Cyber Weekend Promo: 30% off Premium Subscriptions!

It is a time of celebration for International School Community as we now have over 49000 comments and over 27700 members on our website….and it is Cyber Weekend!

To celebrate, all members can get 30% off of all premium membership subscriptions from 25 Nov – 29 November 2023 (ending 23:59 PST on 29 November 2023).

The 30% off coupon code is: CYBER21MON

Even if you are a member with Premium Membership already right now, you can still add more premium membership during this Cyber Weekend promotion. Just log in to our website and go to the Manage Subscription page, choose the membership option that you’d like, and then enter this coupon code (CYBER21MON). Next click on the Make a Payment button to pay with your credit card.

Once you have premium membership access, please take this time to submit some comments on the schools you know about on our website. For every 10 comments you submit, your account will automatically be updated with one free month of premium membership. There is no limit, too. So if you submit 40 comments, then you will get four months of premium membership added to your account for free!

International School Community’s website was launched back in February 2011.  When our first newsletter came out in May 2011, we only had 49 members!  On average, we have been getting over 300-400 people signing up to become new members each month.  We hope this trend continues!  The more members we have, the more people you have to network with.

International School Community’s goal is to be the largest online community for international school educators.  Our website provides a useful, informative, and celebratory environment for networking with other international school teachers and learning about different international schools around the world.

We created a website that would highlight the ins and outs of working at international schools (the benefits, the school itself, the city, travel information, etc.).

Another major goal of this website is to provide experienced teachers the platform to share what they know so that prospective and seasoned international school teachers can make more informed decisions as they venture out to a new international school.  Making connections and gathering information about international schools in our community has never been easier!  Whether you are looking to make new friends, network with other international school teachers, or learn more about the wonderful world of teaching at international schools, International School Community is the place to be.

We want members to provide real information that is specific; information that is related to all the different topics we need to know about before signing a contract. International School Community offers up-to-date information in a highly organized, easy-to-use manner.

You can search our vast collection of international school profile pages to find that specific international school you want to know about. You can also search our member profiles and be able to find a contact to send a private message to so that you can get firsthand information about a school that the member has worked at.

We also offer a vast amount of information and links related to the world of teaching at international schools and education in general via our blog.

While the focus of the site is to serve the international school teaching community by providing real and useful information about international schools, we have specifically organized our website to encourage our members to leave comments and information that are useful for everyone.  Enjoy being an active member of our website!

We strive to have the largest collection of resources and services for the international teaching community.  International School Community really wants to take writing reviews and comments about international schools to the next level.

Here is what some of our current members are saying about International School Community:

“It’s really useful…it’s a really good way to find out practical info about schools when you’re looking for jobs. If you are interested in particular schools, you can just contact any member from that school to find out insider info! It’s also good if you just want to find out what life is like for teachers in other cities! Really unique idea!” (An international teacher in China)

“International School Community is a great resource for international school teachers. Whether you are doing research for a new job, or just connecting with other teachers, this site is has a plethora of great information. I especially love that this site has a positive feel to it, rather than a place for teachers to vent. I really recommend registering to be a part of this great idea.” (An international teacher in South Korea)

“You have an amazingly wonderful website and seeing these comments is extremely helpful to me.” (A teacher looking to teach abroad at international schools)

“I am very impressed for a website to take the time to do this. You have a great resource that I certainly could have used when I first set off overseas teaching in 1998!! The site works well and it is nice to get a good background on almost every school I’d wish to work in. You are doing a fantastic job with your website, keep it up!” (A veteran international school teacher)

“I truly love being an international educator and researching and comparing schools, as well as discovering great schools that aren’t as well-known. I am grateful for ISC having a platform that makes it all so easy.” (Another veteran international school teacher)

Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas #9: Maintain a sense of humor, but most importantly be ready to laugh at yourself.

Maintain a sense of humor, but most importantly be ready to laugh at yourself.

When you are living abroad, there are moments when the locals are looking at you strangely. You might be thinking that they are making fun of you, being rude, or just plain staring at you. Most of the time though they usually don’t have an unkind intention towards you. The initial reaction is to put on a face that resembles the woman in the first photo above and think the worst. But after a nice hello and a kind smile, many times you can turn a negative cross-cultural encounter into a positive/normal one. Often I find that I make a rash judgment call about the situation when living or traveling abroad, and sometimes that gets me into trouble, leaving me with a poor attitude toward the locals. It is good to remember to try and take a step back (figuratively and maybe literally) and think about what might be happening and try and view the situation as if you were in their shoes.  A negative situation can easily be averted if one of you puts a smile on his/her/your face.  A smile is typically contagious, isn’t it?

Taking pictures of the locals is a strange situation really. I mean how often are there tourists walking around Minneapolis wanting to take pictures of the Minnesotan people that are walking around the downtown area?  Well maybe there might be a few there (but most likely not), but for sure there wouldn’t be tourists walking around the suburbs taking pictures of you.  It is hard for expats to really know what it is like.  It is sometimes irresistible though to take a picture of a local.  You can take the indirect approach and try and snap a shot without them knowing, but that sometimes leads to the locals getting angry.  A more direct approach sometimes is better when you are trying to get a shot of a local. You might buy something at their store or you might just start up a conversation with them.  Instead of the person getting angry or suspicious of your camera, they might have a different reaction to you taking a picture of them.  It is a good idea to not get lost in your photography and to remember to smile (and sometimes laugh with the locals) as you are walking around their neighborhood.

It is hard to keep your sense of humor when you are on an old, rickety bus in a developing country.  You are in the back. You are stuffed between two people who don’t share the same cultural tradition of putting on deodorant.  But these are the times when you can easily laugh to yourself, especially if your friend is in a similar situation in the front of the bus. You know it is not ideal.  You know that it is temporary (sometimes it is just a short bus ride, though sometimes a longer one!).  You start to think about how this is so different from where you grew up and how awesome really it is that somehow you ended up in this situation halfway across the world from your home.  Truthfully, it is the story you make sure to tell your colleagues the next day at school about what happened to you on the bus yesterday; a very good time to keep a good sense of humor and laugh about a situation that in reality isn’t the most desirable one to be in.

When you look at the locals, they sometimes look very different from you and the people you would see in your hometown.  Because of that fact, you might tend to stare a bit or be quick to observe and judge.  But you must remember that the locals might be looking at you in the same way (see the exaggerated picture above of the guys in top hats).  Try to remember to keep a positive attitude towards the people around you, and keep your respect.  When you are by yourself you might not think twice about the guy in the crazy Eastern European sweater walking down the street, but people tend to be more vocal about their opinions and observations when they are in a group of two or more.  Being “ready to laugh” in this instance might be a poor choice, and hopefully, they won’t laugh and poke fun at your outfit as well!

If you are living in China, one thing that keeps your sense of humor in its place is your ability to use chopsticks. Sure, many expats have mastered the art of eating dumplings and other Chinese food that can be a challenge to eat using chopsticks, but there is a sizable amount of expats that struggle.  You want to impress the locals with your skills. You DON’T want them to see you fumble for fear of cultural embarrassment.  Try to maintain your sense of humor though and don’t give in to the temptation to ask the server for a fork and knife (if they even have them) and most importantly be ready to laugh with them as your dumpling falls from your chopstick grasp to the edge of your table and then down to the floor.

This article was submitted anonymously by an ISC member. Check out the rest of the 10 Commandments of Relocated Overseas here.

Selecting an international school: Tip #7 – Does the school feature a curriculum that is consistent with your future plans?

What reasons do parents think about when selecting a school for their children when they move abroad? Are there similar reasons why teachers choose to work at a school abroad as well?  There are many different kinds of international schools and they are all in different situations.  How important is finding out about how well the school is linked to other international schools?  It could be beneficial to ask these types of questions at your interview before you make any big decisions to move or choose a school to work at.  So, how do you choose the right international school for your children to attend or for you to work at?  This blog series will discuss the Tips for Selecting an International School.

Tip #7 – Does the school feature a curriculum that is consistent with your future plans?

Image by David from Pixabay

International schools teach in many different curricula.  Some of the most common are the UK, USA, Canada, IPC, PYP, MYP, and IB curricula. Which curriculum is one that is consistent with your future plans?  Are you comfortable just continuing teaching in the same curriculum that you have been teaching in your whole teaching career or do you have aspirations to teach and to gain experience in a different curriculum?

Most of us international school teachers start in a school that teaches in the same curriculum as your home country.  After all, your home country’s curriculum is what you have the most experience teaching, and it is also probably the one in which you are the most comfortable.  Also, if you work at a school that teaches your home country’s curriculum, then you will most likely be teaching alongside others who are just like you (which could make you feel “more at home” while living abroad).

There are international school teachers out there who seek out new experiences though and would be risk takers and seek out to try and work at an international school that teaches in a curriculum of which they are not familiar.  It broadens your skills in teaching once you start having experiences teaching in different curricula.  You may find that your personal teaching philosophy also starts to get modified or solidified even more.  You have more “tools” in your teaching “toolbox.” Not only does teaching in the new curriculum change you, but it is the people that you interact with at that new school (who might be from a different country and teaching background than you) that influence how you teach your lessons as well.

Image by Shafin Al Asad Protic from Pixabay

It is nice to have a couple of different experiences noted on your CV that refer to the different curricula in which you have taught.  It is not only good for you so that you grow professionally, but it is also potentially good when job hunting.  Only a few cities in the world have more than 20 international schools in them (Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, etc…) and can offer many different kinds of curricula.

Most cities though only have a handful of international schools (Paris, Chang Mai, Buenos Aires, etc…), meaning limited choices for different curricula.  If you are interested in working in a specific city in the world and there are only three international schools in that city, then you can for sure “better your chances” of getting a job there if you have previous experience teaching the curriculum at two or all three of those schools.  It is not a given though that you will automatically get an interview/the job there of course (if you have experience in that curriculum), but it most definitely might put you on their radar.

With the international schools that teach the IB curriculum, some people say that it is getting increasingly difficult to get a job at these schools if you don’t have previous IB experience.  You might have PYP, MYP, and IB as part of your plans for your future teaching career, but many schools are not even considering candidates without previous experience.  There have been candidates though who “got their break” and landed a job at an IB school without previous experience in the curriculum.  Those candidates say that some directors tell them that if they are good teachers, then it does not matter one bit if they don’t have previous IB experience.  If you are a good teacher in one curriculum, then typically that would mean you are a good teacher in another one (with proper training and PD of course to help you along the way). So, if you are trying to secure a job at an international school that teaches a curriculum that you have no experience in, don’t just give up and not send them your cover letter and CV.  You never know truly who they are specifically looking for and of course, they aren’t just considering candidates that have previous experience in the curriculum.  It might just be that they are not getting enough “ideal” candidates and are already considering candidates without previous curriculum experience.

On our website, we have a School Profile Search feature that allows you to search for the schools that teach the curriculum that you are looking for in your next job.  You can search by choosing the following curricula: UK, USA, Canada, IPC, PYP, MYP, and IB.  We also have an “other” option to search schools that teach a curriculum that is not one of those eight choices.  When searching our 2307 international schools (updates on 13 November 2023), we have found the following results regarding curricula:

  • There are 899 international schools that teach the USA curriculum.
  • There are 740 international schools that teach the UK curriculum.
  • There are 158 international schools that teach the IPC curriculum.
  • There are 462 international schools that teach the PYP curriculum.
  • There are 355 international schools that teach the MYP curriculum
  • There are 655 international schools that teach the IBDP curriculum
  • There are 54 international schools that teach the Canadian curriculum
  • There are 900 international schools that teach the “Host Country” curriculum

If you are an International School Community member, log on today and submit your own search for the curriculum that is consistent with your future plans!

If you are not a member yet, make sure to join www.internationalschoolcommunity.com and become a part of our over 27600 members.  Many of our current members have listed that they work at over 1200 international schools around the world. Feel free to send these members a message with your questions about an international school’s accreditation status and get firsthand information about how the accreditation process is going for them.

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