Job Discussion Forums

[tweed]

Hello,
I am wondering if anyone has any information on Carlton International Schools? I have not seen any negative posts about them so I would like to think that they are a good school to work for. Any info on them would be greatly appreciated. I do not kow the location I would be working at other than that it is in Taipei county.
-T

[Aristotle]

I have never heard of that school before and can find no listing for it anywhere.
Are you sure it is not a placement agency or recruiter?

[tweed]

Kick to the head for me. It is spelt Carleton, with an e. They have thier own website with an English version that pales in information quantity to the Chinese version, which is understandable but I still wish I could know everything. I am sorry for the error and hope that you will still check into it.

[brian]

The first thing that I notice about this school is that nobody in the know has heard of them, even though they say that they are well established. On the positive side this could mean that no teachers have had any problems with them and therefore we never hear about them on these boards. On the negative side, they could be a new school or an existing school that has recently changed it�s name. Either way, I think that it is very wise to do some research before you make any commitment to them. The best way to do this is to make contact with some current, or even better, previous foreign teachers to get a real take on how the school operates. After all there is nothing better than first hand accounts.

Here is my take on the school, based purely on the offer that they make. I will be as cynical as I can.

They mention that there are other foreign staff members there, which can be better than working in a school as the sole foreigner, particularly if you are new to Taiwan.

Be wary of free accommodation. I believe in most cases these are genuine offers aimed at helping teachers, but are not always in your best interests. The school will have more control over you than if you find your own accommodation. As a short-term measure it is great. Even long term, provided that the school is a good school to work for then you should have no problems. If however things don�t work out the way that you expect, the last thing you want is to be living in a place that is owned or rented by your school. Might be better to see if you can swing an accommodation subsidy of the same value that you can put toward renting your own place. Avoid telling your school where you live if you can, just give them a contact number (preferably a cell phone number).

They say that they provide a cell phone, well that�s great. Saves you having to go to the trouble of getting one yourself.

Apparently they offer NTD50,000 for 107 hours a month (NB: They mention a base rate of NTD52,000 on their website � you may want to check this), which works out at just under NTD500 an hour. It doesn�t stipulate if these are teaching hours or office hours. If they are all teaching hours then the rate is on the low side. If it is a combination of teaching and office hours then it is reasonable. Ensure that a maximum number of teaching hours is written into your contract. Overtime at NTD550 per hour is pretty reasonable for a newcomer. Attendance bonus, student retention bonuses etc. are all great but shouldn�t be relied upon for anything more than pocket money. Don�t let bonuses cloud the issue of how much you are guaranteed each month. As far as bonuses go though, this school seems to be fairly generous.

Overall, I would say that it could be worth looking into as long as you are happy with the terms that they offer.

[tweed]

Thank you for your perspective on the offer that was made by Carleton Brian. I too was skeptical about the free accomodation but thought that by living with other teachers I would immediatley get to know whether the school was sketchy or not. I realize that the pay is low and it bothered me that there are an extra 10 hours per week that you are required to work but are not paid for. An actual day is 7 hours but due to snack time and 'breaks' that must be taken with the children it only counts for 5.9 teaching hours total. I am going to go with them and hope for the best. If all the promises of no weekends and meetings only during lunch breaks are true then I will be content. One last discrepency that occured on the contract itself was that in one place it said the contract lasted 52 months and in another it said 56. Odd. I was told it was actually 56 but still for an official contract to have such a blatant mistake? These are all the details I can supply. If anything sounds off please let me know! Thanks again.
-T

[brian]

Tweed you could have done a lot worse than accept the offer with them. I am sure that the concerns I raised won't become an issue for you, and hope that everything works out. Either way, please post an update after a month or so, so that we know!

[Polina]

It really depends on which school you work at, since they are all franchises, and have different hours, working conditions, contracts, pay, and managers. Treat each one like an individual school, not part of a uniform chain. Some of their schools have just as many problems as any other school.