I've been a member of Schrole for a while. I applied for a job yesterday and when I hit the submit button a message came up saying something along the lines of, "this school has been directly notified of your application." I have not had this message before and am wondering if schools have the ability to flag the activity of certain applicants. I interviewed with this school a couple of years ago, but was not successful. I realise this is probably wishful thinking, but it doesn't hurt to dream! Thoughts?

We've had 'financial advisors' peddling these 'pensions' to teachers at both the schools I've worked at (two different continents). If you are considering investing in a pension from deVere, Royal London 360 (RL360), (Royal) Skandia, Friend Provident (Friends Life), Nomura, Generali, or Zurich International, you might want to think again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... lions.html

Here's some extra info.

http://andrewhallam.com/category/expat- ... provident/

If you are out of the country you can't maintain your healthcare, it's not allowed. A residence (a house) would be considered a major tie, unless it is rented out (at arms length). Having a mailing address (like your parents house, for example) is not an issue. Having a bank account, a driver's license, credit card are all minor ties and are not going to be taken into account unless you are shown to have established major ties.

Do the following and you should be fine;
1. Don't leave you property empty (if you have one)
2. Don't spend more than a couple of months a year in Canada
3. Take your wife and kids with you
4. Stay out of the country for at least a couple of years

Incidentally, the last time I was home I applied for a new driver's license. I was asked if I was a resident of Canada (I said, yes, because I thought I was going to be denied a driver's license). However, when the lady gave the form to sign at the end, there was no mention of this question (I did not sign to say I was resident). I say this because someone discussed this same issue in the UK on the TES forum. It would seem non-resident Canadians may be denied driver's licenses in the future.

Just so you know, I'm not breaking a contract. I fully intend to finish my two years before possibly moving on. I'd like to move to a better school, preferably without moving home. We're trying to keep the costs down and we like where we live.

Quick question, do schools in Shanghai allow their teachers to move between schools (in Shanghai) after contracts are finished? How do the schools treat teachers coming from other schools in Shanghai? Local or expat contracts? I heard SAS treats these teachers as locals, but then Yew Chung gives overseas hire package. Just to clarify, I'm one part of a teaching couple with no connection to China other than work. Thanks in advance.

We're the only family in our school, we're surrounded by singles. They seem to do just fine. Our salary is including the housing allowance. There are far better paying schools and better places to work, but you will not be poverty stricken by any means. We rarely use the metro (maybe once every three months), and take taxis everywhere. Anywhere we usually want to go costs 15 to 35ish, and that includes a whole bunch of western restaurants in Hongqiao. To get to the Bund would be about 75-80RMB. I think the most we ever paid was about 110RMB and that was to somewhere in Pudong. Taxis to the airport will cost around 200RMB. Out of our salary we also pay for a fulltime housekeeper/cook (non-live in - 5500RMB a month) and 2500RMB for a fulltime preschool place for our daughter (partially subsidized by our school).

wntriscoming, SAS is not the norm and it doesn't mean everything below that is terrible.

As a couple we take home 54,000RMB a month, including the housing allowance. Shanghai is pricey if you go out clubbing every weekend and don't cook at all. We eat locally once a week (four of us) for about 250RMB. Every two weeks we go to a decent western place. Probably costs us 600RMB, and there's plenty of beer/wine included in that.

We rent a very well maintained and fitted three bedroom apartment in a lovely compound, about 15 minutes south of HQIS. It costs us 8000RMB a month.

We go home in the summer and have two vacations a year (South East Asia). We also save US$30,000 a year.

I'm not feeling poverty stricken. We don't really skimp.

We save $3000 a month as a teaching couple, not individually. Jointly we take home about $8500 (inc. housing allowance) in what most teachers would consider a lower second tier school in China. We have four years experience each. This is our first year here after having moved from another continent. We have not had a holiday this year (except back in our home country at Christmas), because we know we have to maintain that savings amount. Next year will be way easier and we should be able to squeeze in two decent vacations during the year. We live in one of the more expensive Chinese city, but we certainly don't skimp on going out.

It really depends when you start saving.

My wife and I are early forties, but have only been teaching for four years total and basically went straight into international teaching. After the first year we've managed to save about $3000 a month and that has been across two locations, one in Asia, one in Africa. We know we can't let that drop, but so far it seems a reasonable amount to go for, and given our limited experience, our salaries are likely to rise in the coming years.

This is a very useful tool http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/financ ... ulator.php

It may look worse than it is for many of us. If you started overseas in your thirties, then you probably have a partial pension elsewhere. In some counties you can keep paying social security / insurance when you are overseas, so that you still fulfil the requirements for a full state pension. Both of these should keep pace with inflation, so what you need to do is work out how to fill the gap. I can tick boxes 3, 4, and 5 on PsyGuy's list.

First thing you have to do is think about how much you would like to retire on if it were today. Obviously, you need some idea where you might like to retire, but let's say you'd be happy with $50,000 a year for you and your partner and you plan on retiring in twenty years time. First thing you need to do is adjust the $50,000 for inflation. Let's say it's 2.5% year, which will mean you're going to need about $80,000 when you retire to match that $50,000 you're thinking about today. How you amass the finances to give you $80,000 a year is going to vary. Let's assume you invest in low cost diversified index funds. It's fairly well accepted that you can only draw about 4% from your investment per year and still maintain some growth (your money won't run out). So, if you want to draw $80,000 a year off your investment, you need to accumulate $2,000,000. If that is your target and you have twenty years to save it, you need to be saving about $4000 a month, every month for the full twenty years. This is assuming annual growth of 6 to 7% a year (dividends reinvested).

Possibly not the answer you were looking for, but it might scare someone into taking action now!

Pretty scary stuff, eh!?@!

"QTS is a license, but for OTTs it does not endorse subject or grade level mastery. While The teachers College will input subject and grade level fields, they have clarified that these are not evidence or endorsement of the Secretary of Education that a teacher meets subject matter competency. To simplify QTS is recognition of meeting requirements for "professional teacher" it is not certification that an OTT is a primary, maths, science, literature, humanities qualified teacher."

That's the same as BC and Alberta, blanket K-12 certification is given, but nobody is going to give you a job teaching calculus if your experience is in kindergarten. Common sense prevails...most of the time.

As the person in questions posts on every single thread, removing said posts would make every thread completely nonsensical. Great in theory, not very practical in reality. Also, I believe the private message function was removed a couple of weeks ago.

I understand Shanghai Community International School is now offering pollution pay. I know this is also being discussed by at least one other Shanghai school.

I agree with almost everything you say, although at our school we find the actual textbook stories are too long and sometimes too complicated for the 4th and 5th grade students, few of whom are native speakers. This doesn't seem to be an issue from grades 1 to 3. The program is very formulaic and it would be easy just to dish out the grammar, practice and spelling work, combined with a few min-lessons, which in all honesty is what I've been doing. I'm now trying to take out the essential components (vocab, grammar, lesson focus, etc) and restructure it in more of a student driven Daily Five style.

I don't find the online programs particularly useful, but have a couple of alternatives that are more effective. I also know what you mean by the flashy box and big price tag. It's not a bad program at all, but, as you say, the individual components could be bought at a fraction of the price.