Michael Dennison

Michael first made contact with the work of the Mondo Foundation whilst travelling with his family in West Bengal and Sikkim in 2017. He met Hirsh Cashdan whilst on a village tour in the hills above Kalimpong led by Santa Rai of Mondo Challenge Kalimpong, where he discovered a mutual passion for improving educational opportunities in schools.

Having retired following a 45-year career in education:  from classroom teacher of languages to head teacher of two secondary schools, from local authority adviser to deputy director for school improvement in a London borough, from Ofsted inspector to education consultant for the DfE, Michael was looking further contexts in the voluntary sector in which his experience might be of value. He remains chair of governors in a secondary academy near his home in Oxfordshire.

Hirsh invited Michael, as a voluntary Mondo education consultant, to join a small group of Trustees who had developed and introduced a self-evaluation tool for schools in their associated schools in Nepal, Kalimpong and Darjeeling. Michael then visited a number of these schools in the spring of 2018 to assess the implementation and effectiveness of self-evaluation and to lead sessions for head teachers on the lessons learnt.

My key focus as a Mondo Trustee is to ensure that the funds raised and the voluntary work organised through Mondo has maximum impact for improvement.