people who then go on to leave an impression on me.

Michael Pinnock