Ah yes - that figures! Sounds like a great school, too. Some ISR reviews beg to differ but I know its very subjective.

That is a really helpful perspective. Thank you very much. Would you mind giving clues on what the better paying one would be - for future reference...!

Heliotrope wrote:
> Yes, usually the tier 1 schools will offer the highest pay in a particular
> city, because savings potential is one of the main reasons most teachers
> rank a school as top tier.
> Can you disclose which city this school is in? (or even give us a hint as
> to which school it is?)
>
> Did you accept their offer?

It is a school with a big focus on service, in SE Asia.

Title says it all ready - does a Tier 1 school necessarily equate to a top salary?
I was recently offered a job by a school I have often seen in lists of top schools on here, and is well spoken of, despite the long hours and high workload. I was very surprised that the package offered was less than many other schools in the same city.
I am relatively new to international teaching (less than 5 years) though I have been teaching for quite a while. I had previously aimed for top tier schools. Is this an anomaly or commonplace?
Thank you for your opinions in advance!

I did my Masters where you are currently studying and I think it helped me a lot. Every school I interviewed with me asked me about it, and I got quite a few decent job offers despite only having a couple of years of experience. I also get paid more than my colleagues without Masters (although pretty much everyone at my school has one).

I loved teaching in Korea. Made good money, travelled China, Japan and SE Asia, made many good Korean friends. Having said that, I was in my early 20s and the lifestyle suited me. Didn't hurt that I love Korean food either.

This was a shock to the system originally for me! The high school starts at 7am where I am, elementary school later. I'm not a morning person. However despite the longer school times, I still spend less time teaching each day then I did at home, because of more free periods.

Congratulations..job hunting is an exciting time.

SFS is a very religious school. This will affect you in some ways e.g. they provide an apartment and you are not allowed to have guests overnight, as far as I remember. Something to bear in mind. Overall it seems like (edited my moderator - Please do not post school evaluation type material to the forum)

I have a couple of friends who left Caracas at the end of the last school year due to safety issues. I'm sure Venezuela is a wonderful place, but from their stories, I wouldn't do it. You don't have to live in a country where people being shot on your street isn't a one-off. There has to be a better option. When I was job hunting, I must have received 4/5 e-mails from the British School in Caracas (despite politely telling them I wasn't interested in response to the first one) because they are finding it so hard to get people to stay. My advice is to focus on the other interview.

When I was an inexperienced teacher I received interview offers not only from Russia & Ukraine but also from Latvia, Italy, Turkey, Sweden and Germany. I know that list isn't terribly helpful without the specific schools but it suggested to me that those areas might not be as competitive as others, even though they probably weren't considered 'Tier 1' schools, so don't give up hope and perhaps look there too.

A school I worked at in London actually hired alot of overseas trained Primary teachers (from Canada, US, Australia, NZ, South Africa etc) and supported their visas. There has been a decrease in applicants in previous years, whilst more schools are being built to keep up with demand of a growing population. Although we always had UK applicants too, they just weren't always very good! So we looked at experienced teachers from abroad.

I can only echo what others have said about it depending so much on the school you work at.
I worked at a state school in a very disadvantaged area. However, my headteacher was inspirational and really cared about the staff and children. My colleagues were excellent. The children certainly were not all perfectly behaved - but poor behaviour was very well managed, and there were lots of lovely, hard working children too.
It was a very large school so we did have some overseas teachers working there. Sadly the UK teachers that applied for positions were not always amazing. It was inner London, so salaries started at around £28,000 / $43,000.
I was lucky though... this is certainly not always the case. I have a great deal of friends who are happily teaching in the UK, but have seen my fair share of stressed out, miserable teachers too.
If you choose to work at an independent school (fee-paying) instead, there are literally thousands to choose from, with salaries varying by quite a lot. There are not a huge amount of truly international schools in the UK, most are based in London, but there are a few outside London worth considering too like ACS in Surrey.

I'm transitioning to the IB curriculum in my new role. I have done a great deal of reading about the IB but I don't have experience - I tried to at least get a couple of days volunteering in an IB school in my city during the holidays, but our term dates didn't work out. However, in my interview the school said they prefer to train teachers who are new to IB themselves, rather than take on teachers who pursued their own IB training (this is one of the best schools in that country, of course there are many poorer schools who may not care so much about experience). I did briefly consider it but I'm glad I didn't as it is a lot of money to invest.

I'm afraid I agree with ffmary on this point (except comparing Bucharest to Sofia, which I really liked!) I've spent quite a lot of time in Romania and can honestly say Bucharest is one of my least favourite European capitals. However, I have a couple of expat friends there, both have found partners (male & female) and ended up staying for years, though they still regularly face their challenges and have a love-hate relationship with the city. One is a teacher and seems happy enough with their school.