RE “Dipont Education Management Review - Smoke and Mirrors ” - Anonymous employee Dipont Education Employee Review

Although much of the previous review is technically correct, the spin is far too negative. It is true that once employed by Dipont your actual Visa will be obtained by the host school and the foreign expert’s certificate organised by the host school. Dipont acts more as an HR, quality management and training consultancy service for the host school. This is a bit opaque, but can be an advantage to the employed teacher, for example if you don’t like your current centre, after you complete your contract (2 years) Dipont will offer to find you employment at one of their other centres, if it is available. You will also be informed of promotion opportunities, such as Head of Department roles at other centres and will be allowed to transfer to these centres, if successful during your contract. Dipont also runs a quality management program with peripatetic AQMs (Academic Quality Managers) and the Centre Principals the quality of lesson observations and feed back is usually good and can be excellent. Dipont also offers some in-house training across there centres for example in Science, TOK, English etc these vary in quality but can be very useful. Dipont with the host school sends teachers for training, such as IB training workshops. I would say that Dipont does offer teachers the opportunity to reflect on there performance and improve without falling into the “Your best is never good enough” Ofsted like experience. As a last note, at the centre I work at the Foreign Experts Certificates are held by the CLO (Centre Liaison Officer) but teachers can request them, if they need them for travailing etc. We are told this is because they are expensive to replace, getting the certificates has not been a problem.