Photo Contests

New Photo Contest: The Street You Live On (All entries win free premium membership!)

May 16, 2022

How is the street you live on??

Is it interesting to look at? Inspiring to walk on?

Maybe it is full of trees and greenery, or maybe it is lined with apartment buildings that all look the same.

Where an international teacher lives is important, but you don’t always initially get what you are looking for…your dream neighborhood.

But some international school teachers luck out and find the perfect area to live in which matches their hopes and dreams.

Even if it is not on your dream street, wherever you live often becomes your home. And when you live in a certain area for 1+ years, that area creates many fond memories of that time in your life.

At ISC, we are really curious to see the streets our members are living on. The next time you leave for or come back from work, take a picture with your smartphone of the street that you live on. We’ll have a vote and then chose the top 3 photos that are the most interesting to win the photo contest prizes!

So, what is your best of the street you live on? Submit your photo to us and enter our photo contest! All participants receive free premium membership to our website!

Photo contest topic:
Best photo of the street you live on

The PRIZES:
1st prize: 2 YEARS FREE of premium membership
2nd prize: 1 YEAR FREE of premium membership
3rd prize: 6 MONTHS FREE of premium membership

(Those submissions that are not in the top three will receive 1 free week of premium membership just for participating.)

Send your photo to editor @ internationalschoolcommunity.com. Please remember to:

• Write your name and email address
• Attach your picture and write a short description about it
• Enter these words in your subject: International School Community Photo Contest Entry: Best photo of the street you live on

or

Tweet the photo and mention our profile @IS_Community to make sure we will see it. If you are on Instagram, tag us when you post the photo and/or use the official hashtag #iscommunityphoto

(Deadline to submit your photo: Monday, 23 May 2022. Maximum one photo entry per contestant.) Winners will be contacted around 4-5 days after the contest deadline and that is also when all participants will receive their free premium membership prizes.

Check out our previous Photo Contests here.

Photo credits: Pixabay

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Information for Members

The Unique ISC Compare Schools Page: Which International School Will Win??!

March 27, 2022

It has been a couple of years since we launched this unique ISC premium feature, the Compare Schools page!

Our members are always looking to compare one international school to another. Using the 43464+ comments that our ISC Mayors have also helped to submit, we are excited to have an ISC page where you can compare two international schools based on eight pre-selected comment topics. Maybe the results will help you make the important decision of signing a contract with one of them!

So, here is how it works. When you select two schools from the drop-down menus, you will be able to compare the following eight comment topics:

1. Salaries
2. Savings
3. Housing
4. Retirement
5. Professional Development
6. Health
7. Workload
8. Staff Morale

Additionally, once you have selected two of the listed schools (here is an example), you can see a point score that each school received for each of the 8 comment topics.  The total score for each school is also displayed, clearly showing the “winner” with the most points.

Of course, the score is based on teacher-submitted comments/reviews, therefore it is subjective. But having in mind that multiple teachers are submitting comments, we believe that this unique ISC page reflects the realistic situation at a specific school.

At the moment, we have 145+ schools available to be compared. We usually add a new school to the list every two weeks or so. If your school is already listed, please have a look at each displayed comment and assigned score. If you would like us to improve some of the comments or scores, write to us here.

However, if your school is not listed yet, we need your help to get it added! Please write to us by contacting us via our Help and Support page with the details for each section and your suggested score for each comment topic. Or just submit some new comments on your school profile page and we will add your school to our Compare Schools page.

Thank you in advance for your feedback and support in making this feature the best it can be. It is truly a unique feature to help people gather information and analyze it so that they can make the best decisions for themselves when working in the international school community.

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New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves

New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves at International Schools: A tour of your new campus

May 6, 2014

In this blog series we will talk about the ins and outs of an excellent new teacher orientation programme at an international school.  A new teacher orientation programme can really play a very important part to the start at your new school, in your new host country.  What are all the must-haves then?  Check out our blog series here to read all about the ones that we have discussed so far. m

Must-have #12: A tour of your new campus

 Before you even interview with an international school, a perspective teacher is definitely scouring the school’s website for pictures of the campus (among other things as well!).  During the interview you even take some time to ask some questions about the campus and its facilities.  The school might even have a neat video that some of their students made, showing off each part of the campus.  After the interview you still want to know more and can’t wait to actually see the campus in person; as we all know too well, pictures can at times be deceiving.

So you finally arrive in your new city and country. Hopefully the director picked you up from the airport and personally dropped you off at your new apartment.  You get settled-in as much as you can in the first few days and then it is time to go to your new school for the first time.

A few questions though, how do you even get to your new school?  Maybe somebody in the business office comes to your apartment complex to drive you to your new school (how nice is that?!?).  Maybe you are with a small group of other new teachers (who also live in the same apartment building) and you get directions on how to use public transport to get to the school campus.  You might even be greeted by a staff member in person at some predetermined location in the city and then you and a group of other new teachers take a walk to the school.

Finally you are at your new school!  After the initial shock on seeing the campus for the first time and getting introduced to tons of important people at the school, you take a deep breath and get ready to really see the campus.

It is typically one of the first things that you do as a new teachers, get a tour around the whole campus and grounds. Who is doing that?  It could be the director himself/herself that leads the tour; nice to have the person who hired you to be the one to do that.  It might also be your immediate boss who does the tour, or it might be a staff member who has been ‘elected’ to be the official welcomer of the new teachers (I put elected in quotes because sometimes this staff member is just volunteering their time and not always getting paid!).

With your jet-lagged eyes, it is finally time to take everything in of your new school.  Is it well-manicured or old and falling apart?  It is easy to quickly judge things as you going around to the different areas of the campus (maybe they are skipping over some parts to not scare you too much!).  It is hard not to compare everything to your last school.  If luck is on your side, most things at your new school will be way better than your previous one!

Then the tour is over and live goes on.  Soon the new campus becomes very familiar to you and thus you feel super comfortable again and can get yourself into the swing of things as you start your teaching.  Could it be that a nice school campus tour gets you starting off on the right foot for your first year there?

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Luckily on International School Community we have a comment topic that specifically addresses the issue of the school campus.  It is called: Describe the different aspects of the school building and the school grounds. Also, describe the surrounding area around the campus.

We have had a total of 606 separate comments in this topic about a number of international schools on our website.  Here are just a few:

Zhuhai International School –
“The school campus is really interesting and different. It’s in a building, originally built as a hotel, on a nature reserve island, 15 minutes north of the outskirts of Zhuhai city. The pluses: It’s got fabulous outdoor/natural resources – huge outdoor playing areas, a track, an enormous banyan tree, plenty of space, and good-sized classrooms. The minuses: no gym or large meeting space indoors, 3, soon to be 4 floors with only stairs. But if you like a laid back, open environment, surrounded by nature, you’ll love this campus.”

Buena Vista Concordia International School –
“Beautiful, purpose-built school in the Buena Vista area of Bao’an. All buildings in the residential/commercial area utilize an American Southwest theme with brown and orange being the main color scheme. School has full indoor gymnasium, outdoor soccer pitch and track, space for art and music, as well as four large lab areas.”

American School of Guatemala (Colegio Americano)
“Large campus, park-like setting with beautiful tropical landscaping. K-12 so each section has a different are (Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle, High School). Located in a high-end area of Guatemala City (still lots of traffic) but on campus you would never know you’re in the middle of a city.”

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So, does your international school give a tour of the campus straight away to all the new hires?  Please share your experiences!

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New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves

New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves at International Schools: Beginning-level host country language classes.

August 11, 2013

In this blog series we will talk about the ins and outs of an excellent new teacher orientation programme at an international school.  A new teacher orientation programme can really play a very important part to the start at your new school, in your new host country.  What are all the must-haves then?  Check out our blog series here to read all about the ones that we have discussed so far.

Must-have #11: Beginning-level host country language classes.

At times there is nothing worse than the feeling of not know how to communicate with the people in your community. Many of us decide to move to countries where we do not know the host country language.  It is impossible for people to know every language spoken in this world, especially really local languages that are not even possible to learn in universities in your home country.  Additionally, most international school teachers don’t choose countries to live in only where they can speak the language (though some definitely do, which makes sense).

We all know that English is now being spoken in many countries now.  Maybe even all of them have some percentage of the local community that can speak English (especially the younger generations).  Even if there are many people that speak English in your new host country, it is clear though that knowing the local language is very important. If you know at least some of the host country language then you will be able to be clearer with the local people you have to interact with and have less miscommunication that might lead to tense culture shock moments for you. It is also important to start learning the local language because of how language is directly tied to knowing more about their culture.  And that is what this international school teaching experience is all about, learning more about and appreciating the different cultures of this world.

So, the answer is easy. Just go and take some classes. Prospective international school teachers might be surprised though that many of us just don’t do it.  And there are many reasons why we skip the opportunity or chance to attend those classes.  One reason might be that you just simply don’t know where to go.  If your school is there to help you find these classes (or even pay for the classes for you…as some international schools include taking classes in their benefits package), then that can really help you find your way to sign-up sooner than later.  Another reason you don’t attend language classes is because you just figure that you don’t have the extra time to take them. It is a big time commitment to dedicate one or two evenings of your week to go and take language classes.  A third reason might be that you are just not interested or ready to take on a 2nd (3rd, 4th, 5th…) language in your life at that point in time.  A fourth reason is that you might think that you can easily just get away with speaking English your whole time living there.  And if you are planning on only staying two years, you might justify to yourself that you won’t really even be in that country long enough to really need to know the language. There are probably even more reasons why we don’t take these language classes!

If you are interested in ‘taking the plunge’ and find that it is a good match for you go and take some language classes, how nice if your new international school is there to guide you to where to take them (during your new teacher orientation programme).  Your school and the people that work there might have some trusted references on schools/classes you can attend…and for the most reasonable prices.  In some countries though, the host country actually offers free language classes to new immigrants to their country, and your new school should be able to help you in how to sign-up for those since they probably have many new teachers each year wanting to do just that.

Even though we all have good intentions to learn the host country language when we first move to a new country, it is a fact that not every international school teacher follows through with this.  Many international schools have teachers that have been there 5-10 years or even longer and they just know the very basic of vocabulary.  Being that the majority of their day is going to be in English, many teachers just get into a routine of not communicating in the local language and end of not effectively learning it.  With all the possibilities of downloading or streaming tv programmes and movies in English on the internet, some teachers’ time after a whole workday in English becomes a WHOLE day of speaking, listening, reading and writing in English.

There are many success stories though. Just as many teachers there are who don’t effectively learn the host country language, there are many that do. They find (make) time to take the classes, they look for local friends to talk to in that language, they pick up the local newspaper to try and read that every day, they sit next to the host country language teachers during lunch time to get in a few more minutes of local-language speaking practice, etc. It is ultimately up for each international school teacher to choose their own path in how they will learn or not learn the language, and having your school there to support and guide you in the right direction can be very helpful!

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So, does your international school help new teachers to get beginning-level host country language classes?  Please share your experiences!

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New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves

New Teacher Orientation Must-Haves at International Schools: Getting access to the internet AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!

May 30, 2013

In this blog series we will talk about the ins and outs of an excellent new teacher orientation programme at an international school.  A new teacher orientation programme can really play a very important part to the start at your new school, in your new host country.  What are all the must-haves then?  Check out our blog series here to read all about the ones that we have discussed so far.

Must-have #10: Getting access to the internet AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!

You arrive in a new country and things are just crazy for you, everything is crazy.  Living in your new apartment or house without any internet access set-up is probably going to get you to the tipping point of your new-teacher craziness.

Please schools (the ones that help teachers find apartments or have new teachers move into school-owned housing), the best thing you can do to help out your new staff is to think ahead and somehow get the internet set up in their houses…before they arrive or VERY soon after they arrive.

Well we cannot say that having the internet is more important than clean drinking water or getting running electricity to your place, but it is definitely in the top five things that you would most like to have set up immediately after your arrival.

Getting the internet set up in another country can go very smoothly in some more developed countries where you can speak the local language, but getting the internet set up, on your own, in a country where you don’t speak the local language can prove to be one of the top most stressful moments for you after your arrival.  Maybe the internet company has an employee who can speak in English for you, but their English might not be at the fluent level that you are desiring!

Let’s not forgot though how much trouble there can be trying to get the internet set up in your home country.  Things can be less than ideal there as well, and it can take weeks sometime.

If only somehow international schools could help out their new expat teachers just a tiny bit more with regards to their forthcoming internet crisis.  The solution is simple: somebody in charge of new teacher orientation gets access to the new teacher’s flat and after calling the local phone/internet company, get the internet all set up and ready before the teacher arrives.  That solution doesn’t seem to be happening though at most placements.  Another solution is to set up a time that a local employee at the school can help call the phone/internet company for you to set up the time for them to come to your house (of course, in the local language!).

Once your internet is finally set up, at least some of your stress will be alleviated. Then you can finally check your email, contact your friends and family, download your favorite home country tv programs, and get updated and post an update on Facebook (unless you are in China that is without VPN access!).

Hopefully too you are living in a country where they are known for having very fast internet!  If you find that your internet is very slow, don’t forget to ask your phone/internet company about the specifics of their package options.  In some countries there is actually an option to pay more for faster internet.  Better to know that sooner than later, after a year or so of torturing yourself (and unfortunately getting used to) with slow internet.

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So, does your international school help new teachers get access to the internet AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!?  Please share your experiences!

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