Job Discussion Forums

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

I know that some people on here work/have worked in international K-12 schools, and I would love a survey of your experiences. I'm in a Canadian K-12 school at the moment (in Canada) and I am blown away by the workload. Some of my colleagues started their teaching careers in other countries, and they say they had far fewer outside-of-class committments in their home countries.

What are your weekly teaching hours?

Do you receive any paid prep time?

How much unpaid time do you spend marking per week (on average)?

How much time do you spend per week in mandatory meetings?

What are your administrative responsibilities?

Are you required to teach an extra-curricular activity? What time committment is expected?

Are you required to supervise students before school, at lunch and after school? How often and for how long?

I may think of more questions, but these are some of the ones that my colleagues have pointed out differ greatly from country to country, so I'm now wondering about how they work in international schools.

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

To help out, I will write about what I am experiencing in a Canadian K-12 school... which may reveal why international schools sound so appealing...

What are your weekly teaching hours?
Monday to Thursday - 8:50 - 3:35, Friday 8:50 to 2:00. Our day is divided into four eighty-minute periods, a ten-minute homeroom, a thirty-minute lunch and several three-minute locker breaks for the students to move between classes.

Do you receive any paid prep time?
Each day, I get one of the eighty-minute periods to prep.

How much unpaid time do you spend marking per week (on average)?
I spent about four or five hours of my own time marking each week.

How much time do you spend per week in mandatory meetings?
We have hour-long staff meetings every Friday morning and similar department meetings most Friday afternoons. Every other week there is an hour-long meeting based on which grade level you teach most often.

What are your administrative responsibilities?
Some of the things I am responsible for:
- Taking attendance in each class and keeping track of absences and lates
- Phoning home when lates, absences or behaviour disrupt learning
- Formally referring students to counselling, career services and administration when appropriate
- Attending two parent-teacher interviews per semester (four per year - usually from 10:00 am to 9:00 pm)
- Reading psychological evaluations of students in my homeroom class who have been identified as special-needs, and designing long-term learning plans for those students
- Reading long-term learning plans for special-needs students in my regular classes and designing short-term goals for them to achieve within my classes
- Meeting with special-needs students' advisors to confirm that my lesson plans accommodate the students' special needs
- Formally evaluating my ESL's students use of English within my classes

Are you required to teach an extra-curricular activity? What time committment is expected?
I am required to teach at least one extra-curricular activity. A normal amount of time to spend on this would be one lunch period and one afternoon (until 5:00) per week. People who coach sports usually receive an extra prep block, but people who do things like debate and model UN (these clubs normally meet with other schools - ON THE WEEKEND!) don't get an extra prep.

Are you required to supervise students before school, at lunch and after school? How often and for how long?
I am required to provide lunchtime supervision for three weeks out of the school year. This involves eating lunch while walking around the halls monitoring the students. People who do more than one extra-curricular activity only supervise for one or two weeks per year.

Other
Twice per year, I am required to clean the staff room for a week. This means that every day that week I put everyone's dishes in the dishwasher, run it and empty it. I'm also supposed to make sure the coffee machine is okay, but since I don't drink coffee I don't know how it works! I just leave it for the next person!

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

I doubt if the workload would be that different at an international school, though you probably would have somebody to clean out the coffee machine for you.

saint57 · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:06 am Post subject:

I teach at an Ontario school in Malaysia. For the most part, the workload is the exact same as at home. The only difference is that our school is part of a university college so teachers really don't have to play the prison guard role here.

markholmes · Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 661 Location: Wengehua

JetGirl - have you posted this on www.tes.co.uk and www.internationalschoolsreview.com ? You might get a better response.

The_Hanged_Man · Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 224 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia

I teach at an international school in Kuwait. You don't want to work at an international school for a smaller workload. At most of the good schools you will just as much as you did back home.

The following are good reasons to work at an international school.

1. Travel/Lifestyle - This is fairly obvious.
2. Improved savings potential - At many schools you can save around half your salary or around $15,000 USD per year on average.
3. More academic freedom - Most international schools have significantly less testing insanity and BS paperwork than back home, and you have more freedom in how and what you teach students.

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

^ I consider testing insanity and paperwork part of workload! So you're saying that you are expected to read students' psychological evaluations, create cross-curricular ILPs (or whatever you call them... Individualized Learning Plans) based on diagnosed mental / physical / learning disabilities, personally phone home to parents when students are absent and provide supervision at lunch? These are all things that my co-workers from other countries say they never had to do...

And I know there are other forums like the TES ones, but I find them rather disorganized.

dixie · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 644 Location: D.F

Is there a difference in your mind when you ask about international schools opposed to private bilingual schools?

For me, there certainly is. International schools are schools that value education and strive to provide the best, at the highest standards, while private schools are more business than education and work hard to make a good buck.

I have never had the pleasure of working at an internatial school (not enough experience yet, although a recent job with a British one never panned out as they waited too long, and I found something else) but from what I have heard and seen, they are the place to be if you want to be a dedicated, well paid, well respected, and well resourced (not sure if that works, but whatever!) teacher. If none of that matters to you, you likely have a choice of private schools, some of which will be enjoyable and not too much work, others that will be horrible and not too much work and tons of others that are anywhere inbetween (I�ve only ever worked at private schools).

The_Hanged_Man · Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 224 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

I want to stay in my current province until I get my permanent certification and save up some money (as, in my opinion, wages are quite good here). And yes, I'm very familiar with Mr. McTighe, as well as his friend Ms. Tomlinson... my copy of How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms is so well-worn that (honestly!) the inside of the front cover has a splattering of hippo poo all over it. It doesn't smell! I swear! It's not my fault I was lesson planning at the zoo and a small child stood in front of the sign that said, "Caution - Hippos Spray!"

I eagerly await the day that I, too, can take something teachers do everyday, give it a name and write a dozen books for the ASCD on the subject.

The_Hanged_Man · Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 224 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia

malu · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 1344 Location: Sunny Java

I find myself putting 'international' K-12 schools into two camps as well. First come those schools that are (or were) set up as a little bit of England/Australia/Canada/US/etc in a foreign land to provide education for the children of expats. Schools like that pay very well, and combined with a low cost of living in many countries your cash savings will mount up exponentially. Workload is exactly the same as at home, though.

Next come private schools that offer an international curriculum, in English, to (mostly) citizens of the host country. These occupy a continuum that ranges from downright fraudulent diploma factories to superb, well-run schools. Salary is lower but generally allows a very comfortable lifestyle with good housing thrown in. Get a job with a good school in this category and you can cut your teaching and admin load considerably.