Nile Academy Reviews

Pros

Very friendly environment, everybody are helping each other. Administration take care all staff.

Cons

Overload and carrying multiple job titles and functions on one persons shoulder is making it hard to work.

Advice to Management

Support your team fairly

Pros

Other new teachers became friends

Cons

At the boys’ school, female teachers faced daily sexual, verbal, and emotional harassment from the students and the management victim-blamed them and told them to “wear longer skirts” (longer than knee-length). Male teachers are respected and are allowed to get away with behaviour (yelling at students) that the women were swiftly penalized for. Toxic environment for women -avoid!!

Advice to Management

Learn to appropriately support female teachers and stop being sexist

Pros

Great staff, like one big family, positive work environment, supportive administration. Great place to start your career. I worked there for 2 years and I miss it!

Cons

It's a non-profit organization so you can't expect a huge salary.

Pros

Employee-Friendly Work Environment. Administration is supportive and understanding. If you are willing to work and passionate about teaching, this is the place for you. On many issues, teachers make decisions about their students' achievements.

Cons

There are may students from different backgrounds. Some students are not native English speakers. It can be difficult to teach, even communicate sometimes.

Advice to Management

Benefits for staff.

Pros

Very friendly environment. Administration is very suportive, and will try everything to help you out along the way.

Cons

Some students are new to English and it can be challenging at times to communicate or teach.

Advice to Management

Keep up the good work

Pros

I needed some teaching experience to find a job at TDSB. Private schools are best to get experience to start to a career.

Cons

School was small and students were kinda hard to manage first months but at the end I got it done.

Advice to Management

More wages if possible, and may be closer to the staff!

Pros

The administration is willing to support any teacher that is committed to Nile Academy and the teaching profession. I am shocked at some of the comments that have been made. These are a few disgruntled teachers who have chosen teaching because they did not have any other choice. Everyone was made aware of what they would earn. To use this and attempt to tarnish the reputation of the school is not cool. I know that... many teachers were let go due to shortage of work and making comments of this nature is uncouth. The best part of Nile Academy is that the administration does trust teachers and their professional judgment. If you are willing to work, are passionate about teaching, this is the place for you. On many issues, teachers make decisions about their students' achievements. There are circumstances when principals override your decisions, but this is a rarity. Grades are not boosted; (this is a lie; i can tell you from personal experience that this is not true because the last thing the school wants is for students to go and flunk in their post-secondary studies which thereby tarnishes the image of the school). Another lie is that the admin is unaware of Growing Success. I cannot believe this. We've had so many workshops on this with admins present that I cannot recall. In addition, only about 10 percent of the students pay about $ 20, 000 in tuition, the rest pay anywhere between 4-10. In this fee, dormitory, food, transportation, among others, are all included. The issue that I take is that most of the negative comments are unfounded.

Cons

- You are expected to be at the school up uptil 4:30 - 5 pm to provide additional assistance to students. - Wages are not very good (roughly net monthly income is around $ 2500-2900).

Advice to Management

They need to build a stronger relationship with their staff.

Pros

A great deal of potential and a good opportunity to gain experience that is not available to occasional teachers. The school is small and allows you to run in whichever fashion you wish. If you are driven, you can do a lot of great things for yourself and for the students. The existing body of teachers, though turbulent, provides a good community to work and laugh with. If you are looking for teaching... experience, you can definitely get it here. You can teach a full year and run your own classes, clubs, teams, etc. which are opportunities that you can't get doing supply work in public boards. Even if your goal is to build a resume, I believe you can do it quickly in this sort of environment as you can take on as much responsibility as you like.

Cons

Since the school manages the lives of their students (they attend classes and stay in school dorms), constant attention needs to be paid to developing successful students. At present, it appears that this is not the case. A good number of students are disrespectful, do not care about their education or the schools rules. The dorms do not provide them with a positive environment and this disdain for their... living conditions often spills over into their school-time behaviour. The school has a good foundation of rules, but lacks the resolve or man-power to enforce them. As a result, the school knee-jerks at problems as they arise, without fully considering their course of action -specifically how it will affect teachers and how these policies will be carried on over the long-term. Students have also been used by the Turkish consulate as political pawns, ordered to go to Ottawa and protest against protesters who demand truth and reconciliation regarding an act of genocide, which is recognized by the Canadian government as such. Courses offered are pre-determined by the school (and being a small school/faculty, offerings are limited) as a result, students miss out on enrichment and learning opportunities that exist at other schools (even most public schools offer more to students than this school). It is hard to see the value in paying up to $25,000/yr. for what is offered at this school. Parents and students would be wise to consider their options and weigh comparatively priced schools. Teachers are divided between Turks and non-Turks. There are two distinct groups in the school's staff and given the cultural nature of the school, non-Turks can experience feelings of exclusion. There is also sexism present among students (who are coming with differing cultural values) and among staff/administration. This is evident in female teachers being passed up for leadership positions despite having long tenure and male teachers being included in leadership and executive functions, even though they are in their first year of education. Communication is a problem. Teachers can often find things out from students before they hear from administration. Systems need to be put in place to effectively improve communications between administration and staff. Sadly, academic dishonestly is a major problem among the students. Poor language skills (partly as a result of being passed through ESL courses and evidenced by poor school performance on EQAO testing) lead students to have others write essays and reports for them. This is ineffectively dealt with by administration and further to that, administration falsifies marks of students to improve their chances of acceptance into universities/colleges.

Advice to Management

Open and honest dialogue with all staff is key. They need to feel that they can trust their administration and that their administration is working for the best interests of both staff and students. In such a small environment, communication skills are a must and secrets rarely are kept. Rules need to be consistently enforced. It does not benefit students to have a uniform check once a month and let uniform... rules slide for the rest of the time. Set a clear and simple set of rules, then enforce them every day, every time. Students need consistency in their lives and rules are one method of providing it for them. Teachers, know what you are getting into. It’s an opportunity to teach, but do not expect things to be different from what you read here, regardless of what you might be told in an interview. It was the same for me. I was happy to teach, but there was also a load of junk that made life frustrating.