GESS Dubai session: Why Safeguarding Has to Come First in Schools

Mr. Darren Goodall (MBA) joined the Maarif Education Head Office team in August 2023 as the Director of Child Protection and Safeguarding, providing executive leadership to the Child Protection, Occupational Health and Safety and Wellbeing departments across all Maarif Education schools. Maarif Education is Saudi Arabia’s largest private education company, with 15 private National and International schools across the Kingdom, providing K-12 educational services to @40,000 students.

Darren comes with an extensive background in educational, regulatory services, child protection and safeguarding executive leadership, having worked for over 25 years in both the private and public sectors in Australia, the United Arab Emirates and now in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where, prior to joining Maarif Education, he worked as the Director of Operations at a private school in Jeddah for over 2.5 years. 

In addition to being a former Australian police officer and having worked extensively with children at risk for over 25 years, Darren is a qualified English and German teacher (Australia) and has also taught in local and private schools in both Australia and the Middle East for over 10 years.

Darren’s strategic child protection and safeguarding vision and mission is centered around three (3) core foundational pillars - Systems, Capability and Governance.  This strategic approach focuses on ensuring that Maarif Education’s child protection and safeguarding business operations have the right system practices in place to drive organizational outcomes, have the right people in the right positions performing the right work, and use clear and concise quality assurance measures to collect and analyze business data to genuinely inform continual improvement outcomes across all child protection and safeguarding departments and functions.

Darren will be attending and speaking at the GESS Dubai 2025 Conference. On Tuesday 11 November 2025 (11.30am to 11.50am), Darren will present a session in the Sustainability and Wellbeing Hub about “Why Safeguarding Has to Come First in Schools”. This session will use research showing the vital role that child protection and safeguarding plays as the priority cornerstone of a school's culture.  The presentation looks at how humans, both children and adults, must feel a sense of safety, security, connection and love within their schools to achieve their best possible educational outcomes.  This approach puts child protection and safeguarding before academics, with research showing this must occur for a school to have genuine quality outcomes.  The presentation will also show the direct effect that staff well-being has on children's well-being and the impact that this can have on their overall educational experience.  Darren will also show the work that Maarif Education is doing to forge new territory in the areas of child protection and safeguarding across its portfolio of schools within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Later that same day (2.20pm to 3.05pm), Darren will also join a panel of child protection and safeguarding experts as part of the GESS Talks Live, to discuss Safeguarding in Education. Darren will be joined by Fareeha Nadkar (Director of Learning and Quality Assurance – Citizens School) and Zen Khan (Partner – Zen PD), who will chair the discussion that will focus on the changing landscape of safeguarding in education, particularly in the Middle East, as new regulatory requirements and cultural expectations related to child protection and safeguarding now require schools to be far more vigilant in this space.

Darren will be at the conference across all 3 days and will also be taking part in the VIP Curated One-on-One Meeting Programme – Match & Meet, so there will also be opportunities for delegates and exhibitors to arrange meetings with Darren across these days.
 

Mr. Darren Goodall (MBA)
Group Director of Safeguarding - Maarif Education