I am a first year teacher at Huijia Private School, but I have 15 years of experience in education. If I had based my decision on accepting my offer to teach here solely on outdated online reviews of the school, I would have never stepped foot on campus here. In so doing I would have missed out on a great opportunity to impact young lives and at the same time be paid a great salary with good benefits.

I have taught at several schools during my education career, and I realize that there is no perfect place. If I found the "perfect" school and decided to teach there, I would certainly mess it up because I am not perfect. Are there sometimes frustrations here at Huijia? Certainly. There are several thousand students, a University, a huge staff both foreign and Chinese, and a massive campus here and sometimes things fall through the cracks. Is the school located in a rather isolated section of Beijing? No doubt. Changping District is one of the smaller districts in Beijing. The positives here, however, greatly outnumber the negatives.

I have already mentioned the salary here. While trying to decide where to teach, I had around 20 contracts that were offered to me. The salary at Huijia was by far the most attractive. We also have our airfare here paid for one roundtrip ticket each year, are provided health insurance, are given a daily meal allowance, and can earn a bonus of an entire month's salary at year's end.

I taught before in Southern China and can say by personal experience that the apartment provided to foreign teachers is very comfortable, especially compared to many that foreign teachers are given in other Chinese schools. We have a separate kitchen/dining area, a spacious bedroom with a lot of closet space,and a huge, western style bathroom. We enjoy unlimited hot water with great water pressure. I mention these details because often this is not the case.

The campus here is like a mini-city. We have 4 canteens with different types of food available, numerous small stores with a great variety of items, a barber shop, a and dry cleaners. We have access to 4 gymnasiums, allowing us to swim in a huge pool, play basketball, volleyball, or badminton, or work out in a nice fitness center. The new ice hockey rink is almost complete which will allow us to ice skate.

Our classrooms are very modern, allowing us access to the latest teaching technologies. I use a lot of multi-media and my former school was not equipped for this. I understand that there have been issues in the past related to the quality of education, but I am very impressed with the new leadership in the high school. They have a vision and a plan to see it accomplished.

I mentioned the school's location. It would be nice if the heart of Beijing were closer to us, but the subway system allows us to travel anywhere in the city. Many teachers use weekends to visit there.

I don't know anything about the HR staff in the past, but I do know that the current HR rep who works directly with the foreign teachers is incredible. He is well-loved by the FT's here and goes the extra mile to help us. He plans monthly trips to take us to Western stores so that we can get the things that we need. He always makes himself available to help us.

Is Huijia a perfect place? Far from it. Is is a good place to teach for teachers who love what they do and want to make a difference in the lives of youth? No doubt about it!

I would be glad to personally talk to anyone considering teaching here.