hi markholmes,

43 is not too old, some schools like older teachers, some like younger, a good school likes a balance :) what are you doing bEd in? if its primary and you are a man (sorry everyone) you will at least get a ton of interviews!! then its up to you. if you are planning to work in uk to get into international schools i would really think hard about what you want. there are many opinions on this. it depends whether you want to work in an international school because you are interested in international education in which case you dont want ENC. (which is currently changing anyway) if you just want to work internationally because you want to experience the world then different, you will broaden your chances of being recruited if you also apply to ENC schools (please note there is no such thing as the british curriculum - there is national curriculum for england, national curriculum for wales, national curriculum for northern ireland and scotland has the 5-14 guidelines) personally i worked 3 years in scotland before going overseas because i think the support given to new teachers in the state system is better than it is in international schools where you can sometimes be left to sink or swim. well it was better in scotland all that time ago :)

in international school terms your experience in japan and taiwan stands you in good stead from a recruiters point of view, you have shown that you can live and work in different cultures and you will have skills to bring to those children who come in with little or no english (and many uk or other trained teachers dont have this skill) you may find that as you are mature and have teaching experience in another arena, that once you have your bEd you are able to to move straight into the international sector. i'd certainly look at your cv and i have a colleague who just recruited two canadians straight out of college with no actual experience, so there you go. its up to you what you want, but if it were me, i would actively pursue both options, canadian trained you would find the current uk state system difficult (Because its so restrictive) there are now some good books on international schools and international education if you want to find out more, many of them are edited by mary hadyn. if it is helpful i can send you a couple of titles. interestingly also some state schools in england in the primary sector are taking on ipc and pyp so these are areas to watch. hope this is helfpul