If this is the school operated by Lunhua Education, it is not alone in its mismanagement. Jining Confucius International School is exactly the same. The exception is that there is no backstabbing foreigners. Everyone there feels run down and second class.

LOL...the post you are replying to is a wind-up written by a real native speaker. Far too obvious. You were caught in a trap.

If this is a sample of the English being taught at your "International School", you are a bigger fraud than world international English.

I wasn't there as a teacher. I was there interviewing them to place my son there. It was all dressed up really pretty, but it had no substance. You can see from their brochures and their student recruitment material, they didn't even bother to have the work proofread. They couldn't even spell technology. We decided to have my son homeschooled, with a proper curriculum and teachers. The teachers I met there weren't even professional, they were quite insulting and demeaning.

No, no, you don't understand, I have no regrets (it was a learning curve), I am just pissed off, Jeff. Pissed off at Changshu International School and myself for believing their b-sh@t and not walking the moment they started their lies.. I am glad that YOU only had 12 classes a week, so roughly 2 or 3 classes a day? Sounds really good when you say that way. I had about 5-6 classes a day and then the extra work they wanted, because the class I they gave me was so weak (when I got them). The truth is that I am a family man too, I actually had first hand experience too and I had a very bad experience, unlike you. Maybe it was because I didn't know whose a@* to lick properly. I left because the job was distressing to me and my family. I think you didn't have your family in China? I am glad you have them to go back to. Good luck and I wish you well. Bu that doesn't change my main point, you are an exception. This school is pure and unadulterated garbage, take it from me. Maybe you just had a thicker skin than most. The rest of the complaints from EVERYONE are valid. Don't encourage others to come here!! Let it die a slow death and its stinking reputation reach everyone in good time. Time will tell and truth will out. Peace out!!

Some have only 6-8hrs teaching loads a week. The teachers get very competitive
salaries, they are off the school after 3pm and not given any night supervision
activities, foreign teachers are also being paid for their extra hours spent on
saturdays if required to teach.

Hahahahaha!!!! This is the funniest thing I have seen today. A school that offers 6-8 hours of teaching a week for FULL salary. Thank you, thank you! Please write another post, I think you could be even funnier. Pretty please.. You do ask a good question. "Whats the point.." To warn others, to make sure no one gets trapped in your wicked, wicked place of swampy work environment. If only one person reads this and changes his/her mind about working for you. mission accomplished. The weight of these lies are catching up to you. Soon you will have no place to hire and fool people. And stop telling people to leave China! Your school does not represent this country! Your school is a blight on this city, province AND country. May you roll up and shrivel like the moss on the bottom of a rock exposed to fresh air. We LOVE China. We all hate THIS school. Get over it and start fixing the problems, you idiot.

I dont get the point why people here are just telling lies about the school. There are foreign teachers who have renewed and stayed for morethan 5 years already. The workloads given to the foreign teachers are quite few and even much below the usual teaching hours. Some have only 6-8hrs teaching loads a week. The teachers get very competitive salaries, they are off the school after 3pm and not given any night supervison activities, foreign teachers are also being paid for their extra hours spent on saturdays if required to teach. So whats the point of telling these bad things which is just too far from reality???, and why are you doing this?, have you been or worked at Changshu International School? I pitty you man for your sour grapes. Get out of China and go back to your country. You are a shame to join in the workplace promoting positive attitude. You are such a jerk!

Don't waste your time man! This school is in so much trouble they keep having to recruit from the bottom of the barrel. Their reputation is shit in Changshu and most people know about them in this region. They have a few good and dedicated people, but they keep losing teachers during the term and then having to replace them. I know a few people who worked there and they seemed genuinely concerned about the state of things. It seems nothing can save them on with their race to the bottom. About the only thing that they can do now is to pay more, but even that won't last. The truth is out there and the smell is attracting the flies. Let it sink before it can be saved.

This is bullshit! There are no illegal workers in CIS. All teachers has their work visas. The school even secured first all the necessary requirements before going to CIS. So all teachers has their work visas prior to going to China.

You are so right, I second this post. just completed my tour at Changshu International School and I should have taken note of your warning. It was everything you described and worse. I thought you were just a whining foreigner, boy was I mistaken. This school is indeed "The armpit of Hell" and should be investigated for gross violations of labor laws and contracts.

Yes, I agree with you. I was in the final stages of the application for this school and I went, what? what? No way! I actually did what was suggested and asked around about the school. Almost everything said in the article was kinda true. It's better if I just accept a job at a school without so much baggage. I am sure that the people are nice at the school and they all seemed happy enough, but hey why should I take a chance? Suzhou and Changshu have so many better offers. And the salary is not really that much higher than others. I think if they want to save their reputation they gonna have to up that way high. Anyways, I wish anyone at the school or those wishing to join good luck.

This post is a complete lie. The only true thing in this post is that the school is about 8km from the city centre but there are two bus routes and taxis will take you out here. The rest is completely untrue and purposely misleading. The two people that wrote this post re-signed at the school for another school year. If they really think these things they both should just leave and not post malicious and misleading things under other peoples names.

This is absolute bullshit! I have been working with Changshu International school since last year and yes, I've renewed my contract because I'm treated well. Everything in this write-up is no where close to truth. I even had my work visa before heading to China and there is not a single staff without a work visa. This is one of the best schools in China any qualified teacher could work with. Most of the teachers have re-signed new contracts for the next academic year so what are you talking about? Better get your bad attitude asses together to fit into a proper working environment.

Oh, did you mention Cory? He is actually the best recruiter you can ever come across. Dude is really witty. Having any problem with Cory simply means you are somehow 'common sense defcient'. Your description of Changshu and it's closeness to Suzhou, taxi services, etc typically unveils your ignorance and I think you should be sued for defamation. Get your facts right and deal with your own working attitude to fit well into a proper working environment.

Greetings Holly,

Just a little history here ... once upon a time, Changshu International School was a really decent little place to work...but then it went bankrupt and it was acquired by the same private education group that runs Suzhou Foreign Language School, where the infamous Kevin the Pervert the Pizza Boy worked for 13 years, and the Nanjing Foreign Language School and one other school in Jiangsu.

When it changed hands, everything went downhill. Absolutely everything. All of the "foreign" administrators were parachuted in from the Suzhou Foreign Language School, where the 375 pound Kevin trained them all. The Suzhou Foreign Language School was always in chaos so one could hardly expect the Changshu International School to be any different. Because of all kind of problems with the Jiangsu Foreign Expert Bureau, the Changshu school started having serious problems in obtaining Z visas for its teachers. Real serious problems. Also, and again because of the infamous Kevin, the reputation of the Changshu school truly suffered and no one but one wanted to work there. You write that many teachers left after the end of one year. This is not true -- the truth is much worse. Many teachers ran away, disappeared at the end of the first semester, some even left after a few days.

And the Cory that you write about is and was an "intimate" friend of the infamous Kevin, if you understand my meaning.

As for taxis not taking you there after dark, that is a common occurrence in Changshu. Changshu is actually a rather pretty city and a rather prosperous city by Chinese standards. Its GNP is the seventh in China. It is rather laowai-friendly and laowai are not gawked on the street as such would happen in many other Chinese cities. Public transport is minimal at best and most buses stop running after about 18h00. There are many internationally known stores -- Walmart, Carrefour, Auchamp, etc., and foreign products are readily available. Changhsu is NOT a good place to learn Chinese, however, and most Changshunese speak in Wu dialect as opposed to proper Mandarin.

But as for the school, it is definitely an "avoid" at least at the present time.

"If you have any plans to have good times in Suzhou, avoid Changshu International School – (CIS so called) at all costs. It’s an uncaring, unprofessional school and a total waste of time for a professional teacher to work there. The mostly untrained staff is composed mostly of egotistical admin, occasional drug users or making a side line in drug dealing. There are a few hardworking teachers who do excellent work under abnormal circumstances and that is a tragedy. Because of their current odious reputation, they have now resorted to hiring unqualified, non-native speakers to fill teaching positions that legally may only be filled by native language speakers and giving them fake business or tourist visas. (This may be cost related, since it is cheaper this way) They constantly have complete turnover of foreign staff throughout the year and are always looking for new naive recruits or dumb victims. Most are recruited through the duplicitous and fraudulent Suzhou Boren HR Consulting Company and are told that Changshu International School is new, with high level of academics and support services. Instead, they find that they are posted to a school that is 8 kilometers from the closest city and based in a rural and filthy farmland area. (Even taxis refuse to go there after 9pm, so good luck going back after you have a late dinner) If you choose to live on campus, you have to listen to the alarms going off at 6am in the morning on your days off and even on holidays you are blasted by constant marching music in the early hours. If you choose to live off campus, you have to take broken e-bikes provided every morning at 7am in heavy smog.

The amount of lies and deception that the school puts out is so much that the teachers’ very quickly just count down the time of their contracts, so they know when they can leave. When you do decide to leave, they can be very vindictive and will usually give you a bad reference, just to make it difficult for you to get a new job. Every qualified teacher that they have ever had has quit after a 1 year contract and those who stay treat the position as a joke. It is well known in the nearby city that this school is a sad parody of a learning institution. It is in the middle of an undeveloped area (mostly farms - use Google map to check), with only one long and uncomfortable single bus route connecting it to the nearby city. The so-called International Department is run by an incompetent, dishonest and totally amoral management team that will lie to your face when they are asked for any help, perfectly represented by a lying two-faced rat called Cory. They have in the past kept a qualified teacher on a tourist visa for a full contract year and made him leave the country every 3 months to get it renewed, at his own expense. They made no attempt to get him a work visa, even though it was a legal contractual requirement. He eventually left, one hopes in utter disgust at their nonchalance and malicious incompetence. They have also in the past promoted a clueless Senior Teacher to a position he was totally unsuited for, causing many problems in the school until he left. The list goes on and on. Just spend time in the city talking to the many ex-teachers to get the full scoop.

Changshu has many other fine schools and it is sad that Changshu International School has cast such blight on their image. I hope that this message can stop just one more person who might be caught by their lies. You have been warned."

Yes, thanks very much for warning us.

I have to say I'm very surprised that the visa illegalities are occurring in Changsu City of Suzhou. It cannot be described as one of China's many "backwater" belts!