New Jazz school

[Teaching Supply]

We recently worked with this organisation and would not recommend ever working with them. The teachers we recruited for the positions left after 2 months and consider that very lenient on their behalf. Below is their very kind resignation letter and several reasons not to work with them. Names have been removed for privacy purposes.

[SIZE=2]28-10-2008
[SIZE=2]Hello 'Name removed',

We are sorry to inform you that this week will be our last week teaching in Huishi primary school and that we will terminate our cooperation with Jazz English as well. We do not believe that significant changes in our teaching arrangements will be made before 1 November and therefore Friday 31 October 2008 will be our last day teaching. These are the main reasons for our decision:

1. Our contract with Jazz English has no value because since our first working day we have been teaching subjects which are not included in the contract. Moreover we have been teaching more than 21 classroom periods without extra payment. Contrary to what the contract states in article 1, we have not been informed about teaching in an international department and teaching extra subjects to different levels of students before we signed the contract. Since the contract has no value, we are free to tereminate it effective 1 November 2008.

2.Jazz English has been slow and biased in its support to us. From the first working day on we have expressed our discomfort with the present arrangement. Jazz English has not made any attempt to change the present situation. The only result of our concerns has been that we now can buy teaching materials in our spare time, de facto creating a new curriculum for science, culture and arts for Huishi primary school, without any effort from Huishi primary school (our Chinese colleagues). We believe this is not part of our contract as well. We have at least three times mentioned our concerns without any follow up. Before the October holiday we already suggested some changes in the teaching timetable. Last week we wrote a report on request of Jazz English on which we did not receive any response. We had to contact Jazz English ourselves to find out that no immediate actions will be taken. We had expected a different response. Jazz English is biased in terms that it values the relationship with Huishi primary school more than the relationship with foreign teachers. We have observed that colleagues from Huishi primary school have more opportunity to talk about the present cooperation than we have. Too much emphasis has been put on a minor mistake of (name removed) (an incident!), for which he had already apologized, while we had no opportunity to discuss the more important structural problems we are facing. We still haven't had this opportunity.

3. Huishi primary school is insufficiently supporting us in terms of practical information, vital information about pupils and support related to pupils disruptive behavior. We have had only one meeting this far, and our issues have not been addressed yet. We have the impression that Chinese teachers consider their lessons more important than ours, which has a negative effect on pupils' behavior. Moreover, there are some structural organisational deficiencies which have a negative effect in pupils study performance and behavior. We do not believe that significant changes will be made in the short term to overcome these deficiencies.

4. Many Pupils in Huishi primary school, especially in grade 4, lack the social skills and behavior which one would expect them to have in their age group. Therefore it is practically impossible to teach them English (or any other subject) without resorting to very traditional and unattractive teaching methods.


It is obvious that the we are not satisfied with the cooperation with Jazz English and Huishi primary school. We have been reasonable, cooperative and patient for the last 7 weeks. Since our time in Shanghai is limited, we we would like to look for a more rewarding teaching position in Shanghai as soon as possible. We are sorry to say that too often we found our efforts in Huishi primary school very unrewarding. Given the circumstances we are probably not the right teachers to teach in Huishi primary school. We'd like to advice to send teachers with significant experience in international kindergarten teaching next time, since improving the basic social skills of the pupils in this school is at least as important as teaching them English.

We understand that informing you on short notice about our leaving Huishi primary school might cause some practical difficulties. It was our intention to discuss matters much earlier, but as said before Jazz English unfortunately did not respond quickly. On the other hand, a period of time with just one foreign teacher in Huishi primary school will give the principal the opportunity to inform the parents about the reasons for that and to consult on how to improve their childrens' behavior. We believe a meeting with the parents is absolutely necessary. In that respect our leaving might be a blessing in disguise. On order to give the school time to prepare, we believe it would be wise to inform the principal and colleagues today about our leaving.

Despite our differences, we hope that we can terminate our cooperation with Huishi primary school and Jazz English effective 1 November 2008 in friendship and that all parties, including new teachers in Huishi primary school will benefit from the shared experiences over the last 7 weeks. Please let us know if you would like to have a final meeting in the office or in school.

Kind regards,



[SIZE=2]'Names removed'