Thank you, seashell. Working in international schools myself, I suspected that things would be fine but it's nice to have some confirmation from someone "on the ground" so to speak! Thanks for sharing. XX

For those of you experienced in working in Japan....I have a colleague whose husband has been offered a job in Tokyo. They have an adopted Chinese daughter amongst their 4 children. They are concerned that, even though the girl is essentially American through and through that there may be issues. There does still seem to be no love lost between the two nations........

Hi Fine Dude
I looked into this recently. Several bits of good news are that there are an increasing number of international schools in Australia. I know someone (slightly) who has worked there for a long time and who recently returned there and he always gave glowing reports.
However (and I am very interested to hear better information if I am mistaken) when I looked into the whole visa situation the news was less encouraging. It used to be that the individual state education boards would offer sponsorship to teaching candidates. I gather that this has now ceased. Everyone has to go through the Australian visa process first, then apply separately to regional education centres, rather than individual schools. Certainly, this was the situation as described to me in a recent email from the Western Australia education board.
But back to the good news: High school teachers, especially in shortage subjects are still very much on the list of "desirable occupations" so if you are interested I think getting a visa would not be too hard.
Unfortunately for me I am a little older now, so I may not qualify :wink: but I am not telling you how old that is!
Hope this helps.

Yeah Sid said it really well.
I don't think there are THAT many schools where everything is a seething morass of mad parents and vile admin.
After a few weeks, most nasty experiences settle into the category of 'ancient history."
I am not admin either, but when you go abroad you ain't in Kansas anymore. You have to develop a tough skin and be wary of the culture biting you in the ass. You just can't handle things the way you might back home.
Many (not all) of the reviews on this site bug the crap out of me because they involve people whining about things they could have easily discovered in advance, with a bit of effort. I am not saying what happened falls into the category of whining, don't let a wrong step develop into a huge hate campaign where everything goes poisonous.
Whilst everything seems to be staying positive, KEEP IT THERE. Put a positive spin on things now, and in your future dealings with all concerned. Sometimes a tough experience early on can evolve into a good thing in the long run - assuming your friend is in it for the long run and doesn't want to just go home!

Hmmmm. Without knowing where and what school it's hard to know what to say. Being the person I am, my advice tends towards the "get on with it cheerfully and do you best" end of the spectrum. If the salary is still coming in and admin remains "nice" then you could do far worse than get up to speed with something you aren't too great with, especially if you are getting valuable experience in IB.
I took an extra class for most of this year (basically helping out the school) and it was uphill but oiled up some rusty skills rather nicely.
As for psychotic parents I suppose they exist everywhere. If the admin is truly "nice" then they'll know all about this sort of situation (and maybe about this particular parent.)
If your friend is in a "for profit" school and the paycheck is still coming in then they should take it as a vote of confidence. If they are in a really good non-profit then maybe it really is a "poor fit" in which case, keep smiling, carry on, get the reference and go somewhere else.
Well, there's my optimistic take. Anyone else take a darker view?

Yeah, we're hoping that will work for us too!

Any views on this? It's worked for us in the past, but things change fast. I know some schools invite year round expressions of interest but has anyone tried this approach and found it worked against them?
Happy summer to you all! XX

@psyguy
Yup, I couldn't agree more. I must admit, in the past I have put my name forward to say I would be open to teaching ToK. Never had it offered my way. They tend to give it to folks who don't teach much like tech leaders and admin cos they're too tight to let science teachers teach anything but science. ;-)
Personally, my current opinion is never to teach anything that might take you ANYWHERE near religion in any classroom discussion or activity.
After all, we have recently seen where even talking about Islam gets us when students choose to misunderstand and exercise their spiteful little fundamentalist egos.
Nah, I wouldn't touch ToK with a bargepole unless I was in liberal Western Europe. It's an open invitation to get locked up in SOME regions I won't mention......... :wink:

Hi!
All the ESS teachers I know tend to come from sciences.
You might join the ESS forum on the OCC and ask the question.
When you first get your training, a lot of us tut-tut about the perceived "lack of rigor" in the exams. But once you get under the skin of it you realise what a great course it is. Really, it's a thinking skills course, given a context of environmental studies - I think it should be compulsory, perhaps instead of ToK! (Waits for landslide of criticism......!)
Seriously, it's VERY useful, VERY practical and mainly students like it a lot.
X

OK this is mad, I keep trying to put the word "-" into the above review and all that comes out is a -
lets try this
A
N
A
L
Y
S
E

Anyone know why the world - will not work on this forum? Or is it only me who sees this?

Bwaaahhh haaa haaa! That is hilarious.
Qatari teachers? Haaaa haaaaa.
There are one or two out there who are pretty good. The vast majority are...........
ah forget it

Hi All
I have taught ESS for 4 years and am an examiner in the subject. My background is science all the way, inc. IB bio.
ESS is only at SL.
I love it. It is a wonderful group 3 and group 4 crossover. It has scientific rigor - to teach it you MUST be able to thoroughly understand the scientific method (controlled variables, research questions, data processing etc etc)
Basically it is a very data-led course, and the best students are those with strong higher order thinking skills.
Students can relatively easily understand the content, but the gulf between the content on the page and applying it in the exams is considerable. It is no good being passionate about environmental issues (although that helps), successful students should be able to - data and justify arguments and evaluations.
The kicker is that it is often not accepted as a science by many universities, but works as a brilliant foil for those kids who are going the business/economics route as it opens their eyes to the fact that environmental initiatives and legislation increasingly permeate the business world these days.
And yes, it can be a substitute science for those who are not science type - but be aware that it is NOT "easy." Weaker candidates will struggle in any subject and ESS is no different.
:)