Search and Families

[IAMBOG]

Does Search show a break down of faculty? We are a family in a school with no other families. We would like to move on to a school with a more family oriented faculty. Do they give that kind of information?

[AnnieT]

There is no breakdown in that way but there is a space where there school can say if they prefer single teachers or couples with children.

[shadowjack]

If a school is a larger school, chances are the faculty will have quite a few families on it. I know for a fact that schools like SAS (Shanghai) SAS (Singapore), CIS (Singapore), ASD (Dhaka) all have a lot of families.

It is something to ask the schools too!

[AnnieT]

Mant schools in Thailand also like to have a few white faces for when the photograpger wants some shot for the brochure.

[shadowjack]

AnnieT, those are the schools parents might want to avoid. It gets hard for the western kids to fit in. Of course, that also depends on school ethos and cultural openness, but having other expat kids at the school makes for an easier transition for the kids and parents.

[IAMBOG]

AnnieT, that wasn't what I was asking. My daughter is currently the white face of her current school (but, she isn't used in the school advertising). While she is socially successful and we, as teachers, do well at school (we have more staying power than most), we'd like to be in an environment with more families and less under 30 single, or at least a reasonable proportion of both.

When we asked our daughter if she would be ok moving on to another school she said, "that's ok, but if it's a school where they speak another language it would be nice if some of the kids in the class didn't speak that language". Thoughtfully said for a seven year old.

[AnnieT]

I am sorry I miunderstood.

AQlll I can suggest is that you look at the student breakdown on the Search profile for the school. It will tell you the nationality breakdown of the students and then ask about how many families there are at interview.

[PsyGuy]

Neither SA or ISS report faculty composition as a factor of family or single. My advice would be to either consult this forum directly and ask or use an expat forum that would be more focused on parents and ask there. Asking the recruiter during an interview would also be easy, but if your looking to narrow your search to those schools that have more families and more international students the interview would be an exhausting way of getting that information (meaning you have to get an interview, just to figure out if they are what your looking for.

Another option if your highly marketable is that upper tier schools tend to recruit older teachers and as a result these older teachers tend to have families more often. The upper tier schools as a general rule tend to have more of an international student body.

Your daughter is very astute, and a final option again if your highly marketable is to look at schools in WE where native students are typically bilingual, with english being the second language.