Military Schools
A US Department of Defense (DoD) school is a school that is attached to a military base abroad. The DoD is responsible for providing education for all school aged dependents of all military and civilian employees who are required to live abroad in order to do their jobs.
There are over 100 US Department of Defense schools in Europe, and currently there are 210 schools located around the world in 12 countries. You might encounter the children of military personnel in American schools abroad when there is no DOD school available.
The British Equivalent is Service Children’s Education (SCE) Schools who operate 27 schools world wide with the majority of them situated in Cyprus and Germany. SCE schools are designed to give the students the same kind of education they would receive if living in the UK and attending school there.
The good, the bad and the ugly of Military Schools…
The Good is that it's easy to evaluate the package you will receive because you will be employed on a national contract. If you are working for the SCE you will be employed on a British teaching contract, with a few extras. You will also be paid in Sterling. The same goes for a DoD school.
The Bad is that you'll have to pay TAX! One of the benefits that comes with teaching at an international school is that you can pay less tax or work in a tax free environment. When you work for a overseas military school you will be employed ‘in’ the country whose military the school serves.
The Ugly is that you’ll be teaching American or British students the relevant curriculum. You will miss out on experiencing a true multi-cultural classroom and all the benefits of teaching international children.
International 'Military' Schools
Apr 29, 2007
The Easy to Follow Guide To International Schools For Teachers Seeking Overseas Employment #3
Apr 26, 2007
Taking up your new international school teaching post - get the right visa!
A Bad Day In The Life Of An International Teacher – Avoid Making This Mistake Yourself
When you are getting ready to move overseas, you will definitely want to take a very close look at what kind of visa you need to get. Moving your teaching career abroad isn’t the same as going on holiday. You are not entering the country for tourism purposes, and most countries distinguish between tourism visas and, well, non-tourism visas!
You many need to get a non-immigrant visa, or a business visa or a working visa… there are many names and number designations that are country specific. For example, teachers who are moving to the United Kingdom require a working visa (or a working holiday visa if they’re under 30) but I needed a non-Immigrant B visa to enter Thailand to take up my post here.
Your new school will let you know what kind of visa you need to get, but you’ll probably have to go and apply for it at the embassy yourself, possibly with documentation that they’ll send to you. Ensure that you read every word in the emails and letters from your new school. And if you don’t understand something, ask for clarification. Here’s why…
In 2007 I started my new job in Thailand at an international school. When we first arrived at the school for our orientation, we were asked to hand in our passports so that the school administration staff could prepare our work permit applications. Our work permits were to take the place of our non-Immigrant B visas when they ran out in a couple of months. We were assured that in the interim, we it was quite legal for us to be working on our non-Immigrant B visas.
I was rather confused when one of my new colleagues leaned over and quietly asked me what a non-Immigrant B visa was. After a little questioning I realized that she didn’t have the right visa because she hadn’t read the instructions in a registered letter we’d received months earlier. The letter contained our official invitation of employment that we were supposed to take to a Thai embassy to get the non-Immigrant B visa which would allow us to work legally in Thailand. My colleague had thought the letter was just something for our records…
As a result my colleague had entered Thailand on a tourist visa which couldn’t be ‘converted’ into a work permit under the immigration rules. This was the beginning of a number of really bad days for her as she had to leave the country in order to get herself the correct visa.
Yes, she got to spend 5 days in Malaysia while the Thai embassy in Malaysia processed her visa application. But it meant that when she got back to Thailand with the correct visa:
- she had no time to prepare for the students starting school the next day
- she still had nowhere to live when most of the rest of us had already found apartments
- she was several hundred dollars out of pocket because she’d had to pay for the trip (hotel, flights, visa for Malaysia) herself.
It can happen to us all, but don’t let this happen to you! Read everything and ask for further information when you come across something you don’t understand. It’s highly likely that the people contacting you about visas and other ‘house-keeping’ issues will speak English as an Additional Language and this can make communication challenging at times. Bear with it and don’t assume that you’ve understood until you’ve checked.
A quick tip for you – if you’re having trouble communicating with the administrative staff at your school, ask for a ‘buddy’ from among the teaching staff to contact you. Your buddy can help interpret the correspondence from the school and help you out with any questions you have!
International School Teaching - Get the Right Visa
International School Contracts - annual flights?
Different international schools will offer you a range of teaching contract conditions. Decide what you’re willing to accept before you begin interviewing and make the right choice for your teaching career.
For example if you choose to move to a location far away from your family, you won’t want to spend all the money you’ve made to fly your whole family home each year for a visit. This is where annual flights home are a must for me when I am deciding what conditions I'm looking for.
Some of it's regional, international schools throughout Asia and the Middle East generally offer excellent conditions, including flights home. Schools in Europe are a lot more miserly when it comes to conditions, you'll be lucky if you get anything. But then, you do get to live and work in Europe!
Knowing what you’re looking for doesn’t mean that you will get it, but it will mean that you can make informed decisions based on what’s being offered. You will still need to be flexible because there is considerable diversity in contract conditions offered around the world.
International School Contracts - annual flights
Apr 25, 2007
International School Contracts - How long is too long?
Consider the period of time you are willing to commit to your new school. There is a trend towards offering starting contracts of two years. My advice is to sign a contract for two years, initially, as it may take you a year or more to settle into the community. Then you can ask to sign contract renewals annually.
If I had signed a one year contract for my current school, I wouldn’t be here now, nor would I have just re-signed for an additional 12 months. It took me a year to get settled and find new hobbies and places to do my old hobbies.
To avoid making a mistake you will regret later you need to have a clear idea of what you want before you enter into any interview situation with the international schools’ recruiters. You also need to have some way of comparing the contract conditions that are offered by different schools, should you be offered more than one teaching position.
International School Contracts - what's a good length for you?
Apr 24, 2007
International School Contracts - What are you willing to accept?
When you are making the decision to work overseas, you will need to set some criteria for what contract conditions you are willing to accept.
If you have three or more children, you’ll be looking for a contract where the tuition fee for all of your children is waived. Otherwise you may end up spending a considerable amount of your take-home pay on tuition fees for your third child. The fees for international schools are high, frequently beyond what a teacher can afford to pay, even on the good salaries that are available for teachers at international schools. This makes sense when you think about it – it’s those salaries that pay overseas teachers so lucratively.
International School Contracts Tuition Fees
Apr 23, 2007
International School Contracts - Conditions to Look For...
When you are looking at teaching contracts for overseas teachers, there are nearly as many contract conditions as there are international schools.
International schools are often caught between a rock and a hard place. They need to comply with the laws of the country in which they are operating, ensure their conditions and salaries are competitive when compared to other international schools and balance all this with the fact that they have to work within a salary budget.
Here are some of the conditions you may encounter when you are offered an employment contract by an international school recruiter:
* initial cash settling-in payment
* sick pay
* maternity leave
* spouse visas
* baggage allowance at beginning and end of contract
* professional development
* extra-curricular activities stipend
* over-night trip allowance (or per diem)
* school fees waived for dependent children
* housing allowance
* medical cover
* pension contributions
* end of contract bonus
* annual flights home
International School Contract Conditions
Apr 19, 2007
Prank Day - Dread It or Love It? At An International School It's A Lot Of Fun
Today is the last day for the seniors who graduate this year. They have negotiated the pranks they are allowed to play with the senior management.
All in all, the pranks are a bit of fun and not the least bit disrespectful to either the staff or the other students. Prank Day was nothing like this in my previous school in the UK where it was always something to be firmly controlled in case of damage.
Today the students have covered the whole campus in ceran wrap (cling film). It was challenging to get into school this morning because they'd even strung it between the buildings!
They are also treating us to a 'joke of the hour' over the public announcement system, which is a little disruptive and the jokes so far have been really bad!
The one thing I objected to was handing over my exit pass (we take them off the students when they owe us some work), as that would mean I was trapped in the school for the whole day. I like to get my lunch from one of the vendors outside the school!
I think the reason that this Prank Day has been so easy is because the students we have here are international students who are raised in a society that respects schools and teachers.
International School Teaching
Apr 18, 2007
The Easy to Follow Guide To International Schools For Teachers Seeking Overseas Employment #2
English Speaking ‘International’ Schools
Some schools do not do a very good job of being an "international" school, instead they should be called English Speaking Schools. In fact, many schools springing up in the Middle East do call themselves just that because most of the students are local.
The student body of a genuine international school usually comes from outside the school’s host country. If the majority of the student body is local to the host country, then surely that negates it being an ‘international’ school? Simply on the grounds that it's practically a mono-cultural school.
Many international schools put a limit on the proportion of students that can come from the host country. These international schools often have a waiting list for local students.
The good, the bad and the ugly of English Speaking ‘International’ Schools…
The Good is that once again, there are a lot of them around, all looking for international teachers.
The Bad is that instead of enjoying a multi-cultural classroom with students that are enthusiastic and all have different experiences to bring to class discussions. You will be teaching wealthy children who possibly have no concept of what it is like to have to do things like chores and who may not have any concept of the real world.
The Ugly is that you will be teaching a class full of students who will share a common language that you don’t understand, mono-lingual classes being taught subject specific content in a language that isn’t their own can be a real struggle. You are not going into international teaching to work harder than you do at home!
English Speaking International Schools
Apr 14, 2007
10 Years Later On...
I am sitting in a coffee lounge in the lobby of a hotel in Singapore right now, across from my parents.
Finally, after 10 years of living and teaching overseas I have managed to meet up with my parents for a holiday together abroad.
In fact, this year I'm going to be spoiled because they are coming over to Thailand in a month to spend some time with me.
I am busy trying to plan an itinery for them that will work around me still being at work. Considering I'm finishing off a 10 day holiday myself this week, I had hoped they'd come and see me this April rather than in June. But they were pretty set on coming in June.
It doesn't matter, it'll be fun anyway!
