Brilliant, thank you!

Anyone know where most of these are advertised? Is there a free resource similar to TES? I paid for ISS Schrole this round, and there didn't seem to be many.

Thanks for the responses! I'll see if my school will be willing to do it (they're pretty above board, though also incompetent) and go for your recommendation BM12 if not.

I have a local friend who is pretty good at navigating thai bureaucracy so may also see if they can give it a go.

if you can get the second school to commit to the teaching placement, I'd go for that. Will set you up very well for the future.

Hi All

Has anyone managed to get their tax back in thailand? If so, how did you do it?

There are a number of companies online that will do it for you, but they want up to 50% of what they get back (around 4k GBP!)

I'm looking at doing it myself. Has anyone managed it? Or can anyone recommend a company that works and takes a smaller cut?

Thanks in advance

Thanks! It's honestly such a nice position to be in, will be good to interview without the spectre of unemployment looming above me. Means I can genuinely assess whether or not the school will be a good fit. It sounds brilliant but I also love my current school so wouldn't mind staying another year (sadly the city isn't one that my partner and I can tolerate for more than that).

Yes, he is being very kind. I was pleasantly surprised. People say some relatively unkind things about him, but I've never seen him be unreasonable. Went to write a review for him here, and the existing ones are terrible! Feel bad for him if I'm honest. Maybe he's turned over a new leaf for 2020? Shall be getting him something either way!

So, they contacted my HOS - and it turns out that I've never given him enough credit.

He first gave me the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was an application submitted from before I signed my contract. When I said that it wasn't, he called me in for a meeting and I assumed that he was confirming that I wouldn't be coming back at the end of the year (I was 100% sure that he wouldn't fire me, I knew he was too decent to do that).

Instead he said I could go forward with the interview and they'd hold my place at the school, but made it clear that I wouldn't be allowed to do this again. He even gave me advice as he's familiar with the school I'm interviewing at.

So I guess I do get to have my cake and eat it?

I better go and write up a nice review for him!

Thank you guys for all of your advice throughout this.

Oh it wouldn't be that bad. Worst thing they could do is let me go at the end of the year OR pay me 3 months in lieu. There's nothing in our contract about applying for other jobs being gross misconduct/grounds for dismissal.

HOS is actually pretty chill and realistic. He knows that this isn't the type of school that people stay in forever. I just don't want to put him in an awkward position if I'm not even shortlisted. I don't think he'll be hugely surprised as I've brought the 'dream' school up in previous meetings. If he knows theres a vacancy for my subject, he may even suspect that I'm applying...so hopefully that would head off any knee jerk firings!

Fingers crossed!

Thanks! Though i'll be screwed if the Head somehow gets wind of it.

I guess the only thing they can do is give me a bad reference and ditch me for next year?

Hi All

Thanks for the responses, they have made for interesting reading!

Ultimately, I'm pretty happy at my current school, but of the 'interesting' positions, one really was a 'dream' job. Ended up contacting them and telling them that I would be pulling out of an existing contract to go to them. They seem fine with it so shall go ahead with the application, if my current place decide to fire me if/when they get a reference request, then so be it. HOD is aware that I've applied and thinks that backing out wouldn't be too bad as long as I go to a different country.

In this case, I'm not too worried by the 'moral' aspect of things. My school employ people who've ghosted (and I really mean ghosted as in just didn't show up after the holidays, not just backing out of a contract) their previous schools and we do have a notice period. Backing out of the contract with 7 months to go is surely preferable to using the much shorter notice period?

Anyways, I'm hoping to have my cake and eat it, but we'll see.

(Legally, I'm totally fine as the country I'm in has strong worker protections, the school is shady on this front and tells expats that said protections don't apply to us...they do. They shouldn't even ask for intent, let alone signing, this far in advance.)

Thanks for the response :)

I'll think on it over Christmas, they haven't started advertising yet so I suspect that they're waiting for people to come back in the new year and say they've changed their minds. It's very much a tier 2/3 school so we were all a bit miffed at being asked this early on.

So our school asked for contracts to be signed this December, it used to be January.

I was feeling pretty happy (end of term mood) and signed.

Now some excellent vacancies are up in considerably better cities, with considerably better packages.

If I were to back out of the new contract, what would the repercussions be? Is it that much of a 'big deal' or is it pretty common?

Thank you for your insight.

Sadly, I failed to do my due-diligence have found myself at a school with incredibly low academic standards. They'll place students into an IB subject when they FAILED said subject at GCSE. We have students taking IB when they only passed 3 GCSE subjects.

At interview, the school was sold to me as highly academic, others here fell into the same trap. I recently discovered that my predecessor had to take a pay cut and a significant increase in workload in order to get out. I'm worried that the same thing will happen to me.

The two classes I inherited are all heading towards failure. The ones I've started with seem to be doing better, as I managed to dissuade those who really weren't suited to the subject, but the culture at the school is very poor. 'High expectations' seem to be completely alien.

Previously, the lowest grade I've had at GCSE was a B, but here, that will be a push for my 'top' students.

I'm planning to sit out the two year contract, but when I go searching for jobs this time next year, the only results I will have will be these terrible ones.

How much of an impact will this have on me managing to secure a good position for Sept 2020? Any tips on things I can do to mitigate the effect that these results will have on my job prospects?

N.B. Obviously I'm doing everything I can to get the students the best grades that they are capable of given their circumstances. However, based on the results from mid-term assessments, previous results (which obviously weren't published, or given at interview. The head is new and I naively believed her when she said that she didn't have that information), and what the IB students achieved, these results aren't going to be anywhere near what I, and many others, would consider acceptable.

Thank you for the reply PsyGuy

I got a response today, I think I had just been emailing the wrong woman! She seemed to be coordinating the arrivals stuff (not a peep was wrong, over the three weeks I got a line back saying everything was okay but still no details) but I tried a different lady today and she CC'd a bunch of people in and I ended up with a useful reply within the hour.

Your advice was spot on and I should have just shown up (though I would have missed a day's worth of things and shown up a few hours late). If I hadn't gone I would have just stayed in my home country and found a job there.

Apologies for hijacking the thread but I'm having a similar problem.

I have a signed contract etc. they've sent me a timetable and everything has seemed normal BUT I'm supposed to be flying out on Friday (I paid for the ticket and they're supposed to reimburse me once I arrive) and I haven't heard a thing in 3 weeks.

Induction is on Monday but they haven't given a time or place. The school are on holiday now and I haven't had any replies to my emails. Do I just go? I've probably left this a bit late tbh!