The International Schools Review Forum

Does anybody have any info? According to the positions advertised on Search, it seems that everyone is leaving.

Interviewed with this school - new Director (John McBryde) was 9 years at WAB and knows what he's doing. Good package - a better choice in Beijing than CISB for sure - my gut tells me they're moving in the right direction.

This was quite possibly the most dysfunctional place I have EVER been! I have heard from friends who are still in those trenches that McBryde is doing good things. Remember above Everything, Kathy still runs the show! To me that means this school will always be deeply fundamentally flawed. If you are a real secondary teacher do not even think about it! The primary has finally gone down the PYP path and some younger teachers are enjoying their experience. Again if you are in the secondary, read the reviews, there is nothing one man can do to unsink a sunk ship in a year! The leadership must all be new (no admin in the ms/hs survived a contract while I was there. I have no idea how they can change the student population though. Students go to 6th grade and then transfer to a different school. They were going to move the 6th grade to the ms/hs campus and there was such an uprise from the parents that the idea was immediately scraped.

In a sentence: elementary, take a chance if you're young and need pyp. Ms/hs stay as far away as possible and see if McBryde accomplished anything in a few years.

My experience at this school.... BIBS... was that it IS NOT a PYP school and will probably never be one. My advice to anyone contemplating a move there now or in the near future, would be to question the skills and qualifications of the Leadership team. Recent advice from parents and teachers sill in Beijing is that very little, if anything has changed. BEWARE. I totally agree with other posts that this school is the most dysfunctional I have ever seen anywhere.

Its a third tier school with major management, and ownership issue. It is not a good package, its a pretty low compensation package. Its a Chinese bilingual school, for locals. and has all the problems that come with that. Many low tier schools with issue think they can change HOSs and it will change the school and it doesnt. Admins dont kill a school ownership does, you can hire great people, but if ownership is dysfunctional and let an admin do their job, then you just end up with the same mess.

At some point they will get PYP and MYP full authorization.

PsyGuy wrote:
> Its a third tier school with major management, and ownership issue. It is not a good
> package, its a pretty low compensation package. Its a Chinese bilingual school,
> for locals. and has all the problems that come with that. Many low tier schools
> with issue think they can change HOSs and it will change the school and it doesnt.
> Admins dont kill a school ownership does, you can hire great people, but if ownership
> is dysfunctional and let an admin do their job, then you just end up with the same
> mess.
>
> At some point they will get PYP and MYP full authorization.
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It's low compared to a lot of other schools in the city. What's so funny/sad/ironic is that the package is still much better than the Canadian School. What is it with Canadian schools around the world? They almost always seem to pay crap (aside from maybe Hong Kong).

The Canadian school though is less preparation and production work and no where near the frustration and drama.

PsyGuy wrote:
> The Canadian school though is less preparation and production work and no
> where near the frustration and drama.
======================
And it's within walking distance of some nice restaurants and shopping areas (and Fatburger).

Nothing like "Food Show" in Shibuya though.

PsyGuy wrote:
> Nothing like "Food Show" in Shibuya though.
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Sigh. Yeah, that place was freaking amazing. Japanese food halls in general are great. I even miss just walking through an average train station or department store basement.

Hoping to get back there soon.

John Mc no longer there apparently!