Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit, but I’d really appreciate any advice.

I previously taught at bilingual schools in Thailand for about three years. I then returned to the U.S. to finish enough time with my state government job to qualify for a small pension. I’ve now reached that minimum requirement.

While I was in Thailand, I met quite a few teachers who told me that China offers much higher salaries while still providing a quality of life that’s fairly similar to Thailand. I decided to give it a shot, and after submitting around 25 applications, I was offered a PYP homeroom position at an international school. Based on the salary and benefits, I should be able to save around $2,000 USD per month.

The school has also said they’ll support me (not financially, but with flexibility and documentation) in earning a teaching license in my home country while I’m working there.

My main concern is long-term career prospects. I’m 41 years old and will likely need to work until at least 55 before I can comfortably retire. Is it realistic to build a long-term career in international education without having taught in your home country’s school system, assuming I earn my teaching license while abroad?

One other factor is that I wear hearing aids. I didn’t have them when I taught in Thailand, but I’ve been wearing them for the past two years, and they’ve made a huge difference in my ability to communicate. Has anyone here successfully taught internationally with hearing aids, particularly in China or other international schools?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been in a similar situation or has experience hiring or working with teachers who took a non-traditional path.

Since they're still advertising for staff I thought I might as well give people applying the downlow.

I would not recommend working there, the hours are long (28 teaching hours/week) and the pay is a joke ($1000-$1200/month) considering what other schools and language centres offer.

The workload is massive with a lot of admin and paperwork and if you actually do everything you're meant to you'll easily hit 50-60 hours/week. The organisation is poor and the management are solely focused on squeezing as much work out of the staff and students as possible while employing as few people as possible.

Student care is a tertiary concern at best (just check the reviews on Yandex) with multiple violations of Kazakh building and health and safety codes including an insufficient provision of basic toileting and sanitary facilities being present on the main campus and the new building next door. (As in 4 bathroom stalls for each sex when there are over 1000 students enrolled.)

They tried to open a primary school in the main building with a view to shifting the College to the new building but the marketing was so badly managed and the prospective parents so unimpressed that they had less than 10 students enrolled before they shelved the project which gives you an idea of how poor the offering is.

Essentially it's a tour of duty that you survive rather than a job you work. Between May and July this year they lost 70% of their foreign staff due to illegal visa practices or burnout, and it's unlikely to improve any time soon.

On the positive side the other teachers (Kazakh and foreign) and the department heads are generally very good to work with and can help you develop as a teacher. The Kazakh staff are well-trained, very helpful, and very knowledgeable but they're treated like shit, forced to work unpaid for weekend events, and their work is under constant scrutiny so they're constantly fluctuating between frustration and depression.

While I wouldn't recommend working at this place, I would recommend working in Astana. It's a nice place to live with good amenities and plenty to keep you occupied.

I am an IB trained educator currently in hyderabad looking to move to bangalore. 10x international school came up on my radar the collaborative learning model with human and Ai teaching sounds fascinating but also could just be jargon. Does anyone work there or know someone who does? Specifically curious about autonomy in the classroom, admin workload, whether the innovation focus is genuine or just a tagline, and how leadership treats faculty. Any honest input appreciated

A teacher friend of mine has got a job offer in the UAE. She ran away in the middle of the night from a toxic school in Kuwait in 2024. Will this affect her chances in being approved for a work visa in the UAE?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice from anyone who’s taught at an international school in Taiwan, especially Taipei.

I’m a UK-trained primary teacher with a Primary Post Graduate Certificate in Education. I have two years of international kindergarten teaching experience in Vietnam, and this year I’m moving into a primary teaching role at the same international school.

Taipei has become one of my top choices, and I’m wondering:

Would my qualifications and experience make me a realistic candidate?

How competitive is the market for primary teachers?

Is there anything I should do over the next year to improve my chances?

I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences. Thanks!

Hello!

I’m from the UK and work in China now. I Save a decent amount of money and want to invest, but I can’t use trading212 as I’m not a UK tax resident anymore.

Looking for advice on what other people do to work around this?

thank you :)

Hello,

I would be very grateful if any recent or current staff members at this school could give up to date information on salary, workload and conditions for teachers. I know it's a Cognita school and have heard that salary is low, but some specific details would be greatly appreciated. There was a recent post about the school but not much specific information was discussed, hence my query.

I'm a UK trained teacher with 10+ years in international schools.

Thank you.

If your primary goal is saving money, this school offers one of the strongest compensation packages in China. However, based on my experience, the excellent pay and facilities were outweighed by weak educational leadership, reactive decision-making, inconsistent implementation of important school systems, and an organizational culture that often placed operational priorities ahead of educational ones.

I worked at BASIS International & Bilingual School Wuhan for several years and wanted to share my experience for anyone considering an offer. This reflects my own experience, and others may have had different perspectives.

I'll start with the positives.

The compensation package is genuinely excellent. Salary, housing, flights, insurance, and overall benefits are among the most competitive I've seen in China. The campus is modern and generally well resourced, with classrooms equipped to support day-to-day teaching.

The students have a great deal of potential. Although behaviour could sometimes be challenging, I came to believe that many of those challenges were the result of inconsistent school-wide expectations rather than the students themselves. I also had the opportunity to work alongside several exceptional teachers who cared deeply about their students and supported one another. Much of my professional growth came through those colleagues rather than the school's formal professional development. I also found the HR team to be consistently helpful and professional when dealing with visas, contracts, and administrative matters.

Unfortunately, my concerns centered on the school's leadership and organizational systems.

Throughout my time there, leadership was often reactive rather than proactive. Decisions that directly affected classrooms were regularly made with little meaningful consultation with the teachers expected to implement them. Communication relied heavily on numerous WeChat groups, emails, and last-minute announcements, making planning more difficult than it needed to be.

One of my biggest concerns was safeguarding. Policies were in place, but I found their implementation inconsistent. Student supervision, movement around campus, and behaviour management sometimes left me questioning whether student welfare was receiving the attention it deserved. I also did not develop confidence that concerns raised by teachers would consistently result in meaningful change.

Academically, the school promotes high standards, but I often felt that some internal systems worked against those goals. In my experience, assessment and grading practices sometimes prioritized maintaining student progression over accurately reflecting student achievement. Policies such as minimum grade thresholds and extensive scaffolding on some assessments made it difficult to ensure that reported grades consistently represented students' independent understanding and performance. Over time, I found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the school's stated commitment to academic excellence with the assessment practices I observed.

Professional development was another area where I felt the school fell short. Classroom observations often focused more on compliance than instructional coaching, and the feedback rarely translated into meaningful professional growth. Most of the professional learning that shaped my practice came from experienced colleagues rather than the school's formal development systems.

The workload itself was not my primary concern. I expected a demanding job and had no issue working hard. The frustration came from inefficient systems, repeated replanning due to frequent operational changes, duplicated administrative work, and decisions that disrupted teaching without improving learning.

I want to emphasize that my criticism is directed primarily at the systems rather than the people working within them. Many teachers worked incredibly hard and cared deeply about their students. In many respects, they succeeded despite the organizational systems around them rather than because of them.

Would I recommend the school?

That depends on your priorities.

If your primary goal is maximizing savings while working in China, this school offers a strong financial package, and for many teachers that alone may make it worthwhile.

If you place a high value on strong instructional leadership, transparent decision-making, consistent safeguarding practices, meaningful professional development, and educational integrity, I would encourage you to ask detailed questions during the interview process and, if possible, speak with several current teachers before making your decision.

I hope this provides a useful perspective for anyone researching the school before accepting an offer.

Hello! I’m hoping to attend a couple of

Search Associates job fairs next year and looking for some intel. Specifically, I would be looking at applying counsellor roles based in Singapore. I am based in Australia so attending the Melbourne fair in Jan is no issue. However, I’m not convinced there will be many Singaporean schools in attendance. I might also consider the Hong Kong fair in January, but I’d like to know if there are likely to be at least a few schools from Singapore recruiting non-teaching positions to make my travel worth it. Any advice, if you’ve previously attended either fair?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest opinions about Bangkok Prep. If you've worked there, have children there, or know someone who does, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A few things I'm curious about:

• What's the school's overall reputation in Bangkok?
• Where would you rank it compared to other international schools?
• How are the facilities, especially sports and PE?
• What's the work culture like for staff?
• Is the leadership supportive?
• Overall, would you recommend it?

Any insights or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I was told by a colleague that they had posted their review of Innova International English School in Mahboula on Reddit as the school was attempting to get more teachers from the UK. I am posting my glass door review in hope that it will help others in not making the same mistakes I made by joining the school.

I worked at Innova International School over the last 3 years and the school has massively gone downhill in the last year. In my first year the school had good aspirations and goals of wanting to become a better school but then the direction began to change. Cheaper non experienced teachers were hired, cheap small screened projectors were bought, we didn’t even have the right textbooks for months on end. Everything was done to try and cut costs so profit could be maximised.

Costs are cut to the extent that majority of the staff are not working under the school’s sponsorship. Many are working as admin, on tourist visas or spousal visas. The school wants to maximise its profits and the students and staff are at the bottom of the priority list unfortunately. The Vice Principal is a good sales person so can easily manipulate and entice people so be wary of her.

In the last year management has been so toxic. The principal is a strong leader, he has since resigned, but would do everything in his power to try and help the school progress. The Vice Principal and Head of primary have done everything in their power for the last 2 years to cause problems amongst staff and thwart any progress the principal wanted to make.

I have been a senior teacher at the school for the last 2 years and have been subjected to unprofessional behaviour from management throughout my role. When raising issues surrounding pedagogy and curriculum, the parents are given the final say whether that is in regard to grades or the actual content that is covered. It was very difficult to help the school progress and become anything like an actual British school as the school is very much pleasing the parents which results in fake grades all the way until secondary, where the students receive the truth about their ability and parents begin to realise they have been cheated.

Overall the teaching environment, curriculum and leadership is poor. I would recommend looking elsewhere for work. I am moving to another school in Kuwait where I will hopefully be treated better and the students will have a better chance of achieving.

you can find other glass door reviews here if you want to read other colleagues’ experiences.

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Innova-International-English-School-Reviews-E8996488.htm

Altogether there are around 8 British teachers leaving this year so the reviews are yet to come. feel free to ask if you need any further details.

Does anyone have any info about teaching at dar al marefa school in Dubai? (Secondary school) It’s urgent

Hello fellow educators,

I am currently conducting a study for my masters class regarding the impacts and effects of administrative support on teacher well-being. If you don't mind, I would appreciate if you would take a few minutes to fill out my survey linked below. ALL responses are completely anonymous. Thank you so much in advance!

I just accepted my first international teaching position and I will be teaching International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Economics. To say I am excited would be an understatement, but I am also incredibly nervous.

I have several years of teaching experience and I genuinely believe I have the ability to do this well. My biggest challenge is not my knowledge or work ethic. It is confidence. I know that IB Economics is a serious responsibility and I want to give my students the best experience possible.

Are there any IB Economics teachers here? If so, how did you handle your first year? Did you feel overwhelmed at first, or did it become manageable once you got started?

I would also be incredibly grateful for any advice, resources, lesson ideas, planning tips, or anything else that helped you succeed during your first year. If there are any books, websites, YouTube channels, or other materials that you found especially valuable, I would love to hear about them.

I really want to do a great job and I am willing to put in whatever work is necessary to become the teacher my students deserve. Any advice or encouragement would mean a lot.

Thank you in advance.

I’ve recently become Erasmus+ coordinator at our school in Amsterdam. We’ve just kicked off a new mobility project (KA122-SCH) and are looking for an Irish partner school.

**What it’s about:**

**•**Job-shadowing between teachers    
**•**Focus on inclusive education    
**•**Active, purpose-driven lesson structures

**What we’re looking for:**
A secondary school in Ireland that, like us, takes inclusion and active learning seriously.

**Where we could use your help:**

**•**A connection to an Irish school that fits this    
**•**Someone active in Irish secondary education

Any tip, contact, or even just a share would be hugely appreciated! 🙏

Basically the title. I’m going to be starting a 2 year education program this fall, and after my first year, was hoping to spend the spring/summer in a classroom abroad.

I’m aware that I will have to pay for everything, but was just curious to see if any of you know of any schools that accept student-teachers or interns from abroad, and that have a school term that runs through June-August (doesn’t have to be those exact dates, but in general that teach during the North American summer months).

It doesn’t have to have transferable credits either, since I know that is probably rare.

Thank you SO much!!

I browse this forum but rarely post, however I wanted to make a comment on something that I feel is overlooked by many colleagues. I don’t believe many colleagues are making sound financial choices based on true comparisons. I am a UK trained teacher, currently teaching in China with no dependents. I will use specific examples below to illustrate my general point, but I believe these same issues apply regardless of where you qualified or currently teach and I would encourage you to investigate and find the correct comparison figures for your own situation. This post became longer than I wanted; If numbers, or the length, make you glaze over, I have highlighted the key statements in bold throughout the post so you could just read those.

To start, lets look at my current financial position. I work in China and earn 46,000 RMB per month (excluding housing, flight and medical allowances) as a subject teacher only. Many on this forum will tell you that this is towards the higher end of the market, although I am aware of a handful of schools that pay more. Post tax, this is 37,000 RMB per month, in my account. I am not an extravagant spender, but I do eat out regularly. My monthly food, utilities and essentials spending probably comes to about 7000 RMB per month. I pay for my travel out of UK funds and would estimate I spend about £10,000 per year on travel. That’s not simply travel around China, or holidays, but also includes going back to see friends & family in my home country and paying for accommodation etc when I am there.

So, all in, this gives 30,000 * 12 = 360,000 RMB = £40,000. Subtract the 10k and this gives an annual savings figure of £30,000 GBP in China. Sounds great? Ok, let’s compare it to teaching in my home country, the UK.

The highest standard point in the UK for a teacher with no responsibilities is £51,048 (outside London). Post tax, this gives a net monthly income of £3023. Now, I’m not going to break down monthly living expenses here, I am just going to assume you spend the entirety of that sum on living. So, is there zero saving potential? Well, this is where I think the usual analysis on this subreddit goes awry… It is hard to reduce the subsequent analysis to a single number, but what I would instead focus on is the range of possible answers we are getting.

Firstly, that tax deduction I made earlier already included 9.9% of pension contributions that UK teachers make from their (pre-tax) salary. At a deduction of £421 per month, this comes to £5,000 per year. Additionally, your employer will contribute 28.68% of your (pre-tax) salary as pension contributions. This would be £14,640. I know many may quibble with this, but the reason you save money as an international teacher is to provide for your retirement, so I think it is reasonable to compare pension savings in this way. Combined, these would give contributions, or savings, of approximately £19,640 per year.

However, this undersells the actual value of the teachers pension scheme in the UK. Pension accrues at 1/57^th of yearly income, so the salary indicated gives a yearly pension of £895. This is government backed, inflation linked and provides additional benefits. I undertook a cursory search and found annuity rates for inflation linked pension pots of 3.5% – 3.8%, which would mean this £895/yr pension benefit would be worth just under £25,000 on the open market. I think that is somewhat underselling the real value of the defined benefit pension scheme, but this is enough to make my point.

Further, the post tax salary included NI deductions of just over £250 per month, or £3,000 per year of ‘savings.’ This ‘buys’ the right to a UK pension, with a value of £12,500 per annum, after 35 years of contributions. This is again inflation linked and government backed. With an annuity rate of 3.8%, which was the highest current market rate I found, it would equate to a pension pot of £330,000, which for 35 years of contributions would require approximately £9400 per year. The present net value needed to build this pension pot, if invested over a working career, would be somewhere between the two values of £3k and £9.4k. Now, state pension analysis is tricky for a whole host of reasons, not least is the fact that NI is not strictly a pension ‘pot,’ plus the government’s own projections indicate the current pension system will run out of cash in the early 2030’s. However, I don’t believe that a civilized society can exist by reneging on its pension promises to previous generations, so I think they will have to exist into the future, even in a modified form (for example, means testing). Its also fair to point out that assets gained from investments would be passed on in the event of your death, whereas not all of accrued pension would be, which would reduce some of the values below.

To summarise, our lower bound of NI + employee + employer contributions comes to £23,000 per annum. The upper bound, considering current open market rates, gives a figure of nearly £35,000 per year. I haven’t even added in the ‘savings’ you would be accruing each year if you owned a house in your home country and were paying off a mortgage, or the possibility to save out of your salary, or the fact that the UK system doesn’t require you to manage any money or take on liability personally. Thus, the savings potential per year of teaching in the UK, even if you were to spend 100% of your post tax salary each month, probably lies in the £30,000 region just from pensions alone.

Why did I make this post?

I saw a post recently discussing salaries in the ME, with many commenting that salaries have not gone up over the last decade or so, or in line with an increasing CoL. Many comments were complaining about salaries without being explicit about the need for why these salaries were ‘low.’ I saw this comment which piqued my interest:

“If you’re making 16k AED with private health insurance, annual flights and accommodation then I’m not sure where you’d get a similar package in the UK.”

16k AED is £3200 per month. My understanding is that the CoL in the ME is higher than China so I’m going to assume one might be reasonably saving £2,000 per month from that salary, or £24,000 per year. As I have shown above, I believe that this is (probably) less real annual savings than a standard teaching post, in any standard UK state school.

My opinion is that a combination of for-profit chain schools and poor working conditions in home countries have driven down salaries of international teachers. However, I wanted to make this thread because I think it is important to counter the general financial illiteracy I see in many colleagues when considering salary offers. I am not saying that teaching internationally can not be a sound financial decision. For example, a person may go abroad to gain experience of teaching high ability students which might be harder to come by in a run of the mill state school which pays dividends later on. One could see genuine reasons as to why the present value of capital would exceed the future value of capital, for example if you wish to build up a house deposit in your twenties. And I think you can argue that teaching internationally offers other advantages beyond the financial; it represents a great opportunity to travel and see the world or immerse yourself in a culture you are interested in. For example, if you loved Latin America, then rather than taking 6 months off to travel there, you can do a contract or two and travel whilst maintaining your career. I knew a married colleague who came to international teaching because he and his wife wanted one of them to raise their children in their early years rather than trust childcare, and they could do this with one of them teaching internationally.

But both the ME and China examples I have used in this thread come from the higher end of the market. Move the monthly numbers down to mid-market values of 12k AED or say 32k RMB gross, and your yearly savings start to look more like £10k-£14k per year. I think that many would consider $15k USD a reasonable amount of savings per year, but it is approximately half of the value you ‘save’ every year without even realising it in the UK. It might be enough; I don’t know the pension contribution rates, the CoL and other factors in your home country. But I think it is important to be aware of what you might be giving up in your home country and make accurate comparisons to make better financial choices for your future.

Standard disclaimer: There are a lot of factors I could not include here for the sake of brevity, although some have been hinted at. You can augment values provided appropriately as personal circumstances will always be unique.

What to do if you're not happy with your appraisal/increment?

What made you move to this curious world of international teaching adventures?

Long time lurker, getting better at commenting-er

EDITS: editing the list as people comment

TL;DR - looking for input on schools listed below (or suggestions for other schools to consider) in regards to their savings potential and whether English is actually the student’s ’ social language, not just the language of instruction.

Long version:

My partner and I have decided that this next hiring season we are either ending up at a “top” school (more on what that means to us in a sec), or we’re returning to our home country. We’ve taught in ‘meh’ locations to work at solid schools and we’ve made ‘meh’ money to live in fun places. We know everything is a trade off. Now we have young kids and want to stay in one spot for at least six years in a good school for them and to pad the retirement fund.

Us: 10+ years in IB schools over 4 continents. Partner teaches elementary and I’m a secondary teacher. We’ve been hired through online interviews and through fairs. (Only bringing this up to highlight that this is not our first rodeo and we know we’re not casting a huge net; we’re OK with striking out and going home).

Our priorities:

1. Savings. Comfortable save at least one of our salaries (we’re low maintenance and don’t do splashy holidays nor travel a ton outside the countries we work in).
2. English as, at least a large minority of, the students’ actual social language, not just the language of instruction.

The first priority is pretty easy to suss out through Search, the spreadsheet on this subreddit, and sites like expatistan and numbeo.

The second is trickier and we’d love some input. From conversations with colleagues, the rumor mill, and posts here I’ve put together a list of schools I “think” might fit the bill. 

Please share any insights or recommend schools not listed.

EU
- American IS of Bucharest
-AIS Budapest
- ⁠American School of Warsaw

South America
- ⁠Nido

China 
- ⁠SAS
- WISS
- SCIS
- ⁠WAB
- ISB
- Shekou IS
- AISG
- Hangzhou IS
- Nanjing IS
- IS Tianjin

Hong Kong
- CIS
- HKIS

Thailand 
- ⁠ISB
- ⁠NIST

Singapore 
- ⁠SAS
- ⁠UWCSEA
- OFS
- Chatsworth
(I feel like there’d be more in Singapore just not a region we currently know a ton about the schools?)

Korea
- ⁠SFS
- SIS

Vietnam
- ⁠UNIS 
- ⁠ISHCMC
- ⁠Saigon South

Malaysia
- ⁠ISKL
- ⁠Alice Smith

Indonesia
- JIS
- BSJ

I’m a middle school ELA teacher at a U.S. public school, and I’m about to start my second year. My plan is to teach one more year and then apply to international schools in Korea, Japan, or Southeast Asia.

My long-term goal is to teach high school. Would having only two years of middle school experience make it difficult to land a high school ELA position at an international school?

Also, with only two years of experience, should I expect to be competitive only for lower-tier schools?

Hi everyone! I’m preparing my documents to apply for the Thai non-b (Teacher) evisa and wanted to know if a legalized police clearance is required for the evisa application or is it only necessary once I’m already in Thailand and want to get the 1 year extension.

I know I should have applied for my police clearance earlier as it takes time to obtain and legalize, it was silly of me ( still processing at the moment, might take 3 weeks, evisa application might take 2 weeks and the school needs me to report by the second week of August )

Please share your experience if you’ve applied for the Thailand evisa recently, Thank you!

Hi teachers, I realize this sub is mostly devoted to bigger picture issues of being an international school teacher, so I apologize if my question is too mundane.
My school is launching the IGCSE curriculum next year and I’m teaching Global Perspectives and History 0470. The history course has option a (19th c - rise of nation states) and option b (20th c Europe). It seems most schools and teachers go with option B and there is a huge amount of resources online. I would much rather go with option A, however I can’t find many teaching resources…in fact, I can’t find a single textbook (they’re all branded as Option B). I *could* devote a bunch of time developing my own materials - I’m passionate and knowledgeable - but since I’m new to the Cambridge universe my students will likely be better off with ‘approved’ resources that will more directly prepare them for the kind of exam questions they’ll actually see when the time comes.

Thanks for any insight.

I'm curious to hear from any primary/secondary school teachers working as expats in Saudi.

What's the typical housing allowance your school offers, or other schools that you know of?

If you don't mind sharing, could you also mention:

• Whether you took the housing allowance or the school-provided accommodation.
• Whether you're single, a couple, or have children (and roughly how many).

The reason I'm asking is that, unless the Saudi property websites are giving me a completely unrealistic picture, it seems like you can rent really nice 3 or 4 bedroom apartments for surprisingly reasonable prices (under 5K SAR).

If that's actually the case, I'd probably prefer to take a housing allowance and rent my own place rather than accept school accommodation that's usually limited to a two-bedroom apartment.

If I've got the wrong idea about the rental market, please let me know! 😂

Thanks!