Job Discussion Forums

[dis_appearer]

Hi Everyone,

I would just like to ask if anyone on the board has had any experience as a teacher with Delia School of Canada. If you have any information, pro or con, I would be most grateful to hear about your experience.

Sincerely,

Meaghan

[Bertrand]

I have never worked for them; nor would I ever. I have been told quite bad things about them. They are just opening up a new campus in Kowloon Tong (you have no doubt seen the TV ads) but remember that it is a low band school and has quite a bad reputation for Asian kids with money but no manners.

[ChrisRose]

Hmm, allow me to reply.

Firstly I do not nor have ever worked for Delia, however having worked in 19 local schools I can say this.

The students at DSC are pretty well developed cognativly and socially. Yes, they do seem loud and obnoxious when oyu see them pouring out of the campus, however they are developed as individuals, om a cognative, seuxal, emotional, and communactive level.

When we compare them to local students, we should consider, which school has managed to help students develope into active adolesants, the local schools or the International schools?


As for thier behvaour outside school, well that is a matter for either parents or the school to consider. I would suggest guidlines for behavour of students whilst in uniform outside the school. Apart from that, I think they are doing a very good job.

My only dislikes are; the fact they have to follow the Canadian syllabus, and hte extremely expensive books the students must purchase.

[ChrisRose]

The previous poster raised an interesting point.

With regards to special needs teaching in local schools, well my previous school, one of the Po Leung kuk schools, had 7 special needs classes in forms p1 to p6.

Regardless of the excellent teachers, all HK.IEd grads, the headmistress, insisted on micro managing and refusing to let the teachers do what was in the best interest for the students.

e.g. 70% of spoken English is in the simple present tense. Now the schools duty is to empower the students with skills they will apply in real life. The students were al very nice, but just not able to cope with the regular syllabus.

The school (headmistress) insisted that they should follow the regular P5 syllabus. Something that they just were not cognitively able to do. So they would sit an have their self esteem evaporate and 5 mins. before the bell, the teacher would write the answers on the board, and they would then copy them into their books. Talk about a total waste of teaching time and counter productive!

Most international schools, since they are not bound by the local syllabus, have the budgets of time and teacher resources to allow students more self development and personalisation of leaning aims. That is not to say that they don't have to follow their own countries core syllabus, but rather they allow for more flexibility of the core syllabus with more formative assessment.

All I can say is God bless the educational reforms, and forced early retirement for local heads, the benchmark proficiency testing! Too many people in the local sector are just not up to the demands of a knowledge based economy and the need for social capital.