Keystone Academy, a bilingual school in Beijing, China, seeks a fluent English speaking Librarian for its Primary School and Librarian for its Secondary School, starting in the 2017-2018 school year. Three years prior teaching experience, certification in teaching and/or librarianship, and a desire to work in a highly collaborative environment are required. Experience teaching in a bilingual immersion program, English language acquisition (EAL) training, and familiarity with the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) are advantages.
About Us
Keystone Academy opened in the Shunyi District of Beijing in the autumn of 2014, and is now a unique and exciting school option for families across China and around the world. We currently offer the full range of grades from foundation year through to grade 11, and we will graduate our first class in June 2018. The secondary school is a day and residential program, with optional boarding in grades 7 and 8, and required boarding in grades 9-12. In a few years, approximately three quarters of the school’s students will be Chinese, and one quarter international. This is a group dynamic that will foster in its Chinese students deep cultural pride while at the same time encourage them to be more world-minded. International students will also expand their awareness by being immersed in the language, culture and customs of China.
Keystone Academy brings together the best of three great traditions of teaching and learning. The longest historically is the Chinese, renowned for its rigorous intellectual discipline, respect for the nature of learning and concern with the development of character. Chinese traditions are fused with the American discussion-centered, inquiry-based pedagogy and the best of the international education movement of the past 60 years with its focus on critical and creative thinking and cultural fluency.
Keystone Academy is a non-profit, philanthropic venture with a board of trustees. The Head of School and School Leadership Team are responsible for daily operations and major educational decisions for the school.
Teaching at Keystone
New members of the teaching staff at Keystone Academy will discover an extraordinary opportunity to join others in shaping a new educational paradigm. Our keystones of Chinese and English language immersion, American-style boarding, and Chinese Thread, support and are supported by the major structures of our written curriculum: the International Primary Curriculum (IPC), the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, and the IB Diploma Programme. The atmosphere here is serious and playful, highly purposeful and fun at the same time.
Classrooms, offices and learning environments at Keystone are designed with students and teachers in mind. High ceilings, large windows, and intelligent layouts make for inviting spaces that facilitate student learning at every turn. Facilities are purpose-built for every grade level and discipline, from ceramics to physics to foundation year, and our IT infrastructure and support is superb.
Our educational environment is characterized by active learning in small classes. Keystone is a school that both demands and nurtures creativity and collaboration in the classroom, and makes available significant funds for professional growth and faculty training. Our key goals for student learning are:
- Linguistic proficiency in both English and Chinese
- Content mastery in specific subject areas, and exploration of the connections among them
- Confidence and capability in creative expression
- Ability to successfully navigate the changing technological landscape
- Skills development in inquiry, collaboration and active learning
- Growth in mind, body, and virtue
- Intercultural communication and global competency
Our students are hungry for opportunity, bold in their thinking and creative in their instincts. We encourage them to become expansive in their dreaming, determined in their actions, collaborative in their teamwork, and humble in their achievement. They learn to be stewards of the environment and to be at ease with otherness.
To achieve these goals with our students, we seek teachers robustly endowed with intelligence, experience, a good nature and a healthy sense of humor. Keystone looks for culturally sensitive teachers who desire to make their classrooms places where students feel the trust and respect necessary to explore and take risks in their learning. We will afford you, as an educator, the same trust and respect that allow you to develop in your own practice in the classroom. Indeed, as one of our primary teachers put it, Keystone “is not a place where an administrator is looking over your shoulder all the time, ticking boxes.” At Keystone, we all take risks, individually and collectively, within a supportive and positive learning environment. There is no other way to do innovative school-keeping well.
We are creating a school where staff come and want to stay on – not only because the facilities, students, colleagues, pay package and working conditions are outstanding, but also because teachers themselves are valued and able to grow into new professional challenges. We seek teachers who will invest themselves in the ongoing process of creating a school together. Keystone is a very satisfying place to work, in an endlessly fascinating city.
Salary and Benefits
We want our teachers to thrive, and to ensure that all our students thrive in their care and tutelage. To the end of attracting and retaining excellent teachers, Keystone’s salary and benefits package is highly competitive. We offer substantial moving and settling in allowances, visa assistance as well as comprehensive medical coverage to our teachers and their dependents. All teaching staff, whether Chinese or expatriate, are on the same pay schedule. Expatriate teaching staff receive an additional 10 percent of their base salary in lieu of a pension fund. We also provide additional stipends for administrative roles such as Dorm Parent, Grade Leader, or Department Leader.
Travel to and from one’s home is provided yearly for staff and their families. For middle and high school staff living on campus, we provide furnished two and three-bedroom apartments in our residential buildings, with full access for all immediate family members to the school’s dining halls, sports and recreational facilities, and libraries. For day faculty who qualify, we provide housing subsidies commensurate with market rates here in Beijing, with additions for dependents.
Application Process
To obtain a full information pack and to apply online, please click on the following link which will direct you to a landing page on the TIC recruitment website:
https://jobs.ticrecruitment.com/school/keystone
For telephone enquiries please call Wendy Hartrey, at Teachers International Consultancy in the UK on +44 (0) 2920 212083.
Early applications are encouraged. The deadline for applications is Midnight GMT on Sunday 13th November 2016. Interviews will take place in London on 4th December 2016, and in Asia (venue and date TBC).
Shortlisted candidates will be required to bring original documentation, proof of identity and certificates with them to interview.
The school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Successful applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening.
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