DO NOT WORK FOR ANY KINGS ENGLISH FOR KIDS SCHOOL. They don't pay their staff or correctly follow the contract. TERRIBLE SCHOOL!

Kings English for kids has 3 schools in china, Qingdao, Tianjin and Haikou. They are all overseen my the same person, a guy called Newman. We worked at the school in Haikou, Hainan Island for 4 years. The first 2 years were great, under different management and we thought we had found a wonderful job. Then Newman took over as 'boss' for all the schools and it became a nightmare job. This is long but please take the time to read it in full.

Despite having a contract, the school won't follow it, you'll be expected to work all public holidays including Christmas, new year, and have a very short holiday for Chinese New Year. Year on year the holiday time has been drastically reduced. There is no opportunity to take extra holiday, for example if your family are visiting you'll be threatened with having your visa revoked for asking for holiday. If you want to go home it's the same problem.

The school in Haikou is falling apart, it's full of rats, old, outdated and broken. There are interactive whieteboards but it's incredibly rare every teacher will have a working classroom. The interactive whiteboards often shut down mid way through the lesson. It's so dirty which has caused a problem with rats. The school is on the fourth floor, and the elevator is often 'broken' in truth it's been cut off by the landlord because Newman ('the boss') doesn't want to pay the bills for the building. This is very difficult for the teachers who cycle to school and then have to carry their bikes up and down four flights of stairs all day. Not to mention you have to walk through a rat infested building site to get to the stairwell. Amazingly when Newman visits Haikou the elevator bill will be paid so he doesn't have to suffer the inconvenience of the staircase.

There used to be computers for staff to use to prepare lessons in the office, over the years these have broken and not been replaced, despite newmans constant empty promises. His other empty promises include bonus incentives if yearly targets are reached. They were, but we never received the financial bonus written into our contract. Overnight trips again for hitting targets, they never happened, and unlike most Chinese companies you'll also receive nothing for Chinese New Year. Because you must remember all money saved goes into Newman ('the boss') pocket.

The classes are supposed to be for 12 students but in the schools desperation for new students they'll cram more kids (with zero English) plus their parents, grandparents, friends, baby siblings etc into your regular classes and ask you to pay the demo student more attention, whilst the parents film you and talk all through your class. There are designated demo classes but the school ignore these and put the students into your regular class. Some demo kids are under 2 years old! And can't even speak Chinese! You'll be a baby sitter for 90 minutes.

You are a monkey told when to perform, and if your performance isn't humiliating or cringey enough, you'll be branded a terrible teacher by the teaching assistants. Who in truth have no qualifications either.

For new teachers the school have no problem encouraging you to work illegally and do very little to help you obtain a legal Z visa. They're clueless when it comes to these matters.

And finally when you do come to leave they won't arrange your final salary or bonus. They'll promise you they'll pay you into your foreign account by the end of the month. They never pay, so you'll never receive your final month salary or end of contract bonus. They've done this to us and many people before us. This is not for the first time. When you email them about being paid, they'll just ignore you or threaten to have you banned from china.

I cannot stress strongly enough DO NOT WORK FOR KINGS ENGLISH FOR KIDS. It'll be the biggest mistake you make!