What are some of the most basic things to consider when choosing where to teach?

I think people need to look very carefully into the country that they want to go to, and find out whether they could actually work in that environment. If you go to an English-speaking country such as America or Australia or Canada, for example, you haven’t nearly so many issues to deal with; you can easily explain what you want. But if you’re going somewhere that doesn’t speak English as a first language, you’ve got to be very competent, and have so much patience, finding different ways of asking for what you want.

How about destinations in terms of safety?

You really do need to check on the political state of the country, and therefore whether it is actually safe. There are some really good wesbites like the United Nations site, and the British government publish some really good websites where you can check on the status of every country in the world.

Be aware that things change regularly. So even somewhere as attractive as Indonesia, for example, has warnings out for certain areas at the moment, and advises British people not to go to because of bomb threats and threats of kidnapping – even killing of British citizens.  So you’ve got to check that side of things out.

What are some of the considerations around going as a couple

My partner John and I both applied for a job in Thailand ages ago. I landed one down in Pattaya, while he got one in Bangkok. So we then changed our CVs and actually described ourselves as “part of a teaching couple”; I had my photograph larger on one side, and a smaller photograph of John on the other side, and we did the equivalent for his.

We sent them off and said that we were a teaching couple and that we’d both be looking for positions.

Sometimes they wrote back and said – even though it was primary – that the specialist subjects that we’d got didn’t match (for example I got one in China, but John didn’t match up) so that was no good.

Now we’ve both been offered positions in a school in Panama. I’ve been offered a Key Stage co-ordinator’s role with a view to being made deputy next year. It’s a new school – part of the King’s Group based in Madrid; they’ve been invited by the Panamanian government to set up a school over there.

If you’re going as a couple and your partner’s not a teacher, than that throws up all kinds of things as well, depending on what kind of help the school might give you, in helping your partner settle in as well.

And how about taking a family overseas?

I became a lot more mercenary. I wanted to know what the school would offer us rather than what we were offering them. The majority of schools do offer free places for children, so if you’re a teaching couple and you’ve got two children then you normally get free places for both children. If you’re teaching and perhaps your spouse isn’t, then most schools offer at least one free place, some offer a subsidised second place – that might be a consideration.

A lot of places don’t offer flights for the children, nor medical care for the children either, so that’s a consideration – and it represents a chunk of the salary that you’ll need to think about and factor in.

Good luck with your new post in Panama, and please tell us all about it once you’ve had a chance to settle in!

Michelle will be offering further advice for teachers who have already accepted a post overseas and are about to depart, so watch out for that feature, coming up soon from Eteach.

• Been there, done that? Great! So what are your tips for working overseas? Why not share with other Eteach readers. Just comment below or send us an email.

Martha Payne started her website, appropriately named NeverSeconds, with the permission of her school, the Daily Mail reports. She photographed her £2 school lunches and wrote a blog about them every day, adding a rating under her ‘Food-o-meter, with permission from teachers at her (unidentified) school.

A typical blog reads:

The pizza in was alright but I’d have enjoyed more than 1 croquet. I’m a growing kid and I need to concentrate all afternoon and I can’t do it on 1 croquette. Do any of you think you could?

Food-o-meter- 6/10
Mouthfuls- forgot to count but not enough!
Courses- main/dessert
Health Rating- 4/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0!

After three months, the blog suddenly took off with over 40,000 hits in one day and 105,000 visits. Martha has been compared to campaigning chef Jamie Oliver and her father, who supervises the blog, got a Tweet from him: ‘Shocking but inspirational blog. Keep going. Big love from Jamiex’

Martha lives on the west coast of Scotland and improvements in school meals don’t appear to have been implemented there. However, in a recent blog she wrote: ‘I love Mexican food and today’s Chicken Fajita was very nice and enjoyable,’ so perhaps her campaign to improve school dinners is finally making a difference!

Are meals at your school as bad as Martha’s? Do your pupils get the nourishment they need? Let us know what you think.

Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said that disruption during lesson times was often due to the use of mobiles and that when he was a headmaster he banned pupils from bringing mobiles to school, The Telegraph reports. As part of Ofsted’s drive to improve discipline in schools, a tougher inspection regime will be introduced next term and schools will risk being penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons. Other forms of disruption, including back-chatting and calling out, will also come under scrutiny as part of the drive to improve pupil behaviour.

Few schools currently impose an outright ban on bringing handsets to school and many allow them as long as they are kept turned off. Teachers already have the power to search pupils for phones if school rules ban them, or if they’re suspected of viewing pornography on them, but say that once a pupil brings a mobile into school it’s difficult to ensure they don’t turn them on.

Have your lessons been disrupted by mobiles? Share your experiences with us!

Just over half the teachers in the survey feel that they should be awarded salary scale points annually, unless they’ve performed poorly. 23% said that scale points should only be awarded to teachers who performed well; almost 40% of senior leaders were in favour of this.

Other findings are that for one in five teachers their top cause of dissatisfaction was constant changes in education policy, closely followed by bureaucracy and paperwork, and the pressure of assessment targets and inspections.  67% of teachers aren’t in favour of schools becoming Academies and most also disagree with the Government’s policy over Free Schools.

Rebecca (not her real name) said she wasn’t sure why she was targeted, but thinks it may have been because other teachers undermined her, so students thought she was fair game. Abusive messages, some of the sexual, spread rapidly on Facebook and Twitter and she was eventually diagnosed with clinical depression. The school failed to take the issue seriously or offer support, so Rebecca resigned.

The NASUWT says that one in four teachers have had experienced cyberbullying and that it is ‘having a devastating effect on teachers’ health, wellbeing, confidence, self-esteem and in some cases their career progression.’ Nearly 50% of the teachers they spoke to received little or no support and the union warns that ‘some employers are seriously failing in their duty of care’.

Have you been cyberbullied and if so did you get any support? Share your stories with other teachers with Eteach.

A leading educator has blamed parents whose children start primary school unable to learn. Dr Elizabeth Siidwell has called for a campaign aimed at improving parenting skills, the Daily Mail reports.

Speaking to headteachers in London, Dr Sidwell said that poor parenting, combined with under -performing primary schools, will result in thousands of children who struggle with the three Rs.

Parents should be encouraged to talk with and read to their children every day, give them breakfast and get them to school on time. Dr Sidwell, the Schools Commissioner, said that some parents don’t get up in time to take their children to school and that many of them are in ‘workless households’.

Who is to blame for 5 year-olds who can’t learn – parents or schools? Share your views and experiences with us!

Ofqual reviewed biology, chemistry and geography A-levels, and biology and chemistry GCSEs from 2001 to 2010, the Guardian reports.  The review found that the more recent papers have become less demanding, with fewer essay questions and more multiple-choice questions.  The A-levels also gave pupils less opportunities to analyse and interpret complex data. Ofqual has admitted that the review raises concerns about the maintenance of standards and that they will consider what lessons need to be learnt.

The DfE said that the review shows that not enough is being demanded from students and that they aren’t being asked to demonstrate ‘real depth and breadth of knowledge’.

Ofqual’s Chief Executive, Glenys Stacey, admitted that the value of GCSEs and A-levels has been undermined because of ‘persistent grade inflation’ the Telegraph reports. She warned that wholesale changes need to be made to exams to restore public confidence, including a return to the traditional A-level where exams are taken at the end of the course.

Last month a Cambridge Assessment survey of over 600 lecturers found that just over half of them think that A-levels no longer prepare students for university.

France: the opportunities and challenges for Brits

In September 2011 we caught up with Dr Steffen Sommer , headmaster of the British School of Paris (BSP), who offered Eteach readers some fascinating insights about both his particular school, and about working in France generally.

The BSP is a co-educational British school based just outside Paris in a prestigious western suburb close to Versailles in Croissy sur Seine, on one of the most beautiful stretches of the Seine outside of the city centre.

“The crux is that we are very proud of the Britishness that we uphold here: we teach a completely British curriculum, and what you find at the BSP is exactly the same as you’ll find at any independent or state school in England, but the cohort we have is very international,” explained Dr Sommer. He said that while most of his staff come from the UK, it is very competitive because staff turnover is minimal.

“The reason is that it’s a fantastic place to work,” he said.

He also touched on the differences between working in a ‘British’ school, and other flavours of international school, and explained some of the advantages of working in France – one being that it’s ‘overseas’, but just a short hop from the UK.

• Dr Sommer will be speaking at this year’s Council of British International Schools’ (COBIS) conference on 13^th May on the subject of ‘21^st Century Skills’.

Click here to read the full interview with Dr Sommer, and register your interest in teaching in international schools in France via the Eteach France Talent Pool. You can also search for current European vacancies

The Czech Republic: plenty to offer, and near enough to sample

The Eteach team visited Prague for the Council of British International Schools’ conference in March 2011. During the visit Gerry Hillier-Manolas visited The English College to find out what makes it unique.

Gerry reported that while students come in on academic merit, parents only pay proportionally according to their salary: while the college only recruits the ‘best of the best’ access is not only limited to better off families.

Gerry also took a short break in Prague with her family to find out more about the city, and you can read more both about The English College and what she discovered about the city itself here.

You can also register your interest in teaching in international schools in the Czech Republic using the Eteach Czech Republic Talent Pool, and search for current European vacancies here.

Burma: a very rich cross-cultural experience

Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been in the news lately following Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to what was considered a pariah state, ruled by a dictatorship and with a poor record on human rights.

Cameron described recent multi-party elections as a “bright light”, and there’s talk of raising financial sanctions.

In February we interviewed Pauline Rosenblum, headteacher of the Network International School, which is situated in Yangon.

It seems the country remains, as Kipling once put it, “quite unlike any place you know about”, offering unique opportunities for cross-cultural experience for teachers. Pauline told us that the locals are friendly, and the former capital Yangon is a safe place to live, with technology such as mobile phones and internet cafés increasingly visible.

Click here to read the full interview with Pauline Rosenblum, and register your interest in teaching for future posts at the Network International School when they become available. You can also search for current vacancies in Asia here.

To browse more international teaching jobs, just click here and choose the region that interests you most.

Have you already lived and worked in any of these countries? Why not tell other Eteach readers what it’s really like? Just comment below or send us an email.

In their new report, Great teachers, the MPs urge the government to develop a pay system that is tied to the value teachers add to their pupils’ performance. They are concerned that the current system pays poorly performing teachers at the same rate as their more successful colleagues.

If their reforms are accepted, teachers at the top of the scale would receive pay increases based on merit, but the Committee admits that there would be practical and political difficulties.

Graham Stuart MP, Chairman of the Committee, said:”It’s crucial that

we have an educational system which celebrates great teachers, keeps more of them in the classroom, supports their development and gives them greater status and reward.”

Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, criticised the recommendation: “Performance related pay is not only inappropriate but divisive. Children and young people differ and class intakes differ from year to year, making it impossible to measure progress in simplistic terms.”

The report also recommends that would-be teachers should be observed in the classroom before being offered a training place, and the creation of a sabbatical scheme for outstanding teachers.

How would you do if your pay was linked to performance? Would a system based on merit be fair? Let us know what you think of the Committee’s recommendations!

Maths anxiety was identified in the 1950, but it’s only now that researchers at Stanford University in America have scanned the brains of children with the condition to see what’s going on. They have discovered that the children respond to maths with increased activity in the brain’s fear centres – in the same way as someone with a phobia about creepy crawlies would. The knock-on effect from this is less activity in the brain’s problem-solving areas, making it even more difficult to come up with the right mathematical answer.

Professor Vinod Menon, who led the research, said the findings are important because they shows that maths anxiety is real: “It cannot be wished away. It needs to be attended to and treated if it persists.”

Although the condition is now recognised, there are no formal ways of diagnosing when worrying about maths becomes full-blown ‘maths anxiety’.  Telling a child that they have it isn’t helpful and can be counterproductive – what’s needed is the right support to give the child confidence in their abilities. Peter Lacey from the Association of Teachers of Mathematics says teachers can be constrained by our target- and attainment-driven system:  “The pressures to get children to a particular level in tests at 11 can mean teaching them tricks to get good outcomes, rather than making sure they are confident in their understanding.”

Are you amongst the 25% of us who suffer from maths anxiety? If so, how do you cope? We’d love to hear your experiences and any tips for overcoming your fears.