I have been working for an International School for two years, however, the owner sold the school to a bigger company and so many issues have been happening since then.
Micro management, power harassment, and plain discrimination from Japanese teachers to Foreigners.
I started looking for a new job and Yaruki offered me an interview.
Does anyone have any stories with them?
Thank you🙌
14 comments
Aren’t they just a recruiter or dispatch type company?
It’s eikaiwa, you will be a customer service worker not a teacher.
I didn’t work for Kids Duo, but Winbe, which is also part of the Yaruki Switch group. I personally didn’t like it at all and quit after 4 months.
Not a bad company and I’m still working with them
It’s more about obtaining new students and customer service
Have a look at the glassdoor reviews. Worked for them for a bit and it was an absolute shit show
It did the training with Kids Duo and quit right after because I didn’t like the style of „teaching“ at all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teachinginjapan/comments/m8hx9m/yaruki_switch
https://www.reddit.com/r/teachinginjapan/comments/8hyl54/experience_with_yaruki_switch_group_winbe_and
I specifically applied to be an international school teacher and they tried to bait-and-switch me into some after school classes. That was my only experience with them, but it left a sour taste in my mouth
I have experience with Kids Duo in Hokkaido (franchise school) and it was honestly the most horrible job I’ve ever had. I’m at BE Studio now and I love it.
I think the experience depends a lot on the school you get, but honestly the curriculum is so bad it is basically irrelevant.
Example of an activity from the curriculum:
● Teach variety of animals (list of around 15 provided) and the sounds they make
● make an animal sound
● first student to guess the animal gets a point
● repeat
I was meant to do this for 40 mins in a room of 50 kids of varying ages…
So you basically have to make the curriculum every single day with basically no prep time because you have enough stuff to do in the mornings already. And because of the environment and messy curriculum (and bad parents that are attracted to kids duo, due to the daycare aspect), the kids at many of the schools will be badly behaved and genuinely nasty. It only takes a few nasty kids to ruin everything.
Honestly, if you can get ANYTHING else, I would.
However, the one good thing about my experience with KD is that I am now so confident with controlling kids in more reasonable jobs. Going through the hell that is KD for a year and a half was the best training I could possibly get for dealing with kids.
(Also, bare in mind, me staying for a year and a half made me the longest serving staff member at my school. Most people left after around 6 months max, some left on week 2, both foreign and Japanese staff)
Run for the hills.
Girlfriend works there currently, franchise school.
Ill list positives first
1) 10 paid holidays that carry over for a maximum of 20
2) 250k per month rising to 270k a month with a 200k bonus per year
3) every national holiday off
4) 11-8 hours monday to friday so really reasonable
5) Native and Japanese staff are equal
6) At my gfs school they constantly ask for her input, is everything okay, what can we do better. They even helped get us a 3LDK and helped us move.
7) They vaccinated us both even though I dont work there
8) Gave 4 weeks off for corona for 60% pay, changed there mind and paid 100%.
9) When no Corona you may go on cool trips
Day to day she usually doesnt teach for many hours, maybe 3 or 4. The teaching slots are often short 15-40 mins. For the first 1-2 hours she preps for the days lessons. Kids are there for hours and even years so you can build some strong relationships and some great discipline.
So negatives
1) She works christmas day unless its a weekend.
2) Theres spring, summer and winter school. The school is open 10am-8pm you will work 8 hours within that. During seasonal school you may need to do a saturday or two, sometimes only half days.
3) No rise beyond 270k (though my gfs director said they are going to fight for a pay rise)
She likes but has been stressed due to staff shortages but its the same everywhere right now.
Worked for kids duo international. The Glassdoor reviews cover it pretty well. These schools are a bad environment for kids and churn through staff like a meat grinder.
I have an interview with Yaruki coimng wednesday (today is monday) and my brother works for a franchise Kids Duo for more than a month now. I love Japanese culture and don’t think I will have a tough time there, my bro, as far as I can tell, loves living there. And all these comments of school being a bad place, I imagine, come from spoiled people who never worked before. And that’s why Yaruki switched their hiring practice from “only natives, no experience needed” to “fluent english and a willing to work as a teacher.”
Imagine having switch employees every 6 months. How nightmarish. So now they’re hiring people with teaching experience, instead of natives who just want to have a “paid holiday” in Japan.