The American Embassy School

New Delhi AES

Department of State
9000, New Delhi Place
Washington DC 20521-9000

Robert W. Hetzel, PhD

Director

New Delhi, India

Teacher as Leader/Collaborator
for

Marian Bradshaw
March 2008

Marian Bradshaw teaches Grade 6 humanities (English language arts and social studies) in
the Middle School at the American Embassy School, New Delhi, India. In addition,
Marian serves as grade 6 team leader. Marian has been at AES since the fall of 2003
and will complete this school year for a total of five years. As principal of AES Middle
School, I have worked with Marian for four years. Marian is a fantastic member of our
school community and a wonderful teacher.
Ms. Bradshaw is a well-organized, thorough teacher whose expectations of high standards
are clear to her students. She integrates our language arts standards and benchmarks
with our social studies benchmarks presenting meaningful, multi-disciplinary lessons to her
students. In addition to her humanities classes, Marian teaches one section of advanced
ESL where she helps students put the final polish on their English language skills.
Marian's classes are varied and always connected to her students' abilities, needs and
interests.
Concurrently with her teaching responsibilities, as team leader Marian coordinates the
activities for sixth grade advisory. Ten advisories serve 100 sixth grade students for
whom Marian's team prepares lessons which focus sixth graders on examining "Who Am
I?", service learning, and social awareness. With the team spirit vibrant at AES, the
dedication teachers have to team and advisory programs is exemplary. Marian as team
leader is a big part of this successful program.
As team leader, Marian serves on the MS leadership team which meets monthly to set
goals, make recommendations to the faculty, and work through new programs. In this
capacity, she helps decide on the agendas for our four professional development days.
In her leadership capacity as sixth grade team leader, Marian has guided the team
toward revising many of the units and facilitating student reflections on personal and
academic changes the students are experiencing. Marian leads a major process organizing
portfolios for all students and student-led parent conferences using these portfolios.
Local Address: The American Embassy School, Chandragupta Marg, Chanakyapuri. New Delhi, India
Tel. (91)(11)26117140, Fax (91)(11)26873320, Website: http//mac.aes.ac.in
Accredited by: Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Beyond the classroom, it is difficult for me to review all the contributions Marian has
made to the social vibrancy of our school. Several years ago, she created, organized and
facilitated as MC an event that has become an annual, semi-formal faculty gala. This is
the social event that everyone looks forward to each year. She initiated and hosts
"Middle School Tea" which is a twenty minute social time at the end of lunch period on
Fridays. It gives teachers from all parts of the campus a chance to get together and reconnect with each other as we celebrate birthdays and just enjoy being together. She
organizes teacher volunteers to bring snacks each week and puts on the hot water for tea
and coffee. Sounds easy, but only because she makes it flow so smoothly.
Marian served for three years at the teacher representative to NESA where she
managed all the communications to the association for AES teachers. She also arranged
for in-house workshops for teachers to present here at AES in preparation for their
sessions at the annual NESA conferences.
During her tenure as the NESA representative for AES, Marian worked on the lead-team
to bring to our campus a NESA conference that featured Jay McTighe who presented his
backward planning model for planning instructional units. Marian attended the conference
and subsequently led her team in early implementation. Her team has made great
progress in re-thinking instructional units according to the Understanding by Design (UbD)
approach. She has also been a scout on the path of moving UbD units into Atlas Rubicon,
a computer program that stores and links curriculum, teaching units, assessments and a
wide variety of instructional resources.
Outside the classroom for our co-curricular program for students, Marian has also been
very active. She has assisted the director of school plays, assisted the teacher leader
of Reach Out, our on-going, community service project with the squatter's colony next
door to the school, and serves as trip leader and grade level leader for an annual week
off campus for students.
Marian handles all these responsibilities with energy, enthusiasm and efficiency. She is a
highly supportive and respected colleague.
Professionally yours,

Barbara Sirotin, EdD

Principal, AES Middle School
bsirotin@aes.ac.in
91 11 2688.8854 ex. 3305; 9873001021
Local Address: The American Embassy School, Chandragupta Marg, Chanakyapuri. New Delhi, India
Tel. (91)(11)26117140, Fax (91)(11)26873320, Website: http//mac.aes.ac.in
Accredited by: Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools