Pros
Great staff and some amazing middle leaders Pay is average Some extremely talented young middle eastern men and women Great atmosphere once you had won the student's respect - you wouldn't be able to walk down the corridor without 10 students coming up to shake your hand. Excellent support from the Arabic parents Some excellent arabic teachers - Life and soul of the school!
Cons
Shared accommodation - other schools in Doha don't do this Inconsistent timetable - because many students don't return because the facilities are so bad, the timetable changed about 7 times in the first half term. HR aren't helpful, poorly organised and never answer any questions Constant politics from senior leadership - they are more interested in pleasing the owner instead of providing recommendations to improve the school. Very poor facilities! Computer rooms had a total of 50 mice missing and there is no water or gas in the science labs. Nothing was updated or replaced Dangerous chemicals that need disposing are not stored properly Massive safeguarding issues - There were no accurate registers for about 75% of the year. Year 11 don't even turn up because they know they can get away with it. On several occasions, parents would come in looking for their son/daughter and they couldn't be found in any classroom - just out in the football pitch! Truanting was rife and little was done to update important systems with accurate information. In fact, some students would regularly bunk off and go to Villagio and not one person would pick up on it. No information available about students from previous years - no grades, reports or comments. Inconsistent pay progression No accurate tracking of student progress or registers One teacher was formally warned for playing football - they were a pe teacher Un-announced visits from some senior staff to staff accommodation. Only 1 football pitch for the students during break - For the girls and boys, there is limited outdoor space - PE lessons are just playing football! On one side, because they were so bad in recruiting or retaining a PE teacher, whole classes for IGCSE had NO PE LESSONS ALL YEAR!. Real shame for the kids, the boys side love football and some great young talents in both sides. Massively understaffed and under-resourced! you have nothing to plan with Massive staff turnover - they had a whole new departments year on year. The knock on effect is that there is no continuity and no one knows what is going on. Teachers are fired for no reason! - one was fired for getting married, given the reason "because she may not go back", another because another teacher spoke badly about her to the owner over a minor incident. One teacher was told not to come back, only when staff and parents complained were they reinstated You aren't even given your contract HR don't even follow their own procedures Students are very poorly behaved, especially on the boys side. Constant fights, swearing mainly in arabic and behaviour policies are poorly implemented across the school. There is no effort made to support the young men and women to change their behaviour. Students allowed to enter the school with little or no command of english - The parents are being robbed blind here! Ultimately the students suffer! Promises are made that they will be supported by the SEN department but due to chronic staff shortages this never materialises.