In January we headed to Canada to source high-quality teachers looking to teach in the UK. After months of planning, Bijal, Nic and Rachel from our education team spent two weeks travelling across the country to meet an array of talented potential candidates.
Project Co-ordinator Bijal shares her personal experiences from the trip and how our journey overseas could solve your recruitment solutions.
Getting to Canada
This trip had finally arrived and we were so excited to meet fantastic Canadian teachers. I woke up and quadruple checked I had my passport and plane tickets in my bag.
I managed to sleep on the plane and woke up well rested. Nic, however, can’t sleep on planes … and also can’t sit still, so she didn’t fare so well. Rachel had the hardest time of us all since she hates flying. Eight hours later, we landed in Toronto and waited for our next flight.
Thunder Bay
I know our British weather can be rather chilly sometimes, but the Canadian temperatures are on a whole new level. When we got to the hotel, we braved the cold and walked to Walmart to buy more clothes, only to later walk out looking like marshmallow men! We were excited to see some of Canada’s beautiful scenery and our first stop was Thunder Bay, which is part of Lake Superior, the largest of the great lakes.
We met with students at the Lakehead Thunder Bay Fair. This was our first Canadian education recruitment fair and we were excited to see how our months of planning fared.
After the fair, we boarded two flights and 10 hours later, we arrived at our hotel in Fredericton, New Brunswick and finally got some sleep.
New Brunswick
The University of New Brunswick was beautiful and the fair took place overlooking a sunset. The students were really well prepared with CVs, covering letters and areas of interest in mind to discuss. The fair was very well organised and we enjoyed meeting everyone.
The students were really creative and came prepared with their own personalised business cards (one exceptional maths and science teacher had a mushroom as her logo as it was from her favourite book as a child!)
It was a great talking point and chance for us to see each individual’s personality and get to know the teachers, rather than just the information from a standard CV.
After the fair, we headed back to the hotel for a registration evening where we interviewed fully qualified teachers who are looking to relocate to the UK, as well as going through their compliance documents.
Halifax
We attended a two day event at Mount Saint Vincent University, where five of the universities across Nova Scotia invited their graduating students to have the chance to meet with employers from all over the world.
The students we met there were very excited to come over to the UK and teach in their own classroom. They were also thrilled by the opportunity of getting to travel around Europe.
After the fair, we were exhausted from a busy but exciting day, but we made our way to our Halifax registration evening. We met with Carole, a Canadian teacher with whom we had previously spoken to via Skype and ended up heading out for dinner with her, exploring all that downtown Halifax had to offer.
Travelling to Toronto
More driving, more flights, more cold weather…
Once in Toronto, we had a registration evening meeting qualified teachers (who were all outstanding.)
McGill
McGill fair was amazing, with the use of French on commercial signs and menus, we thought we had walked into France! The students were all bilingual, with English being their second language and many even spoke three languages. We registered 90 keen and high quality candidates who are looking to start a career in the UK.
After the fair, we headed back to the hotel to meet more qualified teachers at our prearranged registration evening.
Orillia
We flew back to Toronto for the fifth time, then drove to Orillia and checked into our hotel.
We had a mini disaster at the Lakehead Orillia education fair, as the courier arrived without our registration forms. Luckily we were quick to improvise and managed to print new forms before the students arrived.
After the fair, we packed for home and drove back to Toronto where we squeezed in meeting one more candidate before our flight to the UK.
It was a busy few weeks but we are pleased our hard work and dedication to sourcing quality teachers paid off. We have registered over 150 exceptional Canadian candidates who are all looking to work in the UK.
With over 60 primary teachers and over 80 secondary teachers confirmed, we’re working hard to ensure we find the right match for your school. If you are interested in finding out more, please get in touch today on edu-international@athona.com or 01277 245840 to confirm your vacancies and availability for Skype interviews.
Useful links
