{"id":9671,"date":"2023-11-13T16:19:49","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T16:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=9671"},"modified":"2023-11-13T16:19:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T16:19:53","slug":"selecting-an-international-school-tip-7-does-the-school-feature-a-curriculum-that-is-consistent-with-your-future-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/selecting-an-international-school-tip-7-does-the-school-feature-a-curriculum-that-is-consistent-with-your-future-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Selecting an international school: Tip #7 \u2013 Does the school feature a curriculum that is consistent with your future plans?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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?\u00a0 There are many different kinds of international schools and they are all in different situations.\u00a0 How important is finding out about how well the school is linked to other international schools?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 So, how do you choose the right international school for your children to attend or for you to work at?\u00a0 This blog series will discuss the\u00a0Tips for Selecting an International School<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tip #7 – Does the school feature a curriculum that is consistent with your future plans?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image by David<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

International schools teach in many different curricula.\u00a0 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?\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us international school teachers start in a school that teaches in the same curriculum as your home country.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.\u00a0 It broadens your skills in teaching once you start having experiences teaching in different curricula.\u00a0 You may find that your personal teaching philosophy also starts to get modified or solidified even more.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image by Shafin Al Asad Protic<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.\u00a0 It is not only good for you so that you grow professionally, but it is also potentially good when job hunting.\u00a0 Only a few cities in the world have more than 20 international schools in them (Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, etc\u2026) and can offer many different kinds of curricula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most cities though only have a handful of international schools (Paris, Chang Mai, Buenos Aires, etc\u2026), meaning limited choices for different curricula.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There have been candidates though who “got their break” and landed a job at an IB school without previous experience in the curriculum.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It might just be that they are not getting enough “ideal” candidates and are already considering candidates without previous curriculum experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On our website<\/a>, we have a School Profile Search<\/a> feature that allows you to search for the schools that teach the curriculum that you are looking for in your next job.\u00a0 You can search by choosing the following curricula: UK, USA, Canada, IPC, PYP, MYP, and IB.\u00a0 We also have an “other” option to search schools that teach a curriculum that is not one of those eight choices.\u00a0 When searching our 2307 international schools (updates on 13 November 2023), we have found the following results regarding curricula:<\/p>\n\n\n\n