The International Schools Review Forum

In general, do international schools allow teachers some prep time? Is this part of a teacher's schedule? Here in Canada, Ontario, we get 40 minutes of prep time every day.

Thanks for any info!

I'm assuming that it depends on the location and the school.

At my school we have 20 contact hours and 20 non contact hours.

Those 20 non-contact hours are for preparation, meetings and other duties such as clubs.

Most (if not all) should have prep. For example, if you're an Elementary teacher at an international school, there may be some subjects that you won't be able to teach ( e.g. native / mother languages of the host country, sometimes History because history is a culturally rooted subject that is often delivered in the mother tongue ).

In the school that I am working in right now, there are 7 periods but 2 - 3 prep periods / per day ( and this is not adding the full lunch hour of course ). In the last school I taught, sometimes I had as much as 3 - 4 prep periods.

At our large high school we teach 5 out of 8 classes in a two day rotation schedule. At the elementary school they get 90 minutes a day, which on paper looks fabulous, but once you take into account all the duties, team meetings and committees the teachers have to be on the time is really insignificant.

I am a MYP and DP teacher at an international school.

I have 21 contact hours and only 5.5 hrs prep time. Meetings also eats into this time...