Ray Sparks, a Senior Associate with Search Associates, has been involved in education for nearly forty years, having worked in Canada, Europe and Asia. Throughout his career as an educator, Ray has held many leadership roles and has been active in school communities, along with receiving awards for teaching excellence. Since joining Search Associates in 2002, Ray has assisted thousands of teacher and administrative candidates successfully secure positions at international schools around the world. Ray coordinates the annual Leadership/Administration recruitment fair being held in November in Bangkok, Thailand. In addition, he is involved with the Toronto, Cambridge and January, Bangkok recruitment fairs. Here Ray assists school administrators, teachers and administrative candidates with excellent communicative skills and a strong work ethic. Ray has returned to Canada after having lived in Bangkok and Manila for the past eight years.
Mary Sparks, Executive Assistant
Getting IB training is valuable PD (regardless) and helps with job hunting but is not a guarantee of getting a job at an international IB school. Most Canadian educators are already inquiry trained, so the transition to an IB mindset is usually quite seamless. But having some background training shows you took the initiative to learn more about the IB.
The IB certification is offered by several Canadian universities now. Good teachers are hired into IB schools regardless of ‘certification’ The IB standards and practices require all teachers to have attended a basic IB training in their subject area or a general one for PYP. This is not certification, and certification does not replace the need for the workshop attendance. Therefore there is little benefit to the school of looking for ‘IB certified teachers’. They will continue to look for teachers who have the IB mindset and are already using similar practices to engage students in learning. Certification does not address that.Good schools hire teachers with strong practices and send them on a workshop. A 3 day workshop or you do it online over a few weeks.
Please contact Ray Sparks for more information on the following services:
