Wells International School Bangkok

bang
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 am

thanks

Post by bang »

Thanks Ichiro, however I had an interview at Wells, not ASB. What do you think of Wells?
Yes, I am a spouse type (I haven't been teaching for a few years now, making me unemployable by the top ones), so I have more insight about the schools by the parents living around....
What strikes me is that all parents I have talked to are mostly positive, or even very positive, about Wells, whereas teachers seem to be treated badly by the management and seem to hate the school. I had a look at the pay portion of the website and it is a bit scary. However it seems due to the big changes which have occurred last year which has made teachers bitter.

I have also met Kindergarten children going to Wells and found they language and literacy level pretty good, better than the ASB kids I know; I also had a look at their homework/weekly schedule and from that the curriculum seemed ok to me.

I understand the pay makes it a 3rd tier. However, does that make it a worse school? As I wrote above I simply cannot understand how parents / employers afford to pay 1000000 bahts to get their kids at NIST for example. As a parent I would just never pay that amount of money to have my children in a Kindergarten, it seems totally insane. Besides the ratio children/teacher is actually much better at Wells / ASB than Pattana/NIST.




[quote="ichiro"]I've really only just scanned through the above posts, so here goes:

ASB has been around for a long time, and too bad it's not better, but it is indeed a 3rd tier school in Thailand. I applied there a million years ago when I was looking to come to Thailand and they basically offered me a job with nothing more than that...but the salary they quoted was such a joke. Now that I've lived in BKK for several years, I don't think so much that ASB is a glorified English-language school as they are a bottom-end international school. You could do worse than ASB for overseas experience, not to mention international school experience overall in Thailand.

NIST (New International School Thailand), BPS (Bangkok Pattana School) and ISB are without a doubt the top three in all of Thailand. If you're a trailing spouse type, than ASB would probably be fine. The main difference being that 2nd and 3rd tier school in BKK pay about 1/3 to 1/2 of the top tier places.[/quote]
bang
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 am

Anglo-Singapore?

Post by bang »

By the way, how is Ango-Singapore? They are located very close to my home, but there are not reviewed. Which tier are they?
What's the difference between Anglo and SISB?

I guess I have no chance there if they are truly Singaporean but anyway...

I am mostly interested in knowing about Kindergarten level.
bang
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 am

Wells

Post by bang »

Hi again!
I got some other inside info from teachers, this time very positive.
Seems indeed like last year was an awful year with many changes going on.
However the new enrolled teachers are happy. They do recommend the school to their friends for applying.
Salary up to 60K, paid holiday, prep time during working hours, no break in promises, lovely kids, good overall atmosphere.
This corresponds to the feelings I had.

I think most private organizations do face structural changes making staff unhappy at some point of time and that's most probably what happened to Wells last year.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10793
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Low salary

Post by PsyGuy »

60K Baht is the upper end of the ESL spectrum as salaries go, and is the bottom (scraping the bottom) of the IS market.
bang
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 am

Re: Low salary

Post by bang »

[quote="PsyGuy"]60K Baht is the upper end of the ESL spectrum as salaries go, and is the bottom (scraping the bottom) of the IS market.[/quote]


Hi Psyguy,
I know but I did not expect this kind of answer. I do not see education purely as a market nor as a way to get as much money as possible from the parents pockets. I am a pre-school teacher. I know how to teach. What I would like to know is what would make Wells a worse pre-school than, let's say, NIST?Do you know how much the fee structure differs between the 2 schools at enrolment time?
Do you know that children are up to 22/class at NIST in pre-school? As a parent, I would feel deceived to have my child there.
As UN pays from primary only, many parents decide to put their kids at schools such as Wells first, and switch to NIST or Pattana from Primary onwards.
so I have serious doubts that the education quality would be so much worse at Wells than at NIST as far as the pre-school is concerned.
kuruzovich
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 02, 2012 7:34 am

A response from Wells

Post by kuruzovich »

Before contributing my own thoughts, I will specify in full disclosure that I am an administrator (and former teacher) at Wells International School’s On Nut campus, where I have worked for the past four years. Due to my position and the changes I’ve witnessed during that time, I can perhaps offer a different perspective on some of the points that have been raised.

I would first like to clarify the structure of the school, as several comments are inaccurate. Wells currently operates three campuses—one from nursery to Grade 2 at Thong Lor (Sukhumvit 51), one from nursery to K3 at Bang Na (Srinakarin 62) and one from Grade 1 to Grade 12 at On Nut (Sukhumvit 85-87). We closed our original Phrom Phong campus when we elected to not renew the lease on the land. Each campus has its own head, each of whom reports directly to the owner and chairman of the board, Mr. Chang. Finally, it is a for-profit institution, but Mr. Chang resisted raising fees over a long period of time in an attempt to reach the middle to upper-middle class. We are, however, implementing fee increases of 5% per year for the next five years as we begin to reposition the school. Having clarified these points, I would like to respond to several comments:


External evaluation and indicators of quality

All of the Wells WASC reports are available for download on our website. (From the main page, navigate to the “Downloadsâ€
Last edited by kuruzovich on Fri May 04, 2012 5:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
bang
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 am

Answer to Mr Kuzurovich

Post by bang »

Thank you very much for your very detailed answer.
This is exactly the feeling I got while visiting Wells and all the parents I have met are definitely happy having their children at Wells.
I think this website is a very dangerous place, especially the pay portion (please have a look at it) as it is very easy for anonymous contributors to write untrue statements and name teachers/admin, not mentioning the reports.
For example, somebody wrote that parents had been warned about the Sukhumvit 47 closure after having paid the fees for the following school year.
By my investigation, this is not true.
Parents told me they had been told about the closure after Songkran, and the payment for the next school year was done in June.
I think Wells should ask for a removal of the reviews mentioning untrue statements / names.
kuruzovich
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 02, 2012 7:34 am

Re: Answer to Mr Kuzurovich

Post by kuruzovich »

[quote="bang"][i]Thank you very much for your very detailed answer.
This is exactly the feeling I got while visiting Wells and all the parents I have met are definitely happy having their children at Wells.
I think this website is a very dangerous place, especially the pay portion (please have a look at it) as it is very easy for anonymous contributors to write untrue statements and name teachers/admin, not mentioning the reports.
For example, somebody wrote that parents had been warned about the Sukhumvit 47 closure after having paid the fees for the following school year.
By my investigation, this is not true.
Parents told me they had been told about the closure after Songkran, and the payment for the next school year was done in June.
I think Wells should ask for a removal of the reviews mentioning untrue statements / names.[/i][/quote]



You're welcome! I entirely agree that sites such as these foster inaccurate images of schools, and I personally would not rely on one in seeking out employment. I do have a membership, which I purchased in order to read all of the negative reviews I had seen last year, but I otherwise do not pay much attention to it.

Sifting through the details of those reviews, it was not hard to determine that the vast majority were posted by former employees of our Thong Lor and then-closing Phrom Phong campus. Virtually all of the former had been hired by the administrator that was being let go and were always told that our campus leaders were responsible for any unpopular decision. (This was the reason I clarified in my initial post that each of the campus heads reports directly to the chairman. The teachers had simply been misinformed.) Another review was from an employee who was taking anti-depressants and had openly sought to create dissent among the teaching staff because, at his own admittance, drama made life exciting. Yet another was posted by a teacher during her rocky first year, after which she had an enjoyable second year.

The reality is that those who have had bad experiences are far more likely to post on sites such as these than those who simply enjoy their time at a school and eventually move on to another. Because the sites grow and flourish when more educators pay in order to read negative reviews, it does little good to request that false claims be removed. I simply have faith that the kinds of people we would like to be a part of our school community will be critical enough to make their own decisions without relying on anonymous posts and comments.

Additionally, there were a few other points I neglected in my first post. In regard to pay, I am not authorized to release the full scale, and I am unsure of the range for teachers at our Bang Na and Thong Lor campuses. However, at our On Nut campus, our Western-certified teachers currently fall between approximately 60,000 to 120,000 depending on their qualifications, experience and years of service. This again does place us lower than many other top international schools, but is still relatively competitive. As I had mentioned, we are actively seeking greater pay increases for our staff in order to remain competitive.

Secondly, I noticed a few references to our student demographics. I don't have grade-by-grade data on hand, but I can state that our current breakdown is as follows (taken from the latest WASC report, which I will add to the "Downloads" section of our website tonight or tomorrow if I'm able): "The large majority of students are Thai (40%), but the expat community is growing rapidly. The next largest ethnic representation is Indian (19%), followed by Korean (14%), Taiwanese (6%) and Americans (3%). There are twenty-four (24) different nationalities represented at this school which provides a diverse student body that represent the international community." At this point our Western population is growing the fastest, with around fifteen Americans, Canadians and others joining over the past year. The campus enrollments as of last week were reported as 481 at On Nut, 197 at Thong Lor and 29 at Bang Na (which is in its first year of operation).

Ultimately, I certainly don't feel that our school is perfect. On the contrary, I believe we have many ways in which we need to improve, and I and the my fellow administrators believe it will be time for us to leave if we ever feel that no changes are necessary. As I said, we're more than willing to provide the contact information of individual teachers if anyone would like an insider's perspective of Wells. Additionally, if you would like to get a sense of our school's culture, I would encourage you to visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/wellsschool.
wrldtrvlr123
Posts: 1173
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:59 am
Location: Japan

Re: Answer to Mr Kuzurovich

Post by wrldtrvlr123 »

[quote="kuruzovich"][quote="bang"][i]Thank you very much for your very detailed answer.
This is exactly the feeling I got while visiting Wells and all the parents I have met are definitely happy having their children at Wells.
I think this website is a very dangerous place, especially the pay portion (please have a look at it) as it is very easy for anonymous contributors to write untrue statements and name teachers/admin, not mentioning the reports.
For example, somebody wrote that parents had been warned about the Sukhumvit 47 closure after having paid the fees for the following school year.
By my investigation, this is not true.
Parents told me they had been told about the closure after Songkran, and the payment for the next school year was done in June.
I think Wells should ask for a removal of the reviews mentioning untrue statements / names.[/i][/quote]



You're welcome! I entirely agree that sites such as these foster inaccurate images of schools, and I personally would not rely on one in seeking out employment. I do have a membership, which I purchased in order to read all of the negative reviews I had seen last year, but I otherwise do not pay much attention to it.

Sifting through the details of those reviews, it was not hard to determine that the vast majority were posted by former employees of our Thong Lor and then-closing Phrom Phong campus. Virtually all of the former had been hired by the administrator that was being let go and were always told that our campus leaders were responsible for any unpopular decision. (This was the reason I clarified in my initial post that each of the campus heads reports directly to the chairman. The teachers had simply been misinformed.) Another review was from an employee who was taking anti-depressants and had openly sought to create dissent among the teaching staff because, at his own admittance, drama made life exciting. Yet another was posted by a teacher during her rocky first year, after which she had an enjoyable second year.

The reality is that those who have had bad experiences are far more likely to post on sites such as these than those who simply enjoy their time at a school and eventually move on to another. Because the sites grow and flourish when more educators pay in order to read negative reviews, it does little good to request that false claims be removed. I simply have faith that the kinds of people we would like to be a part of our school community will be critical enough to make their own decisions without relying on anonymous posts and comments.

Additionally, there were a few other points I neglected in my first post. In regard to pay, I am not authorized to release the full scale, and I am unsure of the range for teachers at our Bang Na and Thong Lor campuses. However, at our On Nut campus, our Western-certified teachers currently fall between approximately 60,000 to 120,000 depending on their qualifications, experience and years of service. This again does place us lower than many other top international schools, but is still relatively competitive. As I had mentioned, we are actively seeking greater pay increases for our staff in order to remain competitive.

Secondly, I noticed a few references to our student demographics. I don't have grade-by-grade data on hand, but I can state that our current breakdown is as follows (taken from the latest WASC report, which I will add to the "Downloads" section of our website tonight or tomorrow if I'm able): "The large majority of students are Thai (40%), but the expat community is growing rapidly. The next largest ethnic representation is Indian (19%), followed by Korean (14%), Taiwanese (6%) and Americans (3%). There are twenty-four (24) different nationalities represented at this school which provides a diverse student body that represent the international community." At this point our Western population is growing the fastest, with around fifteen Americans, Canadians and others joining over the past year. The campus enrollments as of last week were reported as 481 at On Nut, 197 at Thong Lor and 29 at Bang Na (which is in its first year of operation).

Ultimately, I certainly don't feel that our school is perfect. On the contrary, I believe we have many ways in which we need to improve, and I and the my fellow administrators believe it will be time for us to leave if we ever feel that no changes are necessary. As I said, we're more than willing to provide the contact information of individual teachers if anyone would like an insider's perspective of Wells. Additionally, if you would like to get a sense of our school's culture, I would encourage you to visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/wellsschool.[/quote]
----------------------------------------------------------------
My first reaction to this was. "Of course an admin from the school is going to put things in the best possible light and maybe sugarcoat some issues."

My next thought was that I was happy to see someone try to address specific issues and not just moan about whining teachers. And since I have no idea about Wells, I have nothing else to add about that.

I did have two questions. You say the scale is 60K to 120K. What is the average wage and is anyone at the top of the scale?
PsyGuy
Posts: 10793
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Wow

Post by PsyGuy »

Wow, a glowing report from a school administrator who thinks they have a great school and are always looking to improve, what a surprising shock. You also have some select hand picked cheerleaders on staff for that "insiders look", thats nice.

Facebook, really who controls the media on your schools Facebook page? I imagine you have an admin who approves and moderates what gets posted and what doesnt?

This site is dangerous because it shows the ugly back side of the other wise shiny bright, rainbows are everywhere, happy place, that every school wants people to believe. Every school has a beautiful sales pitch.

So nice demographics but they dont equal 100%? 40% are Thai, 19% Indian, 14% Korean, 6% Taiwanese and 3% Americans. Thats 82% what about the other 18%? If your demo scale reaches the floor of americans at 3% thats a lot of "others" at 18%. Better yet how many of those are locals and how many real international students (expats)?

60K-120K thats interesting thats pretty high too (120K). So a couple questions id ask to put it in perspective:

1) How many TEACHERS are at the top of that scale (as opposed to how many admins)?

2) What's the average teacher salary, better yet whats the median teacher salary?

3) Whats the cap on your scale, and how many steps does it have? Whats the step limits based on qualifications (can a teacher without a Masters/Doctorate ever max out)?
IAMBOG
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:20 pm

Post by IAMBOG »

Given PsyGuy's questions, I have to assume Wells don't use Search, otherwise we would have had a payscale cut and paste by now.

Thanks for the informative and well written posts, kuruzovich. I had never heard of Wells before, but I might actually end up applying next year. Obviously, I will do more research and look at other reviews, but I appreciate your response.
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