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Name of School: Caledonian School
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| Czech Republic | |
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| Type: | Site Admin Notes: |
| language institute |
Overall Quick Rating: 
(37 votes, average: 3.03 out of 5)
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Comments on rate of pay and computer problems are fair, however:
It is very easy to get 15-35 hours a week. You just show you are willing to accept what is offered to you.
Benefits are poor – no true health insurance, poor sick pay, limited paid vacation, low chance of hours during the summer months.
However, paid travel pass, and your rent is deducted from your taxable income.
Excellent library resources, fairly well equipped classrooms.
Teaching staff consist of a mixture of patient, honest and professional teachers, together with the usual group of naive, lazy, off-to-see-Europe expats.
WARNING – BEWARE: The government of the Czech Republic starting 1 January 2008 will be clamping down Hard (arrests, massive fines, deportation from the Entire European Union and possible prison)for non EU teachers/workers working on a Tourist Visa. The arrest have already started and are well publicized in Prague, CZ.
No school can promise you a Legal job, unless you already have both a CZ Residence Permit and the proper working papers, which now must be obtained from outside the Czech Republic and may take up to one year to obtain!
Till then, you may be working illegally if working on a tourist visa. A major continuing problem for the many Czech language schools, so check with your embassy for the correct information for your country of citizenship.
Currently (2008), the Caledonian School TEFL Certificate and TEFL Course: ARE NOT Accredited by any government or accredited academic institution! Do Not be fooled by such ‘Advert Speak’ as ‘Recognized’ which means nothing academically and maybe Nothing to possible future employers either. ‘In cooperation with’ may well mean that all they do is buy some books, etc. from certain companies.
In the TEFL world today, most employers are not hiring teachers unless their TEFL certificates are from a properly Accredited and Anglophile institution. Maybe a lot of money for a perhaps useless piece of paper.
Current pay for new teachers at this school (2008) range from 160 – 195 Czech Crowns per hour. As a teacher the rule of thumb is to figure 1 hour of preparation time for every class hour worked and twice that for writing classes.
Many teachers are paying 6 -10,000 kc per month to Share an apartment with 3-5 other teachers. The Cost of Living in Prague is swiftly climbing to EU norms. Check out apartment prices on http://www.expats.cz and see for yourself.
Just to clarify the pay at Caledonian: 200-225 kc per 45 minute lesson. Average lessons per week are 20-26. They do pay for %50 of the visa and cover your medical bills. It’s actually a good school but the posters above must have had a bad experience.
any comments about the preschool – Nessie?
I worked for them for 4 months while they were ‘processing’ my visa. The entire time they deducted social and health insurance fees from my salary (and ‘tax’) and yet they had never started the visa process. When I discovered I had no visa after 90 days and actually no work permit or anything, I jumped ship on them.
I worked for those clowns many years ago. They were supposed to meet me at the airport and never did (scary when you have never been to CZ). They were supposed to drive my to Moravia and did not for several weeks. They were supposed to arrange an apartment for me with an expat and never did. They were supposed to do a lot of things they never did. The country is beautiful and I made a lot of friends. The school is the only bad memory. Oh yes, I have taught in the west and in other European schools and never had a problem, just with the Caledonian clowns…
I currently work for them (+2 years) and I’ve had nothing but good experiences. They are well organized, professional and very helpful. I’m sure problems occurred in the past but everything seems to run smoothly now. It’s a great school to work for!
Re: the last email. This comment may be true. One interesting thing though, they seem to be paying 20,000 KC still after 10 years! You can find this out yourself by using Google key words – Caledonian school complaints. I have no axe to grind as I have a great job now, a house and all that jazz. Just warning people to be careful after my own expereince, which was pretty bad with those chaps. You don’t have to listen to me, but try researching on the Net and make an informed decision about your teaching future. Good luck to all. PS: A friend of min ended up doing well for himself by getting all kinds of credentials and going out on his own in CZ as a teacher – ended up in Brno. Could be a route to pursue as would be working for a smaller outfit that wants to get to know you, etc.
20,000kc 10 years ago was 400 USD but today it’s almost over 1,000 USD. This is the same with all schools in the Czech Republic and it is a problem. Obviously you can’t regard this as a negative issue for 1 school if all others in the country are doing it. I Googled ‘Caledonian school complaints’ but didn’t see what you were referring to or any creditable complaints at all. Better luck next time
I’m looking to take the TEFL certification course at this school. Is there anybody who is currently involved or has been involved with Caledonian that would be willing to swap some emails with me? If so just contact me here and I’ll give you my email. Thanks!
You can email me if you like. I took the course and I work for the school now. longronsilver30@yahoo.com
I had no complaints working for Caledonian Prague from jan -dec 2006. Being an EFL teacher working abroad you really can’t to enjoy all the comforts of home, the trade off is that you get to enjoy the culture of a foreign land from a localised, not tourist, perspective. Because I wanted to earn more Czech crowns to get out and enjoy the country, I had to take on a fair share of 7.30am start lessons which were tough, and also a fair amount of metroing about for off-school lessons. All of this wears ya down when you have to run an English lesson at either end…The good thing is how hospitable Czech students are and lessons themselves were usually good humoured and that. I had no concerns with the admin or management of the school in fact the true-to-life reputation of Caledonian in Prague is that teachers can easily stay under the radar and entirely do as they please during their contracts as long as you turn up to lessons as scheduled and stick to prescribed book curriculum with a bit of friendly chat thrown in to lessons as well. Don’t expect to be mothered at all in the Czech Republic, it is dynamic and you will need to be as well.
I’ve been teaching ESL in Prague for two years, and know many ESL teachers who work at various English schools in Prague. I never worked for Caledonian. That said, I can recall many, MANY discussions chatting over a few pints with fellow Prague ESL teachers who did work at Caledonian who had numerous complaints regarding that school. Among the complaints were rude, impersonal staff; very high teacher turnover (never a good sign); and below average pay relative to other schools; and an oppressive and intimidating, authoritarian management style of treating new teachers. When I was first looking for work as a teacher in Prague, I recall applying to several schools, among them Caledonian–which had an unusually tedious and bureaucratic application process–relative to the other schools. This fact (combined with offering a lower starting salary) made me not even bother applying to them. I would not recommend Caledonian. They are a large corporate franchise also in Bratislava; your efforts working there will line the pockets of Caledonian management and its owners–while you scrape by living hand to mouth.
ps: of course Caledonian trolls will try to refute this post…be forewarned!
Caledonian has a good library. That is where the “good” stops. I worked here and found the administration and staff unprofessional and under qualified.
“Among the complaints were rude, impersonal staff; very high teacher turnover (never a good sign); and below average pay relative to other schools; and an oppressive and intimidating, authoritarian management style of treating new teachers.” All true!
“your efforts working there will line the pockets of Caledonian management and its owners–while you scrape by living hand to mouth.” True as well!
DO NOT WORK OR TAKE A TEFL course here!!!
There seem to be mixed reviews about this school, but does anyone have other suggestions? If there are any specific schools in Prague that are better, then I would really like to check them out. Thanks!
You probably chose Caledonian School because of their job guarantee. However, Caledonian School in Prague should be avoided for the following reasons:
1. THEY LIE ON THE WEBSITE ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU WILL MAKE: They claim that you will earn between 15,000czk and 20,000czk per month on their website. However, given the rate of pay (178czk per teaching hour, which they don’t tell you until you get to Prague), it is actually impossible to even earn 15,000, the low end, with the 20 teaching hours they guarantee you. In addition, they do not protect you against student cancellations, so if your students cancel, and they often do, you are left with much less. For example, a teacher I knew worked over 30 teaching hours a week and ended up with an average of only 13,000czk at the end of each month, which is much less than people working the register at Tesco make and is simply not a living wage. This is disgraceful considering that some companies pay 1,000czk for a 90 minute lesson.
2. THEY DO NOT HONOR THEIR CONTRACTS: Recently they decided to cut their teacher’s pay by 5% and cancel the yearly bonus of 2% pay increase. They got around the legally binding contracts with their employees by essentially forcing teachers, who rely on them for visas and live paycheck to paycheck, to sign a new contract.
3. THEY LIE ABOUT THE NUMBER OF HOURS YOU WILL BE TEACHING: The truth is that though you only work 20 “teaching hours”, you will be running all over the city without being paid for it. In truth you will be working more than full time because you will have to travel an average of 45 minutes to an hour between each lesson. Many of your lessons will begin before 8am and end well after 5pm, plus travel time.
5: THEY LIE ABOUT VISA SUPPORT: They bring people from abroad to the Czech Republic, often through the TEFL program, offering a promise of visa support. However, it is illegal to enter the Czech Republic on a tourist visa and then apply for a work visa. You must apply from your home country. They get around this by paying off the foreign police or getting people they know at the embassy to bend the rules. The problem with this is that it’s not 100% effective, and every so often a whole group of people applying for their visas are sent home under threat of deportation when their 3 month tourist stay runs out. These unlucky teachers have the additional joy of potentially being banned from Europe for 3 years for overstaying their visas and working illegally.
6. THEY LIE ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE: They are required by law to provide you with health insurance. They promise that they provide it as a part of their benefits package. However, what they call “insurance” is a system of repayment where you must pay for your medical expenses out of your own pocket and hope that the school will pay you back. This “insurance” does not include dental, ongoing conditions, or preventative care. Plus, you can only go to one remote hospital’s emergency room. As the law requires you to have real insurance, you must show proof of it when you apply for your visa. Again, Caledonian finds people who will bend the rules for them, which doesn’t always work.
7. THEY USE A LOOPHOLE IN THE LAW TO DEPRIVE YOU OF BENEFITS: They are registered as a UK company, which means that they can get around giving you the benefits that all people in the Czech Republic enjoy by law, like holiday time and benefit credits for meals, etc.
I’ve never spoken to a happy teacher at Caledonian School. In Prague they have a reputation for being the worst school to work for. Most teachers leave within the first year, which is in the school’s best interest, since they make so much money off of their TEFL course owing to the job guarantee. This is unfortunate because the TEFL certificate that you receive from Caledonian is not as well respected as most other programs (i.e. CELTA).
If you are coming to Prague to teach or to take a TEFL course, please research other schools. There are better options.
I knew an employee at Caledonian who told me that they pay people to write good posts about them online and get websites to remove any negative posts!
They are REALLY SHADY!
I worked for that school in 2009 and feel completely ripped off. They advertised a guaranteed job, health insurance, enough hours, a working visa, free Czech lessons, etc. if you take their TEFL course. None of it happened. They play the odds that most teachers are there for six months to drink beer so they don’t even bother to apply for your visa so that you get it in time. Their newest trick is to pay the staff net so that you don’t know they are keeping your income taxes because foreigners are not required to pay income taxes the first two years their in the Czech Republic. There is brand new ownership now so staff is in a complete turnover and all the teachers have just taken a 9% pay reduction. The way one of my fellow teachers described management there, new and old, is “they’re like prisoners…they spend their days dreaming up new ways to game the system. They just need that long line of American kids on their parent’ s dime to keep coming for it all to work.” Not recommended. May 2010
I worked for Caledonian school for 1 and a half years.They will exploit you to get money for themselves.They had a very large administrative staff that does nothing at all valuable and don’t seem to care much about quality in teaching.They eventually lied to me to get me back to work in the CZ and then lied to me about my visa and left me hanging.
Many language “schools” (I use this term lightly) will pay the say low pay but will at least have a more ethical environment.
Any reccommendations other than this company?
At Caledonian, I was truly shocked at the way they run things. Firstly, they were very disorganised and lost my details after applying to them. Their sense of politeness did not even exist and the staff were somewhat rude. I guess customer service here is not like in the States, but the reception staff could not even speak proper or decent English, and as for being nice….well, that was rather like rudeness. I went to Caledonian for interview and just crudely told to go up to some room and wait. I waited and waited….and after 20 minutes, a man appears. I was interviewed by a director called Tomas Vokac who was over 20 minutes late. Then he rambles on about some demo class that was never even told to me. Anyway, he tells me it’s great and that I should expect a contract within 1 week. But, this never happens and I am forced to call the school who knew nothing about the interview and the notes from that man. How disorganised and pathetic is that? Well, it just goes to show that maybe size is not everything and just those big name schools are not worth it. Caledonian merged with Tutor school recently and they are very proud of their big size, but are they really good for teachers? A friend told me how he felt that Caledonian were even racist too and they have a certain tendency to favour white teachers rather than colored ones.
I see a lot of complaints but I don’t see any recommendations or alternatives. Any help out there?? I want to get an internationally recognized TEFL and teach abroad without a Bacholar’s degree. That is what Caledonioan School offers which REALLY hard to find these days.
Please if I can request no cheeky responses…just those that can actually help