Yes, I was referring to weekly; at that school we had some weird scheduling quirks that were very hard to quantify, even on a weekly level (rotating ABC schedule with shorter periods but an extra class on Wednesdays).

> I don't, I know what I prioritize better than anyone else, just as @Thames Pirate
> knows better than you and anyone else what she can save each month.

Haha! I'd forgotten this one of PsyGuy's nonsense responses. Classic.

[quote=EyEyEy post_id=61539 time=1624712786 user_id=254662]
I've read many topics since joining this forum in March and lots of it is really interesting & helpful. However, most of the time I'm just wondering: who is this @PsyGuy clown?
He's almost always wrong but still posts more than all others combined. He just keeps repeating falsehoods, and formulating a well-structured and error-free sentence seems to be beyond his abilities. Imagine having someone like him on your debate team.
At first it was amusing, like a class clown can be, but he's not funny and he's actively spreading misinformation. I'm glad some people are pushing back but it only seems to be encouraging him.
I'm not on many forums so I'm not too familiar with internet trolls but he seems to be one: insecure, and not half as smart as he would like to be. I feel sorry for his students.
[/quote]

Nailed it. PsyGuy is great if you want to know how to get certified in Underwater Basket Weaving in North Dakota. He's very knowledgable about getting certifications and the pathways involved. But beyond that he is all talk. Most of us just roll our eyes, some of us argue with him to varying degrees, and some actually believe him. He also likes to repeat a point others make, but with more words. Take his advice for what it is.

There is generally no difference between the overseas and the local hire except in the initial relocation package. My experience is that EU schools do cover relocation, but not annual flights home and that they offer the same medical insurance to all hires--often the local public insurance. So it's often a matter of rules re: visas as to whether you are a local or an overseas hire. But of course schools vary wildly.

Just wanted to add that there was a typo in my previous post--77%, not 87%. Apologies if people thought that anyone required that much work!

It can be tricky to tabulate when you add in things like seminars or tutor or homeroom or advisory type classes. Is a 10 minute homeroom "teaching" time? Contact time? Is it linked to a weekly or monthly advisory of some kind? Is prep required for such a class? When you are on a rotation schedule you might work more one week and less the next. If you have schedules with once/week shorter periods it can be even more tricky to calculate.

At one school I taught 87% plus a seminar, but only two preps. At another I taught 30% but had significant extra responsibilities (program coordination, administrative duties); normal was about 60%. Those are my extremes. But perhaps my most stressful job was one at which my teaching contact time was average--maybe 60%--because of the number of preps (6), extra responsibilities, and poor administration. My easiest was one at which I taught about 65% with four prepssimply because we were well run and had super support.

I would say in my experience the average is about 2/3.

I think (correct me if I am wrong) what Heliotrope means is avoiding the high-demand areas in favour of lesser ones. Everyone wants a place like Bangkok or Taiwan, but far fewer people want Cambodia. Yet my friends who taught there LOVED it. They also taught in the Kurdish region of Iraq, and it was their favourite posting. In both cases they said the school was excellent, and both had the IBDP. Central America might also be a great option. Many of these schools will provide IB PYP or ICP training. That said, you also want to live a bit more immersed and learn the local language. Central America would give you Spanish, but Cambodia would be the far less accessible or useful Khmer. Flights home would be cheaper from Cambodia, though.

While there are a lot of teachers who want to go to Bangkok, there are also a lot of schools. You might have better luck getting in at the "lower" end of the spectrum for a first posting. What I mean by that is that schools vary in quality. Here you will often hear them called Tier 1-3. There is no hard and fast definition, but typically the "Tier 1" schools are the older, more established international schools. These are often the ones recommended by, for example, the US State Dept and often have the children of diplomats. They are highly international in terms of both staff and students and tend to have the best pay and benefits. They typically offer IB or AP or both and have established programs and reputations. It's harder to get in as a teacher, though I wouldn't rule it out, either--applying never hurt anyone. Tier 2 schools are often very good as well; sometimes they are simply the second school in a city. These, depending on the city, might also be quite competitive. Tier 3 schools range wildly, from for-profit diploma mills to up and coming but small schools to ones with a specialised vision to ones that are great but serve an almost entirely local population. Some of them can be really fantastic places to work, though the package may not be as generous. Some of them are dumps in which you would be miserable. Some are great for kids but not teachers and vice versa. Caution is advised. Remember that tier classifications are entirely subjective and based on reputation, hearsay, and factors that may or may not be important to any given person. Use the descriptions as a guide only.

A place like Cambodia is likely to have only one main school, but because the destination isn't at the top of most people's list and the school is not out of this world, it generally isn't considered a Tier 1. AIS Dhaka often makes the list of top schools in terms of places to work or be a student, but the living conditions are not ideal, so people might not want to go. Both of these are worth a look, but both might be competitive. For a first posting, a great many people end up at a "lower tier" school, where they get IB trained, get into the international teaching world, and sometimes fall in love and stay. Do not let anyone tell you that a "lower tier" is not as good simply because of some imagined prestige; if it is a place you enjoy teaching and allows you a life you love, what more do you need?

To answer the rest of your post more specifically:
--High demand places: China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and some other SE Asia are probably the highest and places like Mongolia are probably lowest. But of course there is a simple supply / demand equation at work. At the moment, nobody wants to go to Turkmenistan, so the demand is high ;) The better question is "where are there jobs available that I could see myself accepting?"
--Pay varies wildly. Some schools pay peanuts but provide housing. Some pay well and provide nothing. Some pay well and provide housing. Do your homework on things like local tax rate, local housing, average cost of things like transportation, and whether flights home or relocation allowances are included.
--Most schools are private, though many receive funding--sometimes from a specific government (Turkey has schools in many places, for example), sometimes from host governments--and this money may or may not come with strings. But the US has Department of Defence schools, and I'd imagine these exist for other countries. These are often not counted in the "international school" circuit.
--Yes, benefits vary wildly, both by location and individual schools. Some schools have fixed contracts, while others allow you to negotiate.
--Yes and no. It never hurts to get familiar with those things, but I wouldn't pay to get training in the PYP. Wait until a school hires you and let them pay for it.
--TEFL isn't necessarily a huge asset, though of course it doesn't hurt. Just be good at what you do. Extracurriculars, leadership, etc. might also be factors--if the football coach retires, the school might need someone able to fill that role.

At the end of the day it's homework, homework, homework.

Best of luck!

I think it's great! There is no single skill or concept or novel that must be taught at a certain time or in a certain order for the overwhelming majority of subjects. We know that in many countries students, particularly in a highly mobile population or where language might be a factor, might be in a grade other than what their chronological age might dictate. We also know that students come with a range of abilities and motivation levels, and we have to differentiate instruction already. So what's the big deal?

If you haven't signed the new contract, you are under no obligation to stay. If you have, you are still free to go, but there may be more consequences re: hiring, local penalties, etc.

I would simply weigh the pros and cons of staying another year, make a choice on whether the new contract works for me for a year, and then act accordingly by either signing or leaving on the best terms you can manage at this point. Only you know what those terms might be or what the pros and cons of staying are. It sounds like this isn't an attempt to pull the rug out from under teachers, but rather a reorganisation of what should and should not be in the contract. That isn't a red flag to me. But again, you know more details than we do, and that's a gut reaction.

If you decide to stay put in a pandemic, that's totally reasonable. But then next year you will have to consider how this was handled on the part of the school as well as the reasons for the changes. If it was local law, could it happen again? If it was shady business on the part of admin, could it happen again? How likely is that? Can you live with that?

And either way, but especially if you decide to leave, will you find something better right now? It's pretty late in the game. Incidentally, my guess is the May European hiring season will be slim at best because of Covid. But that's speculation, and you won't know if you don't try.

Which is interesting since by far the biggest expat group in Dubai is Indian, followed by Pakistani as a distant second. Having been around those students, they are every bit TCK, even if they have spent their entire lives in Dubai. Sad that anyone would not consider that an international school.

To me a domestic school is a school with almost all domestic students and staff, doing a domestic curriculum with a domestic mindset. There are some ITs who would love to be the lone international at such schools, and it can be really cool, particularly if you are looking to immerse and fully emigrate.

There are some schools that are mostly domestic in terms of passports of individuals, but teach an international and internationally-minded curriculum (most often the IB, but not exclusively). These are usually mixed in with domestic schools in terms of hiring and can be true gems--kids who may have never traveled but want to know more about the world around them, staff who are local but love teaching literature and history and such from around the world, etc. These opportunities generally require teachers to search via host nation channels.

When schools with mostly local students recruit staff heavily from abroad, they are often termed international schools. These again come in the "give us a white guy diploma" and the "our local kids want a truly international experience" varieties, the latter always being exciting, the former often being better funded. Both can offer neat opportunities depending on the teacher.

Then there are the schools that are "international" in that they are not host nation schools--the German school in Kobe or the Japanese school in Cairo or DOD schools--but which are not truly international in terms of curriculum, mindset, diversity of passports, etc. These can also be neat opportunities--familiar curriculum, culture within the school, built in community of people from your culture, but still living abroad. But of course some ITs find them restrictive and narrow in mindset as well.

Then there are the old school truly international schools--often the embassy schools or ones linked with major international businesses with kids and staff from around the world. These, like any school, offer pros and cons.

This is why it's so hard to define "international" schools or to create lists. One of the most interesting, dynamic, and internationally minded schools in which I ever worked was actually a local school with mostly domestic teachers in the US. Interestingly, it drew a VERY disproportionate number of minority students from within the local community largely because of its cultural diversity and open-mindedness. I have not seen that level of engagement with the world even in the old-school international schools with 50+ passports.

I guess it depends on if you mean "not host nationals" vs. "lots of nationalities." If the former, yeah, most schools would have few Emiratis. If the latter, there is likely a range that can probably be very dramatic. But of course, that comes back to the question: What do you call "international teaching"? Is an American at Washington IS or really a host national teaching in any IS an "international teacher"? Is an expat teacher in a nominally international school with 95%+ host nation students an "international teacher"? If you teach kids from your nation who just happen to be geographically elsewhere but culturally all host nation, is that "international teaching"?

That's my point--without knowing what the definition of what the OP wants is, how do we answer the question?

There are tons of schools that are not on ISS/Schrole. They vary in how good they are or how international they are.

Just to give you an idea, there are probably 75 schools reviewed on ISR (though many may be duplicates with the name entered differently or no longer exist) in the UAE. There are 22 listed on Search. The UAE is something like 80% expats, so pretty much every school there will be moderately international. I know of at least a handful that are neither on Search nor ISR. I am no longer active on ISS, so I can't tell you if they are on there. Judging by the caliber of student at those schools, they are great institutions (can't speak to what it's like to work there).

Scandinavian schools are far less likely to use agencies (Norway has 2 on Search, 11 on ISR). Boarding schools outside of Switzerland are minimally represented by the agencies, especially those in Western countries. If you are looking to teach in places like the UK, Aus, NZ, Canada, US (which may be international to you), few schools are listed. Religious schools are less likely to be listed with agencies. Very small schools are unlikely to be listed (think places like Monaco or Iceland). Compare IB schools (and I know that many are not actually international, but often bilingual) on the IB site with those listed with agencies and you will find huge differences in lists. Or maybe your country has a school in a surprising place that mostly recruits domestically (there are Japanese schools in Cairo and German schools in Japan, for example). For Americans, the DOD is an option.

There are literally TONS of really good and really crap schools out there not listed with agencies. That's why asking for a list is a bit too broad. But if you are looking for a quality reputable school that is truly international in a specific region, we might be better able to help you.

Are you talking about major truly international schools ("tier 1/2") or IB schools or anything calling itself international? Because the list would be impossibly long and ever-changing.

Maybe if you narrowed your request down?

Agreed--there is a difference between "leadership is a bunch of sociopaths" and three consecutive reviews that talk about the poor resources or problems with the health plan. The former is sour grapes; the latter is a warning to consider a specific issue.

Illiane_Blues wrote:
> $800-1000USD???
> If there is a big market for this I'm switching careers.

Seriously! In today's world, with so many templates and how-to guides on the internet, how are people not able to do this themselves? I've always had friends and trusted coworkers--including HR--look over my work periodically, but we expect a minimum of this level of work and thinking from our students. My husband and I have always had great success getting what we want with our paperwork.

If you are friends with your school's HR department or person who normally screens the applicants, see if you can pick their brains for what they like or what gets an application binned. These gatekeepers, particularly at desirable schools, are no longer gatekeeping you. They may be willing to share, especially if they are venting about the annoyances of their jobs. These people are often the first hurdle, so knowing how to get past them is important. Most of it is also obvious stuff. For example, emails that are sent to multiple schools, sometimes with a failed BCC, are tossed. Ones with the name of an administrator or other appropriate individual are more likely to be read. Following directions is also a requirement for getting past gatekeepers. Provide everything they request in the format they prefer, and nothing extra. Anything that requires extra work to decipher is not worth their time when they can get 1000 applications per job.

If you offer to swap CVs or cover letters with friends for proofing, you also get to see the styles they use to see what you think is good or bad about each one. Judge those against the response rate the friend later gets. Doing it over coffee allows you to discuss as you go, so you can see people's reasoning for and experience with different elements of formatting, etc.

I cannot imagine paying for a service for something so simple. Saving cover letters you've written gives you a template for future applications as well, particularly if it got a response. It isn't hard to make quick tweaks or personalisations based on the particular job or school to which you are applying.

Congratulations on your job! Best wishes.