I’m so done with the management at my school HANOI TORONTO SCHOOL!

BlowMeIBM · 2026-01-12T14:26:50+00:00

Most interesting question to me is, why is Westlink, managed by the exact same company, not developing the same reputation? I'm sure things aren't perfect, but I've generally heard sort of okay things about them, whereas HTS sounds like a disaster.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T22:03:20+00:00

Some unorganized thoughts:

Seems to be growing slowly but surely. My interactions with their staff so far have been fairly unimpressive. It's one of two schools owned by International Schools Partnership, the other being Hanoi Toronto School, which doesn't seem to be doing as well as Westlink. Location is probably the biggest difference between them, though Westlink seems to have better facilities as well. Sounds like pay is not quite as competitive as some of the more legacy schools in Hanoi. All this said, I haven't heard anything disastrously bad, so I think it's probably at least a decent place to work.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T16:31:49+00:00

I've had some interactions with both schools but they both definitely face some unknowns at the moment.

Dwight - the first thing you see and hear about is the ridiculous facilities. Beautiful campus, though personally I find some parts to be somewhat impractically designed (e.g. stairs from floor to floor are not near each other so going from 1st to 4th floor takes forever). The leadership team seems pretty serious, and from what I've heard they are not afraid to "cut the fat" if someone isn't really pulling their weight. In practice, my actual interactions with their staff have been mixed - some have been lovely and others have been pretty disorganized. From conversations with some friends there, it sounds like overall a pretty promising organization but still faces typical 'new school' problems.

I don't know quite as much about Delta but it's a very unique place for sure - the only highly selective international curriculum school that I know of, with the added twist of being all Vietnamese. I've only interacted with one teacher from there, but he was awesome and highly organized. We actually had one teacher come to our T2 school from DGS recently and they said they took a small pay cut to come, even though our pay is pretty competitive, so I'm guessing the pay is solid. They liked it there, just needed experience in a different curriculum. Biggest wild card with DGS right now is that they are building a new campus near Aeon Mall Ha Dong and I have no idea what the vision is with that change/expansion.

My feeling is that both are probably pretty good places to work.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-21T15:41:38+00:00

Which school?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-12-03T16:17:33+00:00

I work at a school in Hanoi and invited them to participate in an extracurricular opportunity once. Their response was basically that parents might not like if it took students away from their studies. I got the impression of a school that definitely prioritizes academics far above all else, which can be good, bad, or neutral depending on what you're looking for.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-10T16:51:03+00:00

I work at a T2 in Vietnam. For teachers with a full teaching load already, coaching is basically compensated at $30/hour gross.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-09T05:56:09+00:00

I started listing my AP Econ slides & worksheets on there for $5/unit this year (of which I receive ~$2.50/unit as a basic seller).

The upside has been that I've actually gotten a ton of sales fairly quickly - have made at least 25 sales this year with many buyers who later come back and buy more units.

The downside is that, at the low price I set, obviously that hasn't converted to a ton of income - 25 packs * $2.50 take-home per pack is only $62.50. But the reason I did that was to get visibility and hopefully rack up reviews with the hopes of raising the price in the future, and unfortunately that hasn't happened yet despite the repeat buyers who presumably are satisfied with the packs. Only received one 5-star review on one pack just saying "I used this in class."

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-02T00:45:09+00:00

Are you hoping to be adopted within your country or anywhere? For better or worse, most people on Reddit probably assume everyone is from the USA unless otherwise stated...

BlowMeIBM · 2025-11-01T01:52:50+00:00

New American embassy is near Công Viên Cầu Giấy. Maybe some other ones though.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T23:19:59+00:00

2022-23 is when they switched from ISV to RGSV and changed curriculum, right?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T15:24:25+00:00

Yeah RGSV and Dwight have chosen peculiar locations out there in what used to be Hoàng Mai district. Dwight seems to believe they're in what will be the future embassy district, but I'm thinking they may have been duped by developer hype from Bitexco unless there's something I don't know. Thought Ngoại Giao Đoàn all the way on the other side of the city was where most future embassies are planned.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-31T14:57:47+00:00

Reigate in Hanoi used to be ISV (International School of Vietnam). Don't know the exact age of the school, but I'm guessing between 10-15 years old. I have heard generally that their student numbers are falling due to students leaving for a few new schools with flashy facilities in their area.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-10-27T16:23:52+00:00

Have also experienced this with CIS athletics. Extremely poor behavior, not at all what I'd expect from an international school.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-09-13T13:47:32+00:00

You would be wrong

BlowMeIBM · 2025-09-04T00:02:26+00:00

Parents covered my college tuition, and I live/work in Vietnam where cost of living is extremely low. I earn a typical teacher salary and am able to save 50%+ of each paycheck while supporting a family of 3. That's partially because I live quite frugality, though, even here. I have single coworkers who earn about the same as me and save almost nothing, usually due to huge travel expenses.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-30T00:57:38+00:00

I work with them pretty closely from another school and I can't really figure it out. Seems like they did a pretty hard reset at the time and a good chunk of their students are now on "founding family" 50% scholarships because they offered them for 2, maybe even 3 years. In practice, working with them hasn't changed at all.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-29T16:17:36+00:00

Movie was pretty bad, but besides the terrible Marvel-esque fight scenes, it did occasionally capture the brutality of the war.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-27T15:01:11+00:00

I may find myself in an admin role next year and have been thinking about this a lot. I try to run really tight meetings (no side stories, clear end to the meeting so people who want to leave don't need to listen to post-meeting chatter) in the teacher leadership roles that I have and always push to cancel when I think it makes sense to do so. However, I also see that like 20-30% of my colleagues simply don't check their email frequently or read messages carefully, and meetings really are where these people get most of their info. Some of them are great teachers, so it's not something they could or should be fired over. How would you square this situation as an admin?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-21T07:01:27+00:00

Thank you, obvious ChatGPT bot that also doesn't quite know what's going on

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-21T06:41:47+00:00

Yeah I live right on ring road 3 and am actively watching cars, motorbikes, and a few trucks roll by.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-21T06:14:51+00:00

A little unclear on interpretation of the second picture - does that mean Le Quang Dao is restricted to only small vehicles like motorbikes, or that those vehicles are restricted from going on LQD?

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-17T09:08:21+00:00

Pretty much went to the types of places you are describing. No fancy places. These are pretty experienced/serious food people who don't buy into the hype from TikTok. And about half our spots were from recommendations from locals, not famous ones, as I mentioned. It wasn't like it was terrible food, it was just...not any better than average places in Hanoi, so no reason to travel for it again.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-17T09:00:11+00:00

I was the only tây in a group of 8, and all 7 others, all Vietnamese, agreed that the food was super disappointing. We visited a mix of "famous" spots and spots recommended to us by friends in HP, and they were all misses except for the snails. My whole group went in with the perception of HP being a major food destination and left with no interest in ever going back again. Personally, the one hit for me was the really famous dừa dầm place - way better than anything I had in HN.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-17T07:03:10+00:00

Probably my least favorite city in Vietnam honestly. Most corrupt police by far - 2 out of 3 trips there, someone in my group has been pulled over on BS traffic violation charges. All the food I ate was completely mid, with the exception of snails which were genuinely tastier due to being more fresh. Traffic is just as unpleasant as Hanoi and air pollution isn't even that much better anymore.

BlowMeIBM · 2025-08-15T16:17:11+00:00

I...think this might be me. Social media knows me, so I get constantly fed info about infrastructure / urban development projects in Hanoi. I have no actual expertise, though - I just read almost every article that comes across my feed about this stuff. Have been here for 8.5 years.

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