When we hear about China in the news, the stories are about their responses to Covid, their human rights record, the fraught relations between China and the West, and of course the two Ps – Population and Pollution. It’s no wonder that for many international educators China is, quite literally, a red flag.  However, (and… Read more »

Most countries have a national standard that educators must meet before they can teach in state-run schools. Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) is the standard for teachers in England. Increasingly, we are seeing that international schools are requiring that teachers have QTS before they can employ them. While there are various routes educators can take to… Read more »

Looking for a new job in a new country can be challenging. It forces you to take risks and step out of your comfort zone, especially if you’re considering moving up into a higher position of school leadership.  When your limbic brain believes you are in danger or there is a potential threat, messages are… Read more »

I started my teaching career in an economically-deprived area of North London, at a school which had just achieved the third worst GCSE results in the UK. Students weren’t being given the same chances as the vast majority of their peers, and I spent three years thinking about why that was, and what I could… Read more »

Back in 2016 I wrote a blog post weighing up the pros and cons of attending in-person job fairs. Since I am a busy teacher with small people to look after, I have firmly landed on the side of the cons: surely in this post-COVID age of Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams, there must be… Read more »

“What a privilege it is to live now, at just this moment, and to be able to go anywhere….” ― Anna Godbersen We all know how important it is to plan for the future, especially when we face so many uncertainties: climate change, political instability, the possibility of another pandemic. As a teacher anywhere, it… Read more »

Recently, we reached out to newly-placed international school leaders who found their positions through our platform to ask them if they would like to write a guest blog for us. Here Teresa Fry, Primary Principal at Sekolah Buin Batu in Indonesia, gives her advice for how to make a successful start as a new leader…. Read more »

In March last year we wrote about how to get IB experience. In the article we addressed the challenge faced by teachers who want to work in an IB school but can’t because they haven’t done so before. These teachers are justifiably frustrated, but there are ways to forge a path in this direction without… Read more »

In Reception, for the past two years, we have continually developed our ideas around provision, interactions and resourcing. Upon entering the unit, I recognised that the children had a good level of involvement in their tasks, which has increased over time.  The secret that has enabled the children to move toward high levels of involvement… Read more »

Michael Dunn is the creator of theoryofknowledge.net, the world’s biggest site for TOK, and critivicate.com, offering a ‘4C’ course for non-IB schools, from 1st May. Falling into international teaching I never intended to live abroad, or become an international teacher. Actually, It’s a career path that few people seem to plan: most of my colleagues… Read more »