Clifford School boasts an annual 80-85% teacher retention rate each year.  If you are interested in working in a dynamic, vibrant environment, please send a CV/resume, teaching certificate, and a recent photo to Ray Ferguson at raymond_ferguson@clifford-school.org.cn

Candidates must be native English speakers with a passport from the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, South Africa or New Zealand. They must also have a teaching degree and at least two years teaching experience. 

Current Openings:

We will be accepting applications for English Teachers for the 2024-2025 academic year around January 2024.

Summary

The Clifford Bilingual Secondary School encompasses grades 7-12. We have over 1,200 students. We offer a good contract, excellent working and living conditions. We are a responsible and reliable employer, and have been for 20+ years. Teachers like working here, and the department has excellent retention rates, equal to any International school, remembering we are a Chinese school. Cost of living is low here, so most teachers are in a position to save a large majority of their salaries. This is a major consideration why teachers stay a good number of years with us.

Program Details

The Secondary Bilingual English Program is primarily a language program working with students whose first language is not English. The majority of our class time is spent focusing on English Language Arts (listening, speaking, reading and writing).

Typical Work Week

Every teacher teaches two classes in either grade 7 or 8 as well as one class in grade 9.  We teach grade 7 and 8 almost two periods each day (a morning class and an afternoon class) – totaling eighteen 40-minute periods that we teach per week. The morning and afternoon classes are generally taught the same lessons. So we prepare two lessons per day and teach them twice. The grade 9 classes only have one period per day, and we only teach them until the end of March. So each teacher has an average of 23 class periods a week with 3 prep periods a day.

Since the students are second language learners, with only two hours of English exposure per day, our students’ language abilities are naturally below what is found in an international school or in our home countries. Our work day begins at 8:30. We have a two hour lunch from 12:00 to 2.   Our work day ends at 16:30 each day. Teachers are not generally required to put in extra time outside of school hours but there are some extra-curricular activities available if a teacher has a particular interest.

Typical Calendar Year

We work a 198-day contract for the school year.  Our school year generally begins the third week of August and goes until the first week of July (depending on the Chinese government holiday schedule).  We have a week long holiday in October, two weeks off for Christmas, and three to four weeks off for Chinese New Year (Jan-Feb). This is in addition to the summer holiday.

Salary and Benefits:

The school provides teachers with a furnished apartment and daily transportation on a private bus to and from the school, which is only 10 minutes away. Some teachers prefer their own mode of transportation and drive a scooter or bicycle to school.

The school offers the following benefits:

• a competitive after-tax salary, dependent on experience and qualifications
• initial two year contract (with yearly bonus and salary increases), followed by renewable one year contracts (after the first two years)
• yearly salary increase of 5-8%, based on performance
• assistance with China Visa and Chinese Work Permit
• 50% shared cost on your choice among 3 levels of health insurance plans
• furnished apartment
• daily transportation to and from the school
• monthly utilities allowance
• free Internet in your apartment
• annual, end-of-year contract bonus
• annual flight allowances for staff member and two of their children
• Clifford employee discounts at select retailers (e.g. pharmacy, dry cleaning, restaurants, etc)
• free access to a fitness center and swimming pool across from your Noble Court apartment
• a relocation remuneration package
• loyalty bonus after 3, 5 and 10 years of service
• and free tuition for 2 children in any of Clifford School's Bilingual or International programs, from K2 (4 yrs old) to Grade 12, per staff member
• document allowance - for teachers recruited from outside of China to assist with the costs of applying for work permit and visa