@Psyguy

You continue to exemplify your ignorance of not only the schools and location being talked about but also the content of people's posts, the identity of people posting and a balanced approach to judging status.

"You sound like an admin or admin cheerleader": I am not an administrator I am a teacher at NLCS Jeju with an open mind, a balanced view of situations and an honest appraisal of what I see and experience.

"Your not team or family member your a human asset, a resource": Excusing your grammar errors, I suspect you're correct in many instances in respect to profit schools. However the idea of a hands on director, at least at NLCS Jeju, who somehow counts nameless "human assets" is plain wrong. I would say both NLCS Jeju and BHA schools have or have had principals whose aim was to provide a barrier between the teaching staff and the frustrations of the administration. That barrier and the ethos of the school is where the humanisation takes place. The professionalism of the teaching staff, morale and tangible evidence of the impact the school has had on its students already are all excellent. Yes there are still frustrations, which the principal and his team take the brunt of, but which can still filter down. But show me a school where there are no frustrations.

"No the issues have not been ALL cleared up. " I love your emphasis of the word ALL, which simply highlighted the fact that you hadn't actually read my post carefully. I did not use that word or imply that at all. The actual wording was "Much of which has been resolved" followed by " ...things have settled." To my reckoning that suggests that not everything is sorted but there is no longer any major issue or outcry which happened briefly in the past. I cannot speak for BHA specifically but the atmosphere at NLCS Jeju this year is at its most positive since it opened.

" The package isnt that great for SK, its average, " I find your understanding of the term average interesting. There must be some bloody amazing packages in SK if what we get is merely average. I wonder where your statistics are coming from or how you are choosing to interpret them.

The issue of tier status will forever been a bone of contention. There are tier 1 schools that I would not want to work at, I'm sure there are tier 3 schools where the staff are perfectly happy. At the end of the day it is about finding the fit between the teacher / family, the location and the school. If that all works out nicely then status is irrelevant.

What helps in that decision is to be presented with the facts in a dispassionate and informed way. Neither of which I find in your posts.

Psyguy

Have you actually ever been to Jeju or the Global Education City? "There is nothing special, it is very industrial" I agree there is building going on as the city area is developing but to call it industrial makes it sound like there are factories spewing out pollution, traffic jams galore, not a sign of greenery. That is total nonsense. There is no industry other than squid boats and tangerines, there are no traffic jams other than when the little old ladies are chugging along on their rotivators. The building work has pretty much to a halt now with the latest set of apartments and the 4th school project seems to be on hold.

Brankshome Hall Asia (BHA) and NLCS Jeju are both "owned" by a company which is itself "owned" by the Korean Government, so they are privately run for profit schools. This does cause frustrations and there have been issues at both schools regarding contracts. Much of which has been resolved and was handled poorly more due to a difference in cultural approaches to business than anything malicious. The fact that many staff have signed on for contract extensions this year shows that things have settled.

Tier of school? Well many threads have spoken about the difficulty of classifying this. Both NLCS Jeju and BHA are newly opened. NLCS Jeju had its first IB Diploma and IGCSE results in 2014 so you can't say it has established a consistent record, but the results were very good and well above World averages. The packages are certainly better than you will get in most places, particularly for people new to the circuit. The location for young families is awesome. So they aren't top tier as they have no reputation but they certainly aren't third tier.

I live on Jeju and teach in the Global Education City but not at BHA.

As far as the Island is concerned it is an interesting place and suits some but not others. As MIS said it's not really a place to come for mega city and . life. The location of the schools is around 35-40 mins from the main city and pretty much the same from any major supermarket. Amenities close to the schools are limited to 3 corner stores, a great pizza place, a couple of Korean restaurants, a cafe and lots of real estate offices!! All of this is better than when we arrived 3 years ago where there was nothing, literally nothing.

So who is it good for? well young families love it, as it is very safe, very social for the kids in the accommodation areas and it has great beaches all within 20 mins I guess. There is plenty of walking to be done with both coastal and Oreum (parasitic volcanic cones, extinct thankfully) walks. You have an endless supply of "museums" which quickly become a bit of an in joke as Jeju does its museums in a unique way. To name but a few we have 2 sex and health, a teddy bear, 2 miniature lands, a Hello Kitty, 2 chocolate, a toy museum (but you can't play with the toys), a paper doll and at least 3 trick art. They add humour to a Sunday morning for sure. The current fad is road biking, loads of people into it and the roads are almost empty, pretty new and have stunning views, there is also mountain biking, diving, fishing and open water swimming. There are often running events organised and a triathlon (iron man distance)

Eating out takes some work but there are enough places to cater for most tastes, although vegetarian is a bit trickier. The local pork BBQ always seem popular, Italian is fairly widespread, Indian, mexican (awesome) and plenty of fish. Health care is very good and easy to access.

Of course the job comes first. Working in any of the Jeju schools has its frustrations in dealing with the Government organisation that actually own them. Many BHA and NLCS teachers left last year after being frustrated with contract issues. I think this will be an on off issue but the actual packages are very good compared to many other international schools and the problems eventually sorted themselves out. As with any international posting there are times when you just need to wait things out.

One word of warning I would give is that the schools are not international, they are Korean with Canadian or British or American syllabi. You could probably count the number of non-Koreans on two hands in the senior schools. I would think very carefully about bringing teenage children as it is a difficult environment for them to break into. Young kids is not an issue as there are way more western youngsters and the young Koreans are growing up with them so they mix wonderfully. The older kids don't have the same experience.

We have been with TieCare for 3 years now in South Korea and they have made great advances in that time. The policy we have is excellent with only 10% contribution for consults and zero for prescriptions. They have covered all pre-existing conditions which is fantastic and certainly not the norm. Obviously there will be different policies so check what your employer is offering.

The service from Tie Care is much better. Their new website makes things easier although as cdn noted you have to go through the hoops of form filling and supplying receipts. To be honest I think that is fair play on their part and they have made things simpler. Some colleagues have had some pretty major requirements and have had good support from the TieCare representative, for major claims you need where possible to get pre-authorisation but again those have been accepted for the most part.

It always helps to speak to people who actually have experience of the place. No disrespect to other posters but teaching on Jeju is going through a revolution at the moment.

I work in one of the new "International Schools" in the Global Education City. The pace of change here is scary. We arrived in the January of 2012 and barely recognise the place compared to when we arrived. It certainly is more traditional than Seoul, way less English spoken and the amenities are more restricted but improving.

There are a lot of teaching families with young children at the 3 Schools and how they deal with childcare varies. Some have Filipino nannies, one of our best friends have just "transfered" their nannie to another couple who have just had a baby. I don't know how they found the nannie I must admit. Some have non-working partners.A couple of families have sent their children to local Korean daycare places and really rated the experience. To expose them to the sounds of a new language at those early ages is awesome. I'm not totally sure how the whole communication thing went on but they managed it and the kids are certainly none the worse for it.

At present one school has an Early Years Centre which has provided childcare for teaching staff in return for some supervision duties. There are however rumours of this provision being stopped. Now depending on which school you are in line to work at that is certainly something to discuss.

My advice would be to do exactly as you suggested. Get put in touch with someone who has arranged a nannie and perhaps one who uses a local day care, to find out the details and also clarify if there is any on site childcare / EYC provision. Another option people have used is bringing over their own trusted person (e.g. Gap student, family friend) to do the role, one even considered "importing" their previous Filipino nannie they had from their previous posting. No idea what the paperwork would be!

As a place to bring up a young family Jeju is awesome. It has a great climate, it is incredibly safe, there are now loads of young kids that all seem to flock together to play and the beaches are awesome (a tad chilly at the moment).