Shenzhen American International school

[whoamI?]

Hi all,

Does anyone know anything about this school?

[whoamI?]

Bump bump bump??

Anyone? Anything?

[eion_padraig]

I hadn't ever heard of it, which surprised me. I realized after looking it up that it is adding a high school, so it made more sense that I hadn't heard of it. But it's certainly not one of the big dogs in town like Shekou International School or QSI.

Here is a question, do they enroll Chinese nationals? If they do, you may want to look over what people have written about Chinese private schools and how they are run.

Shenzhen as a location is pretty easy in my opinion. Much easier than other cities in China if that is what you value.

[whoamI?]

Thanks for the response!

I am now revering you as the "Shenzhen Master"- haha!

The school DOES NOT, at least to my knowledge, enrol students who are 100% Chinese. Students from Taiwan, and Hong kong can enrol, but not anyone from the Mainland, unless the student is a hybrid (for lack of a better term). Here's where we can have a heated discussion about he relations between China and Taiwan too... haha.

The school DOES believe that all students, with any language proficiency can enrol. But with the low teacher to student ratio, I think it actually makes it easier to teach students who may not have super fluent English... But instead of ESL at this school, there are lots of kids who are CSL (Chinese second language).

More positives to say about the school are:

The principal actually has quite a bit of power at the school, whereas at my last school, the principal on the Canadian side was only a manager who enforced the agenda of the Chinese Headmaster.

The class sizes are very small. I think my class this year will have 10 kids. Lots of foreign teachers who work at this school have loads of experience back in the US. Most, if not all of the teachers have enrolled there dependents into the school, which makes me nervous that I'll be teaching the principal's son this year... So I'm not sure again if this is a good thing, or bad, but it seems like the school has a pretty good retention rate for teachers.

The school's compensation is pretty good, and the housing allowance is also a nice added feature. The bonuses on the contract for staying longer are also fairly perky, 2500 if you stay for two years, 5000 longevity if you stay for 5 years, with added pay on the pay scale as well.

Though the pay scale is not really illustrated on the contract, but the pay and the working hours alone are much better than my last school. 830-4 on certain club days (2 times a week) and 8-330 on normal days. The school also absorbs all local taxes for you in China, which I'm not sure if I still need to declare non-residency in Canada in order to gain the full benefit of this perk... So I think a phone call to the tax person is in order!

Anyway, yeah, its definitely not the shekou international school, which is one of the best in Shenzhen (from what I've heard), but it comes off as a well resourced school, with a big focus on creativity and projects. If I were to get out PG's tier list, I'd probably rate this school as a tier 2. But what do I know?

I'm just happy to be --hopefully-- moving up from a tier 3 school!

[eion_padraig]

Great, good luck with the job.

[shadowjack]

WhoamI - there is no requirement to "declare" non-residency in Canada. However, if you are leaving Canada, you must declare that on your tax filing for the year in which you left.

[whoamI?]

shadowjack wrote:
> WhoamI - there is no requirement to "declare" non-residency in
> Canada. However, if you are leaving Canada, you must declare that on your
> tax filing for the year in which you left.


Thanks a billion cents, Shad ;)- haha