March 2013 - Update
I wrote this review three and a half years ago. Unfortunately, things change and people move on. I guess the only constant will be the owner, Charles Wei, and as I intimated below, I found him to be the key negative to EF Ningbo. Some of the information in this review may no longer be true. I would now urge extreme caution when applying for any of the (now at least 3) EF schools in Ningbo.
I'm not saying that they are or will become bad places to work. I no longer have first hand knowledge. I just no longer feel that I can conscientiously suggest that it would be a good place to work. Proceed with caution.
I realize that people have fairly strong opinions about EF, as indeed do I, but it may be useful for people who may be applying to EF Jiangdon in Ningbo, Zhejiang to know a few facts about the school.
There are 2 schools in Ningbo; Haishu and Jiangdong. Haishu has been going for a few years, Jiangdong opened summer 2008. For the first couple of years Haishu was the bigger school, but Jiangdong opened a new floor in the summer of 2010, and may now be the larger school.
The owner of the Jiangdong school is a Charles Wei, but he spends the great majority of his time at the Haishu school. He’s rarely seen at Jiangdong, but he still has the final say on all the decisions. My understanding is that he is employed by the owners of the Haishu school, rather than the owner of Haishu.
There are lots of times when the 2 schools are expected by Charles to do the same thing, but they are different schools. The teachers don’t mix, or even in the majority of cases even meet each other more than once a year, and seem to be developing separate cultures. Working for the 2 schools therefore is not the same thing. There are big differences, and anything I say about Jiangdong may not hold true for Haishu.
The Director of Studies since the school’s opening is Carina. She’s responsible for the ‘foreign’ teachers. Carina is knowledgeable about English teaching and committed to the teaching being of a high quality. Teachers tend not to work the maximum number of hours that they could be made to in their contracts, for the reason that this would adversely affect the quality of the lessons. Also the 2 month Winter peak period may only amount to 1 or 2 weeks with an increased workload.
As of July 2010, nearly all (say 98%) of the students are children.
Wages and flight allowances are paid on time to all teachers. Bonuses which are dependent on client satisfaction and other relatively subjective criteria may not be paid. There is teacher health insurance, although predictably there is lots of small print, much of which is in Chinese. Essentially you may end up having to pay some or all of the costs for small things, but hopefully you’re covered in the event of big problems. Teachers get a lot of help from the support staff who appreciate that most of the teachers at the school need support.
There’s a document that they send out called ‘Who we are’. The copy I have contains a number of factual inaccuracies, as well as a large number of things that in my opinion are untrue. This could be because it was written with Haishu in mind, and maybe it’s been updated, but I would recommend caution in regarding this document as an accurate portrayal of EF Jiangdong, especially in regard to being valued by the management, and the steps they claim to have in place to aid retention, most of which don’t happen. It is my opinion that teachers are very much valued by Carina, but this is less true of the owner.
There are currently about 7 full-time foreign teachers at the school. The plan is to expand that number, but they have had difficulties due to not retaining teachers, fussiness over potential recruits and applicants deciding to take other jobs.
Lastly, as detailed elsewhere on the forum, Ningbo is a relatively pleasant, medium sized city with enough expats to stand a reasonable chance of building a social life.