Program Reviews

Safety of the school was terrible. Flooding from above karaoke bar, sparks flying from water hitting live wires in teachers room. Umbrellas over computers. Toilets overflowing was a common occurrence. Outside in Xining city was safe. A lot of police around. The management was very tricky. Changing pay date before leaving so I could get my last months pay. Accused of stealing when the school overpaid. This kind of stupid childish behaviour. School materials old and dirty. Not enough text books to go around. Anyway it goes on and on. Just be careful of private school especially when they are NOT associated with the HEAD OFFICE of whichever cram school you have chosen. Otherwise they can behave in anyway they want. There is nobody to rein them in.

Otherwise Xining during summer was beautiful the locals very friendly. Winter can be grim going down to minus 18 and hardly any snow as it is an arid area.

Best of luck.

I taught 2 years here and it felt like 20. The apartment they gave me was truly awful. I had to move out and find my own. I complained which did not go down well. Told I was not allowed to leave the city and they kept my passport. Always paid late every month. The foreign manager micro managed and had you followed you outside school hours to make sure we’re not teaching privately. Finally they asked will I carry on after 2 yrs I couldn’t stand the place of course so said no. The day before I left the British foreign guy verbally threatened me. Also sent me WeChat message threatening me saying he would make my life difficult. I see now why he did this. Was to stop me going back to Xining so I would not teach at another school and be competition for them. Terrible experience. Be very careful and check to see if the cram school is under the Head Office control otherwise they do what they like and that means abusing teachers.

Kid Castle Sanchong has two branches. I worked at the bigger one. The pay is okay, not great. But when you count how many unpaid activities they want you to do it is terrible. Ten office hours a week! Unpaid meetings! Unpaid trainings! Unpaid events! At times we've been asked to come in early or finish late and they expected it done for free. If you're late they'll fine you, even if you turned up and did work for free.

They will take advantage of you at every opportunity. Pick somewhere else to work.

Short working hours, low expectations, and good students.

The apartment that they put me in when I first moved to the city was a sh*t hole. I was shocked. The bathroom had no curtain, and the shower was broken so that water would spray all over the floor. They had me sleep on a bed with stained sheets. I have been abroad in Asia before, but this was below even my standards.

No holidays. I repeat, no holidays. They will tell you that you have public holidays off, but what they won't tell you is that they will schedule training to make up every single hour you have off. They turn holidays into an inconvenience.

No health insurance, if you can believe it. No benefits at all. The contract is a joke.

Also, the pay is worse than every other school. Don't use a recruiter! Just apply directly to schools through ESL cafe or similar websites.

There is a lot of favoritism. The rules never apply equally to everyone. On that note, they are cheats who do tricky paper work to pay lower taxes and mislead employees about the true pay of their coworkers. I am aware that they have forged documents for people within the company.

The Chinese teachers are so poorly paid and do much of the work that it is a recipe for poor staff relations.

I am writing this not to vent but to suggest teachers look else where. There are a ton of extra unpaid activities, meetings, office hours, etc. The management is untrustworthy and will short you pay if possible.

You have to do kindy and then be willing to work as late as 9:00. It really blows having huge gaps of time between classes. Plus they expect you to sit in the office even if you have nothing school related to get done.

Go to another school!

I taught at the Kid Castle in Sanchong a few years back. I had a good experience overall. Here are some highlights/thoughts from my time there:

- It's a HUGE school. It's one of the largest schools in Taiwan. This means there's always a lot going on. In some ways this makes for a really fun environment. In other ways, it can be a little stressful. It means your class sizes will all likely be around 20 students.

- Because it's a big school, the staff size is really large. This is a very good thing. It means you'll be surrounded by a lot of other western teachers (about 15-20) and a LOT of Chinese teachers (probably 100!). This makes for a really fun social scene. You'll walk into a good group of friends, and you'll have the opportunity to become friends with a lot of the Chinese teachers. This was one of my favorite aspects of the school.

- The school I taught at is in Sanchong, Taipei County. A pretty good location, especially now that the MRT runs there. It's about 20 minutes from Taipei city, less on a scooter. Kid Castle has about 100 branches in Taiwan (I think), so the experience at every branch will be a bit different.

- The training wasn't great... which is both a good and bad thing. If you have experience and you're independent, it's really fine. You'll mostly be on your own in preparing materials and in the classroom. However, if you don't have any experience (like me) it can be pretty daunting in the beginning. Just be patient and easy going and it will work out.

- Kid Castle Head Office is available if you need support... but I don't know who works there now. It really depends.

I think that about sums it up! Overall, I had a great year there, probably the best of my life. The kids were really fun, and usually pretty well behaved. I had a great time. It's an intense place, because it's so large, but that comes with a lot of good aspects as well. Go with the flow, and you'll have a good experience teaching at Kid Castle in Taipei County.

I worked at Kid Castle in San Chong for 6 years, and managed the foreign teachers for a while. The material is very good, especially for older kids. The expectations and rules were difficult at times.
Class size in Kindergarten occasionally exceeded 26 students. The schools (the kindergarten and Anching Bahn are separate) are new and very nice.

Kid Castle is one of the more established chains in Taiwan, and there are branches all over the island including more rural areas. If you are looking for a more unusual location then Kid Castle would be a good bet.

The thing to remember is that Kid Castle is a franchise system, so in many respects every branch is different. The material is mostly the same between branches, but there isn't a centralized head office support system for things like finding accommodation. Also, you will need to negotiate your pay and any other benefits with each branch. Actually this can be a good thing as if you have experience you may be able to get a higher rate.

The material is good though and updated on a regular basis, so prep time is minimal.

Overall I'd say that if you are in Taiwan and see a Kid Castle job then it would be worth going for an interview. Some of the branch owners I worked with were terrific and would go the extra mile for their teachers, others less so.

In other words, KC, I love you! Forgive me for the company line; I actually haven't worked for Kid Castle in nearly 6 years, but my memories remain mostly positive.

So ... I was new to Asia and new to teaching, and here I was at the biggest Kid Castle on the island (Sanchong branch). I was given some training and then thrown into the field - and swim, did I ever!

I never had a problem getting books or supplies, and when the staff and I felt like going outside of the box a little bit (without compromising the cirriculum), we had the support of management to do so.

Speaking of staff support, this went as far as a coworker letting me stay at his apt until I could get on my feet, co-teachers taking their free time to cruise the neighborhood and look at places to live with me ... heck, KC even gave me a room full of free furniture, just to get me started.

There was a good (but not great) line of communication, be it between fellow foreign teachers or with the Taiwanese staff, and I think this has improved even more since I moved on to other pursuits, as management seemed to be trying to upgrade this facet of how things functioned at school.

There were things I didn't love about working there. The pay was good, but not great. Working Saturdays, which I sometimes did, wasn't ideal. Dry erase markers run out of ink sometimes. I saw a cockroach (or 3) skittering about the tile floor. The thing I learned soon enough was THIS IS THE NORM IN TAIWAN, and that's OK!

In all of my experience at other schools, I'd say the quality of facilities is good (not great) at KC and my fellow teachers became my best friends (nearly 10 yrs later, I'm still in touch with many of them). I still get emails from ex-students, keeping me apprised of their lives. I wouldn't say it was like a family at Kid Castle, but I definitely felt embraced by my coworkers (even the owners, who knew me by my name at the outset, which is rare) and pleased with the teaching conditions at the school.

Working in Taiwan and for Kid Castle was a fantastic experience. The kids are great and very keen to learn. We were instantly welcomed by the program organisers and they also helped us with accomodation initially and introduced us to an instant social circle, which was great.

Teaching really was a joy with the children, they work really hard, I actually feel bad that they have to study so much but we always made the learning experience fun.