Looking ahead to next summer? Whitgift are waiting for your application…
UK summer school ads are trickling onto jobs sites and the Gazette is keeping watch for the best deals on offer. So far, Whitgift school – a historic independent school on the outskirts of London – leads the pack because it is offering the highest pay (£710pw + holiday), and because of its philosophy of having teachers concentrate almost entirely on teaching.
2024 will be the ninth summer in which Whitgift welcomes students from 25+ nationalities to their six-week programme, and as summer school manager, John Chisholm, makes clear: ‘With a strong focus on CPD, teachers make the most of simply teaching and putting students at the centre of everything they do.’
The fact that holiday pay is not included in weekly wages means that the overall pay is significantly higher. A six-week contract at Whitgift will garner you £4,774.18.
Whitgift’s other advantage is its very simple schedule: you teach 23 contact hours a week, turning up at 8am five days a week and knocking off at 4.30, Monday to Thursday. Staff stay until 7.30 pm on Fridays to attend the graduation ceremony. On Sundays, you do airport pick-ups and drop offs.
In EFL terms, Whitgift school are paying you £30.86 a teaching hour. Unlike most UK language schools, they do not deduct money for breaks between classes, and the hours cover job-related activities and duties, like CPD, meetings and pastoral care, all of which count as Working Time under law. However, Whitgift make clear that ‘Lesson planning and administration tasks may need to be completed outside these times.’
Whitgift is mostly staffed by non-residents, though a few residential positions are available. Whitgift tell us that though they ‘do not deduct any money for accommodation … there are certain conditions of the accommodation such as early morning airport runs.’
Whitgift wages are equivalent to a salary of £39,200 per annum pro-rata, above the top rate in Outer London state schools for teachers with 5 years classroom experience, but without Qualified Teacher Status. It’s a proper professional teaching job at a proper professional wage.
Coming in a close second at the moment is Bede’s Summer, another boarding-school operation in Surrey, with residential jobs on offer at £700pw + holiday for residential teachers only.
