Stephen Dann at http://www.siamtaxtreaties.com/ is highly recommended - he looked after my refund a few years ago and he also helped me out with a few other accounting matters. I found him extremely knowledgable and his staff very competent. I wouldn't bother looking for an alternative - his rates are excellent as well.

He is on Linkedin under Stephen J Dann at Sian International Accounting Management.

Charles Sturt University in Australia has fully online Masters of Ed programmes and they run a three session year so you can finish faster if you work all year round. Their two big programmes that I'm aware of are Masters of International Education (School Leadership) which I'm doing and one for Teacher Librarians which may seem strange to most but in Australia, school librarians are fully qualified teachers first...

I'm nearly finished my first semester and I'm very happy with the course... the international flavour to a lot of the subjects is interesting and having seen my next two course outlines as well as the two I've done you have a lot of choice to follow up on areas of interest rather than be dictated what areas to research...

To justify, I also have a U.K. Master of Arts and it was done as distance but with residential school each term... it took fifteen months to complete.

I'm currently in Bangkok and there was no impact on our school nor any visible change to how things are run etc. I'd still recommend taking a job in Bangkok.

Just pit bulls and staffies are banned our puglet is fine to enter.

We're taking our dog from Dubai to Thailand... he's a pug and they don't fly very well... so we had to find an airline that would fly him in cabin - Turkish so we have to go via Istanbul... with a 9 hour transit - we are now looking at getting him a stroller thing so we can wheel him around the airport as he has to stay in his travel bag... Instead of a 6hr flight it is taking us 24hours to get there and don't even start on how much it is costing for all the bits and pieces to get him on the plane... We are slowing training him, getting him to stay in the travel bag longer each time (we're only up to 90 mins)

But, there is no way we would even consider leaving him behind - he is family and in my interviews I made sure I checked if there was any pet policy that affected accommodation etc... it would have been a deal breaker.. fortunately it didn't come to that and we're going to a house with a shady lawn for him to play on and a solid fence all the way around and a pug proof gate (and another pug living a few doors down) - Pug heaven!

buffalofan wrote:
> Had colleagues who worked there not too long ago and I also know people who
> have worked at a couple of their sister schools in Thailand. I have heard
> a few stories and they aren't pretty...

Hmmm, I'm heading there in July, I did my own recon visit last week and spoke to people working there: people who have been there many years, people for whom this year is their first year, expats from Australia, European countries as well as US... Management and average teachers, plus I met with the Fathers, locals working in HR, finance and in a variety of receptions and admin roles... I didn't experience or hear anything that resembled the posts on the paid site....

Buffalofan- not sure who you talked to or know, but there are no sister schools to Ruamrudee, they are a single stand alone entity with no connections to any other school in Thailand or anywhere else in the world (yet). I know this for a fact as it was one of the questions I asked during my visit.

I personally know teachers at BIST who hold it in high regard so I guess it is all relative. If it is so bad, why are there very long queues at all the job fairs??? Just asking???

This is not going to be my first International gig, but it is the one I am most looking forward to...

I was a first time Fair goer at the London Fair too and I had a great time.

I stayed in the same hotel so it was very convenient for down time between interviews.

I had 8 official interviews and another one follow up interview and a few pre-fair and touching base/whatever meetings with the schools I was about to interview with or had interviewed with previously. I was pretty busy for most of the fair and only managed to go to one school presentation.

I arrived at the hotel nice and early on Thursday morning but couldn't get into my room until 15 mins before one of the schools I was seriously interested in wanted to 'chat'... that was fun trying to get ready in time... Then the rest of the day I placed my CVs and my own gimmick to catch the eye of the recruiter (not going to call it an ichiro as it was a bit different to how they have been described) into their mail folders. I met with a couple of other schools and had one interview that evening after receiving an invite in my mail folder.

The next day for sign up I was ready at 8am, but couldn't see the point of the rush, so hung back chatting to my buddy who had just accepted his offer and he was now planning a full weekend enjoying what London had to offer... about 5 mins later I wandered in and signed up for interviews with just about everyone I wanted - maybe because of my subject areas or where I was looking, but I didn't have to queue at all and by 9.30am I was done - another 7 interviews scheduled for the rest of the day and one first thing on Saturday.

The interviews that I had were great - top interviewers asking sensible questions and giving lots of decent information about the role and the school. During the interviews I was offered one job which I then had 24 hours to consider.

By the end of the day I was exhausted and just about fell into bed. But, I was very happy about the way things had gone.

My last interview was 8am on Saturday and then I was able to go to a presentation for a school I was keen to get an offer from, then it was the waiting game. I didn't want to stray too far from the hotel and I didn't want to appear too desperate by wandering in and out of the mail room, so I tried to read/mark/watch tv/stare at my clock for a while... By mid afternoon I had declined the first offer and received a NO from one, then another of my schools... I started to regret my decision to decline but then I got a call and offered the position at my first choice school, the one job I was holding out for... I was pretty excited by this stage - I signed a contract straight away (which I think is a bit uncommon) and then joined my friend who had caught the train down from the Midlands and we went out for dinner.

The next day I received one more offer but then I emailed the rest of the schools I had interviewed with and withdrew from their processes... I didn't want to waste their time and potentially them losing a candidate due to timing...

Then a bit of shopping, a nice lunch, some relaxing and then my ride picked me up and off to the airport and back home again for school straight from the airport on Monday...

PS - The school I accepted sent me all the paperwork requests today so things are moving nicely and I am very happy with the way things worked out. I found it a well run and organised fair and with the exception of the internet and the lifts (4 or 5 people in a life does not constitute overloading) it was a great opportunity for me.

I'd definitely go to another Fair!!!