Why are international school visits so important?

Published on 14th December, 2015 by Andrew Wigford. Published in

Visits by the TIC team to international schools help us to help you

Earlier this month, TIC’s Director Andrew Wigford and Recruitment Manager Gemma McSweeney travelled east to visit Singapore and Hong Kong. Here Andrew talks about the benefits of the school visits:

“Every year, Gemma and I attend the Federation of British Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) conference. FOBISIA is a fantastic association supporting leading international schools across Asia. TIC has been working with many of the FOBISIA schools for nearly ten years.

This year’s conference was held in Singapore. This gave us a great opportunity to visit some excellent schools in the city and Hong Kong during our stay.

Knowing the schools

TIC is able to offer the very best vacancies and most informed support to teachers by visiting as many international schools as possible. These visits allow us to talk with confidence and knowledge about the schools. Even a short visit can give us a good impression of the atmosphere in the classroom, the quality of learning and the relationship between staff and parents.

Visits also allows us to build a strong working relationship with the schools. These are vital to provide the best international school vacancies to our teachers.

Singapore school visits

Gemma and I visited Dover Court School and the United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) while we were in Singapore.

It was great was great to visit their impressive facilities. In Dover Court we had a guided tour from the Head of Secondary, who we had previously placed in the Middle East. It showed the exciting opportunities that are available in the city.

We also enjoyed visiting Tanglin Trust School, where FOBISIA was being held. We met many international school headteachers and senior leaders during the conference; some new and some who we have worked with before. As always, recruitment was the hot topic of the conference. Asia’s market is rapidly expanding, and there’s an ever-increasing need for high quality teachers.

On to Hong Kong

After the conference, we travelled to Hong Kong. Here we visited Harrow International School Hong Kong, a fantastic school with over 200 staff, nearly entirely recruited by TIC! In next week’s blog, Gemma will talk about our visit to the school, about catching up with the teachers, and the opportunities Harrow International has for 2016.

I also visited Nord Anglia International School Hong Kong, and the German Swiss International School. These are two great schools, both offering different education experiences for their students and teachers.

Hong Kong is an incredible destination. We took ferries across the city every day for the equivalent of 15p! The skylines are breathtaking and the whole city bustles with people. Everyone there is very friendly and they certainly know how to work hard and play hard!"

If you would like to find out more about the opportunities we have available in Singapore, Hong Kong and across Asia, take a look at our Asia Vacancies section. Don’t miss next week’s blog, when Gemma will talk about her time at Harrow International School Hong Kong.

You might also be interested in these informative blogs:
Teachers get inside-track on international job hunting
Teaching at the International Preparatory School in Mauritius
More teachers left the UK to teach than qualified to become teachers through PGCE in 2014

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Andrew Wigford

Andrew is Managing Director of TIC. He has been involved in international education both as a teacher and Headteacher for over 25 years and has worked in Germany, Colombia and Austria. He set up TIC recruitment in 2005 to help teachers find great jobs in great international schools.