Teaching Abroad- Advice Much Appreciated

[DonnaMW]

Hi there. I am a qualified teacher (however, I never completed my NQT year, but have 20+ years experience teaching in mainstream, SEN, nurseries, weekend theatre classes etc.)

My husband and I have recently started looking at opportunities abroad (perhaps we're going through a bit of a mid-life crisis as we're both 40 but haven't got children!). Could anyone give me any advice on if I'd be qualified to teach abroad and if so, where best to look for opportunities in places like China, Dubai etc. Any other general advice would be much appreciated!

Many thanks!

Donkeys years ago, I worked in Hong Kong at an international school. TES online was the place to look for international jobs, not sure if it is now. There were quite a lot of unqualified teachers out there, I think they were paid a bit less but sometimes that made them more attractive! It was a wonderful experience and I would say go for it.

Start with Tes jobs and filter by location, likewise Guardian jobs https://jobs.theguardian.com/jobs/schools/teacher/direct-employer/

Get on Linked In and start following education recruitment companies and managers, open up your profile and you'll probably find a few messages will drop in your inbox from recruitment consultants if you're open to it. Not all worth following up however!

And check online to see if there are any international school job fairs on soon that you can pop along too.

Now is the best time to start looking for August starts.

If you have a British teaching qualification degree and QTS along with (ish)3yrs experience you'll be good 👍 (that is what it was when I did it a few years back, in China).

Best experience I've had! I loved it 😍

Thank you so much for your helpful replies. One of the things we’ve talked about is wanting to save plenty of money to come home with. I’ve read that some roles come with accommodation…is this correct? It would be such a huge decision to make so just want to make sure we make the right one! Thanks again.

Like with all jobs, every role will be different. Some do come with accommodation. In Hong Kong, i didn't have accommodation included but I had a great social life, did tons of travelling and still came home with some savings. Start looking at packages!

Malaysia and Singapore are wonderful locations, I loved my time teaching there. I had accommodation provided and was able to do lots of travel every school holiday.

In my previous school, I had an English teacher who had been teaching for 5 years and moved to Hong Kong and became a teacher over there - they loved it and it was a great experience that they highly recommended to anyone who could do it. They come back after 3 years to raise children..