> Sciteach; 2 solid years experience in one school is good advice, thanks. Yeah with Art it looks like it can be variable depending on the year, and that there is an element of luck involved depending on how many openings are available.

> Psyguy; It's interesting to note that a lot of the top tier use NC, this is something to consider when I'm targeting specific schools later on. It seems like there is a consensus on aiming for IB experience ASAP and domestically if possible initially. I'll prioritise this in my job search. Your note on DT experience is useful, I will also consider this as a factor in my job search and strategy. The curriculum for AP art is interesting, other people I've spoken to have talked about AP experience being important for a lot of the ISs.

>Smurf; Thanks for the advice about London, this could very well be the route that I take in my initial few years of teaching.

Thanks for the responses everyone. Your ideas have helped clarify priorities with my career strategy/plan moving forward.

Thanks shadowjack,

I will be excited to go to an international job fair once I feel I have a shot of landing a job. Yeah, having a plan B sounds like the best approach.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply Shadowjack,

I guess asking about "tiers" can be problematic when there is no established consensus on which schools are which tiers. This is especially true when different people affix different "lifestyle" value to different locations i.e. Europe (seen as desirable), Middle East (seen as challenging).

Being more specific on where I'm targeting, I would say I would be talking about top Asian schools in places such as Jakarta, Bangkok, HK, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea etc.

Targeting IB schools from the get go is good advice, thanks. When I go international I will try to get the IB experience and training ASAP.

It looks like it is difficult to predict an employment outcome 5-10 years down the track. As manufacturing an outcome is subject to many different variables.

Haha yeah, In a perfect world I would be married to a physics/chemistry/maths teacher but yeah, that would be even harder to predict/plan.

Cheers

C

Hello all,

I'm a new teacher and am going to graduate with my teaching qualification in July this year. I will be qualified to teach 7-12 Visual Arts, Visual Design, Ceramics and Photography. I'm single with no dependants.

What would be the best career strategy focused on eventually attaining a top tier international job?

From reading the forum, I gather there is a consensus that new teachers are preferred to have local experience before going international and that top schools want teachers to have IB experience. I've also read that schools don't want to see on your resume that you have changed jobs every year and that you are non-committal.

Therefore would the most efficient strategy be;

2 years local experience, then;

3 years at an international tier 2/3 non-IB school, then;

3 years at an international tier 2 IB school, then;

a shot at the tier 1 (and elite/premier) IB schools?

Is 8 years total experience sufficient to be considered for the tier 1 jobs?

Is it possible to be a candidate with less than 8 years experience?

I'm looking for the most direct route to access the better/more desired schools in the IT jobs market.

One of the problems of even attaining the 2 years full-time local experience initially is that full-time positions, or full-time contracts in many of our home countries such as Australia (where I'm from), Canada, New Zealand, Ireland are in short supply and hard to get. I'm considering to go to the U.K. to get an initial 2 years full-time teaching experience as there seems to be many more full-time jobs available there than here in AUS.

Can any experienced teachers chime in on their thoughts and advice?

Cheers