Topic: Sri Thammarat Suksa in Nakhon Sri Thammarat

[swindledinthesouth]

This is only a word of caution. If you are considering coming here and working for this school please consider all options before accepting any job offer. I will post details soon with specifics. I am only posting this as a word of warning for now.

Thanks

[Geekboy]

Isn't it affiliated with BCC?

[swindledinthesouth]

Isn't it affiliated with BCC?

Yes it is affiliated with BCC. They fall under the same Christian umbrella. They claim to be a Christian school, but the only thing Christian about the place are Christian Education classes. The rest is only smoke and mirrors.

[Geekboy]

Yeah I noticed they are constantly advertising for teachers. For some reason, I guess they can't keep teachers, kind of like BCC. Isn't Thai Christian an oxymoron?

 

[anyonefortennis]

Swindled, any chance you can now expand on the reasons why to avoid the school?

If not the thread may just turn into a bible bashers bashers thread, if you get my drift.........and then the attention moves from this school to Thai Christian schools in general.

The constant advertising could be down to the fact that they canna get anyone to live down in Nakhorn, it ain't excatly rockin out there

Smoke em out and spill ya guts 

[swindledinthesouth]

Swindled, any chance you can now expand on the reasons why to avoid the school?

If not the thread may just turn into a bible bashers bashers thread, if you get my drift.........and then the attention moves from this school to Thai Christian schools in general.

The constant advertising could be down to the fact that they canna get anyone to live down in Nakhorn, it ain't excatly rockin out there

Smoke em out and spill ya guts 

Sorry for the long delay in getting details out to everyone. I am waiting for some more information before I get into details about the place.
I don't want this to be a bible bashing. I will have all the details this weekend and will post them here.

[travelteacher]

No need to bible bash the school. I taught there last year. I'd would have to say there were some good points, but several bad points.

The big one was the 1000 baht fine they decided to levy when teachers were taking their sick and/or personal leave days. It's not in the contract, but they arbitrarily applied it.

Another was that they decided that teachers needed to do extra duties, like standing at the gate at 7am in the morning to greet students.Who wants to do that? Come on, they need to disclose those things to us teachers. Contract says the day starts at 730, not 7am. When I stood up to them, I was told that if I didn't like it, I could leave. Works for me!

For Mother's Day, they made all the teachers sit on plastic chairs in the hot sun.

Academically, they believe in pre-test/post-tests. What does that mean? You start every term giving the students a test that they can not pass.

The BS factor is high in this school. Just too much BS. Lesson plans a week in advance, turn them in a week in advance then turn in a second copy after you teach the classes. They are chronically short on teachers (because of high turnover). In my time there, they never had a full staff of teachers. That means extra unpaid overtime.



 

[anyonefortennis]

Fair enuff Swindled, I look forward to hearing what they get up to.

TT, How many native English teachers do (should) they have on staff?

Regarding the 1,000B fine, was this applied regardless of circumstances, for example if you produced a doctors note saying you were unfit to attend work, did you still get hit with the fine?

Are you obliged, thru your contract, to teach unpaid o/t? Or is it just expected.......what happens if you tell em to go whistle?

Were you on guard, sorry, gate duty every day?

Was Mothers day bad planning and lack of thought, or a deliberate ploy to make you all uncomfortable?

What are the Farang, Thai teacher relations like, are the farang blanked or is there a good working relationship?

Are pretests used in the correct manner, that is to say, are they used to determine the students base line knowledge with regards to the content in the forth coming semester................or is it unrelated to what they will learn?

Finally, how much wonger do they pay per month? 

[travelteacher]

Fair enuff Swindled, I look forward to hearing what they get up to.

TT, How many native English teachers do (should) they have on staff?

Regarding the 1,000B fine, was this applied regardless of circumstances, for example if you produced a doctors note saying you were unfit to attend work, did you still get hit with the fine?

Are you obliged, thru your contract, to teach unpaid o/t? Or is it just expected.......what happens if you tell em to go whistle?

Were you on guard, sorry, gate duty every day?

Was Mothers day bad planning and lack of thought, or a deliberate ploy to make you all uncomfortable?

What are the Farang, Thai teacher relations like, are the farang blanked or is there a good working relationship?

Are pretests used in the correct manner, that is to say, are they used to determine the students base line knowledge with regards to the content in the forth coming semester................or is it unrelated to what they will learn?

Finally, how much wonger do they pay per month? 

I don't know how many currently, but last year there were 20 teachers on staff. From what I heard, only a few stayed on for another year.

Doctor's Note or no doctor's note. It was applied at times deemed needed by management to keep too many people from taking off at the same time. The contract says 5 days of personal leave per semester. It doesn't talk about a fine.

Overtime? If you aren't willing to "help out" then you can find another job.

Thai/Foreign relations: In my department, it sucked. We had an ever watchful boss who was upset if we were not spending all of our time preparing for classes. Forget chatting with other teachers, listening to music on your headphones or even checking your email on school computers.

The pretests were purposely made so that the student fail the test. During the term, you teach the test. The post-test is the same as the pre-test and at the end of the term, as long as you taught the test, the students will show improvement. This improvement was given to the parents as proof their students are learning.

Guard duty was scheduled, but not in the contract.

Salary, 30,000 per month for 40 periods a week, 20 of it teaching, 20 of it doing extra duties.

[anyonefortennis]

TT, it sounds like a right barrel of laughs, why ever did you leave............how long did you stick it for?

The o/t (covering once in a blue moon I’m ok with, once a week is taking the piss………..which was it here?) and 1,000 baht fine are bang outta order……………..does the 40 periods include 30 minutes each day standing at the gate showing off your blonde hair and blue eyes?

I’ll be interested to hear what else goes on down there.

[swindledinthesouth]

Some of the points have already been said by TT. I guess I was not the only unhappy person who had to work there. I think if a school has a 95% turn over rate there are some serious issues with that place.

1. The contracts are open ended and there for interpretation by whom ever is in management.
2. The extra duties were not disclosed upon hiring and they would spring them upon you. It would result in working at 7a.m. or missing part of your lunch time. This was not a paid overtime post. They expected and demanded it from the employees.
3. The management is ever watchful of your moves and the state of the office is one of oppression. There was not much laughter and that nice relaxed atmosphere that makes for a good working environment.
4. You could not really expect any help from your direct supervisors. Most were only there to help themselves unless you were part of the click.
5. This is common in most places I think, but there was no communication about events until the last minute.
6. Being told things did happen or were going to happen and it never appeared. An example; You were told I talked to your boss and everything will be worked out, but there was never any talking with anyone. I call that a lie.
7. My overall feeling when I was there is one of distrust and disdain for the foreign staff. I felt like being locked in a glass house just waiting for them to see a mistake so they could talk about it in the Thai meetings. This last point is only my feeling of the school and not a real issue as above.

Having said the above, not everything was bad about the school. The negatives have such an impact on you that it completely out weighs the positives.

I hope people will consider all options before going to work at this school.

[lemon]

No need to bible bash the school. I taught there last year. I'd would have to say there were some good points, but several bad points.

The big one was the 1000 baht fine they decided to levy when teachers were taking their sick and/or personal leave days. It's not in the contract, but they arbitrarily applied it.

Another was that they decided that teachers needed to do extra duties, like standing at the gate at 7am in the morning to greet students.Who wants to do that? Come on, they need to disclose those things to us teachers. Contract says the day starts at 730, not 7am. When I stood up to them, I was told that if I didn't like it, I could leave. Works for me!

For Mother's Day, they made all the teachers sit on plastic chairs in the hot sun.

Academically, they believe in pre-test/post-tests. What does that mean? You start every term giving the students a test that they can not pass.

The BS factor is high in this school. Just too much BS. Lesson plans a week in advance, turn them in a week in advance then turn in a second copy after you teach the classes. They are chronically short on teachers (because of high turnover). In my time there, they never had a full staff of teachers. That means extra unpaid overtime.

I worked there too.  What I didn't like were the boring Bible-thumping no-experience teachers they hire.

Another problem was the locking of the gates durinig school hours.  So if you wanted a Coke you'd get permission from the boss who relayed your request to the gateman.
Strict, anal place to work, not to mention one of the most Mafia-infested, corrupt places in Thailand.

[RobRoy]

[

.......... not to mention one of the most Mafia-infested, corrupt places in Thailand.
[/quote]

That would be compared to what other parts of Thailand?

[exsssteacher]

NST is noted as the mafia province. I never noticed it in my time there.

Also, the back gates were the ones locked. If you had a motorcycle or car, you couldn't easily get out of school during the day. Last year, I walked out and was able to take lunch outside, but this year, they clamped down on that and didn't allow it anymore.

I know there were a few inexperienced Christian teachers hired, Captain Canada who claimed 90% of all Vancouver residents are Chinese is just one of them. Never fear, the pendulum has changed in the complete opposite direction. They make it a point not to hire Christians(strange for a Christian school) and they prefer inexperienced and unqualified teachers. Easier to control them or so said last year's Foreign AA. He was a nice guy, actually care about you, nice guy but lousy manager. Rest assured that the level of teacher qualification at sss is just worse than its ever been.

 

We had one career teacher come over from Canada. He was supposed to be our AA, but they treated him like shit and then fired him. They put the guy who is named after an Asian country in charge. What a total dickhead. This guy thinks he's something sitting and talking with his no degree sidekick who likes Apples. I know he has a newborn kid and all, but he rides the fence and plays the fiddle with the head of mattayom ep.

       

The head of Mattayom EP? What a witch. She is the most two faced witch you will ever find in a school. She acts like she's your friend, but she'll stab you in the back whenever it suits her purpose.

Even if you have already left, she'll stab you in the back or even if you just apply there. Listen to this story:

They just opened their Anubahn EP this year and needed to go in April to get approval from the MOE. The MOE rejected them and said they need to hire teachers with Early Childhood Education degrees. No problem. They asked one of the foreign to research it and make up some fake degrees for them. They needed 6 teachers.

At first, they came with a list of resumes and copies of passports from teachers who had applied at the school. They wanted to make fake degrees for these teachers who had merely applied at the school and then submit these fake degrees to the MOE!!!!!! 

The teacher making the fake degrees said no way and then they wanted to use current teachers. No! The better idea was squashed, the idea to actually look for qualified teachers.

 

In the end, the teacher had to make a choice, let the Thais make lousy degrees for teachers or make pristine fakes and choose teachers wisely. Of the 6 chosen, 4 were people permanently out of Thailand and no reason to ever come back.  The other two? Said teacher and the AA, the guy name after a country. He has a fake degree setting in the MOE files.
 

 

I'll save more for later to keep this thread near the top....

[Duckbill]

Fake degrees? The school wanted fake degrees? What kind of bullshit school is that?