Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sunnyvale]

Does anyone have any information on Poly School? What is the starting salary? Are they a good company to work for? Does anyone out there work for Poly School? Any info you have would be great.

[littlelisa]

Have you tried searching? There are a few threads already on POLY.

I looked into it, and declined the contract. Glad I did, cause I got a much better job in the end.

They offer high salaries for a lot of work. Per hour, the salary isn't as great as you can get somewhere else. Still, the people I talked to seemed happy, and had no issues.

However, their contract is crappy. They calculate your salary half as your actual salary, and half as "bonuses" every month that don't count towards severance; they have no paid sick days, but instead limited unpaid ones, etc.

I decided to decline (I tried to negotiate, but you can't with POLY, because they're not a franchise), then found a place that paid the same amount for only 3-4 hours of teaching a day, plus nothing fishy in the contract at all. The POLY people tried to make me feel like I was giving up a golden opportunity. Heh. Still, you could do much worse than POLY, I think. But I haven't actually worked there myself, just know what I do from my job search and my research.

[Typhoon]

I worked there for 6 months and gave notice. It was not a good experience. Also, I did negotiate the terms of my contract. Even with a big bump in pay it was not worth it. Class time with kids is too short to get any "real" teaching done (just checking homework, quick review of week's lesson, assign homework and out), homework is too much and not really effective, and you live and die by the end of the month test. Director was an ass with no idea about education (constantly changing school philosophy and policies) and the assistant director was his lapdog and completely useless as well. Overall I would give POLY a C as a place to work.

[Isis]

i think like most massive hagwon companies quality of the job depends on at which location you work.

i subed at a polly for a couple months. the students were awesome and it made working there worthwhile. poly usually wants to hire teachers, not babysitters.

the hours are long and the work can be intense, but it does help the time go faster than working at a school where youre required to be at work between certain hours despite the reality of having no actual work to do and thus pass the time by swirling in your office chair and throwing a sticky ball at stuff to scientifically determine to exactly what surfaces it will adhere.

the poly i worked at was a pretty decient school. the only reason i didn't stay with them is that the hours were too long for the pay they were offering. maybe it's just me but getting paid the same amount to work half the hours is more appealing than being a real teacher.

[Wishmaster]

Been a long time since I posted. Anyhow, Poly want a cracker...yeah, I'll never have anything good to say about them. This is because they strung me along with a contract and then pulled out at the last minute. This left me in a tight situation. However, after knowing several teachers from various poly want a cracker schools, I found out that they worked twice as hard as me and even though they got a couple hundred thousand more a month, they actually made less per hour than I did. Plus, their apartments sucked. They were required to come in two hours early for prep...which is obscene. I prep maybe ten minutes, at most per day. Also, they always seemed to be stressed out about something and bitched about the amount of testing and homework that they had to deal with. I deal with none of those things. Basically, I consider it a blessing that they did not hire me because they saved me from being worked to death and being stressed out.

[esglumac]

I just got out of a contract with Poly. Hell-a-long working hours. 10 hour days. Kindy schedule in the morning and elem. in the afternoon. Circurlum isnt hard to follow, but its constantly changing and they have lack of teaching books for teachers, so alot of times you would have to look on with kids during classes.Management is not as bad as it could be. I didnt find the managment at my school to be professional in the way that educators should pride themselves to be. i dont really know about other branches, but mine had a bad association to partying. They werent really setting the example they should have been for children.They dont really know what thier doing in the field of education, but at least you dont get shafted with the contract.Contract is pretty much streight forward as in you get what you see in it. The apt. was a bit of a shaft though, they wouldnt fix certian things that were essential like the sink drain ( nasty)
and my bathroom light. I cant speak for all branches, but I think mine was a little sexist. They usually only have one female teacher at a time out of seven foreign teachers, which I found to be a bit of an insult.
Every time a female teacher would get hired, somehow the current female would suddendly disapear or get fired. Funny. huh?They tend to only want certified teachers becasue they dont have to evaulate them as much with teaching observations ( partly becasue they dont know how to do them right). They gave me three observations and then after each observation, they would turn around and tell me to do just the opposite. I didnt see that many teachers fall out of contract at my branch, but from what I Hear, people drop like flies out of that place. Overall, it wasnt as bad as it could have been. But, it could have better

[sunnyvale]

Thanks for all the info. From what I gather from their website the working hours seem to be comparable to all other large hogwons. They do have different schedules, some of which include kindergarten, I think the kinder-elementary schedule is the long one.

I was surprised at how little info there is on Dave's about Poly school. My searches turned up nothing on google and Dave's search engine. I guess if I don't read any bad stuff about the place it must be alright... unless the threads about Poly have been removed.

[littlelisa]

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=94126&highlight=poly
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=88717&highlight=poly
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=89833&highlight=poly

[moosehead]

i could say a lot about poly but will limit it to this:

the director/owner (not a franchise? am not sure about that) of the poly i worked at had a dispute with another business on the same floor of the bldg our school was located on. the other business was an aerobic exercise club of sorts, yoga also, small and exclusive. anyway, all of us shared the bathroom in the hallway. apparently poly was paying for the toilet paper in the bathroom and the other business didn't contribute anything. the boss got pissed about it and up and took out not just the toilet paper but went in there with A SCREWDRIVER AND TOOK OUT THE HOLDERS ALSO.

we were all left to carry tissues around in our pockets after that or grab some off the front desk left just for that purpose.

i kid you not. needless to say, this poly closed shortly after.

it was one of those "some day you'll look back on this and laugh" moments. wow, am glad i'm not there anymore!!

[esglumac]

gee that sounds like the one i was at..lol..we were in a sports club building..pm me