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1. I've been waiting a while to do this. This article seems as good a place as any to begin THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS THREAD ON WHY THEY AREN'T ALWAYS UTOPIA. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/13/why-british-teachers-fleeing-overseas-international-schools
2. I do this as someone who did three years in an international school in Ethiopia after two years there as a VSO. I loved it so have no axe to grind. But it isn't simple.
First: the good.
First: the good.
3. A lot of stuff in the article is true. Less monitoring. Better workload. Often more money. An adventure. More agency. More opportunities to do what you want to do as a teacher. Maybe.
4. But.. less monitoring is often because of less accountability. International schools can often be more concerned with reputation in community than exam results or substance of education.
5. This can mean a focus on doing what children and parents like regardless of whether it has a real impact. Careful chalk and talkers! And also you can very likely expect an expectation to run ECAs and clubs. Fine if you like that sort of thing of course.
6. More money. Well yes sometimes but not always (I was at social justicey sort of school and earned less than would in UK. Also - think about NI contributions and pension. Who is paying this boring stuff? Can you manage without it?
7. Other stuff to think about and recognise - in some areas public services are very poor. A child falls and hurts their back in England and you dial 999. What do you do if you're somewhere where there is no 999? Ditto SEND support.
8. You can get trapped. Don't expect schools in the UK to necessarily recognise your experience abroad. When I got back after five years I had to start ALL. OVER. AGAIN as a supply teacher having been a Deputy Headmaster (still coolest title I've ever had!)
9. The answer to a lot of this stuff is do your research. But that can be HARD. There's a website called International Schools Review which a lot of people use, but it's hard to figure out which reviews are written by disgruntled nutters and which are proper.
10. Oh and there are A LOT of nutters in international teaching. They bump about from school to school. References harder etc. And this does have dire implications for safeguarding too. I've heard some horror stories.
11. Here are some true horror stories of practices of really bad schools.
a. Hire loads of native English speakers at back end of year to put on website and then make their lives miserable when they arrive so you can sack them and save salary.
a. Hire loads of native English speakers at back end of year to put on website and then make their lives miserable when they arrive so you can sack them and save salary.
12. Don't pay a salary or hugely underpay. Evade this for ages. When your employee threatens to call police shrug. Like they will care.
13. I could list loads and loads of these. In some places it is the wild west and non local language speakers, culturally isolated and far from home stand no chance at all.
14. I'm not at all saying people should work in horrible, toxic contexts in the UK so health suffers.. by all means get out.. but.. I can't help but feel a bit uncomfortable with 'place in the sun and out by three every day' mentality.
15. My advice would be by all means do international schools for a bit. They can be great. But do your research and always be mindful the longer you stay away, the harder it is to come back.
