I worked at The English Modern School in Doha for a couple years. It was a classic crap overseas school. It was (and may still be) owned by a company and run by a a couple of rubbish teachers. One was the 'head' and the other the deputy. The Head (nicknamed Lil Pot) had absolutely no interest in education, and had been a poor teacher of French at another school before somehow wangling herself into the EMS. She sat in her office behind a glass panel staying out of reach of teachers and pupils. She never once took an assembly, or asked about how the kids were getting on. Profit was her only concern. We were obliged to complete a form by Thursday if we needed any teaching materials the following week. I asked for paper and was denied. Anyway, there were many cases of similar tight-fistedness and general 'OH MY GOD !! You'lll never belive what has happened/been said/been done now!' moments. We had a book in the staffroom called 'What the Bloody Bollocks' where all this was recorded.

The deputy was an idiotic who got the job by wondering about the school with a clipboard. He so impressed Lil Pot as a yes man that she installed him in a large office and told him to get on with it. He was too dumb to cause much more than entertainment really, and there was plenty of that. The best bit about working there, and the thing that made it possible to keep going (until I did a runner, but that's another story) was the entertainment provided. The best bit was that it was a mixture of the regular and predictable, as well as the random, gaffaw type, cock-ups. His assemblies were genius. Standing at the front of the school screaming and going red because some kid had hit another kid in the playground three days previously.

Anyway, you get the point. After I left (not sure if it was Moonlight Express or the other one with Morgan Freeman and wossname) I decided to try to do something to help prevent others falling into the same trap as I did. At the time I was newly married with no kids so it was all a bit of a laugh. I get cold sweats STILL (after 10 years) whenever I think of teachers who give up all they've got in UK to go overseas with their families only to end up in some dump like EMS (it may be better now). All the dreams, excitement, hopes of bettering the lives of themselves and their children acted upon with faith, courage and hard work, just to be shat on by cynical profiteers.

I am still angry, sorry about that.

Anyone who reads that only slightly less cynical and profiteering issue (the one that I was hypocritical enough to use to endorse this site (heh heh)) will know that finding a decent overseas school isn't easy. The good ones tell the truth and the bad ones tell whoppers. It is almost impossible to tell from UK which is which. It's a bit like that riddle about the land of the Knight and the Knaves where you only have one question to save your life, knowing one of them will lie and the other tell the truth but not knowing who is which is which.

My point is that I decided something more subtle was needed. The site started out as a database where schools could tell us all about themselves. I realised that 1. They might still tell fibs, 2. They might ignore the opportunity entirely. To tackle (1) I decided to allow users the opportunity to comment on the school's answers (in a sensible and controlled way by making users confirm their name and address via a Paypal deposit). To tackle (2) I created a system whereby users could actually ask schools to provide answers to the questions. This was only a partial answer as I realised that schools may choose to ignore the request for information. To tackle this I have created extra information in the school profiles that shows when the question was first asked (when the school account was set up), when it was most recently asked, and how many times it has been asked. This way the school can still ignore that questions but people coming after can see the record left by previous teachers.

What I like about the system is that it does not matter if the school answers or not, the information is still there.

I now have over 1600 schools in the database and am still hopeful that enough teachers will cotton on to the BEAUTY of the system that it will be used as first port of call with any information gathering on overseas schools.

Ultimately I hope it makes overseas schools feel sufficiently under the spotlight to improve their game if necessary.