SPARK Schools Employee Reviews
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Overwhelming workload
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The most useful review selected by IndeedSpark schools is a good school. Stressful like any other school, however with this one the main stressful thing is not having time to yourself especially during the week. There are lot of expectations but not time to meet them. You should be at work as early as 7 and knock off as late as 16h00.
Pros
Growth
Cons
No benefits and long working hours
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Overworked and underpaid
Literacy Teacher (Former Employee) - Johannesburg, Gauteng - 16 November 2020
A business venture masquerading as a school. They enslave their staff by overworking and underpaying them. A definite micky mouse republic!! If you love yourself , save yourself.
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Hard work in a ever changing environment
Teacher (Former Employee) - Pretoria, Gauteng - 6 August 2020
SPARK is great at marketing themselves to parents and teachers. There are lots of promises made with very little follow through. There is no accountability when things go wrong and blame always gets placed on someone else. It is very difficult to get straight answers and you always get the run around.
There is no time for a personal life and family time as you have extremely long working hours and when you are not at school you still have to put in many additional hours in the evening and weekends in order to meet expectations. They use disciplinary threats and policies to get you to abide by their way of doing things. The same rules do not apply to everyone and there are major inconsistencies when it comes to implementing rules.
The dress code is extremely strict and unreasonable especially when you are teaching for 8 hours a day. Comfort has no place in a SPARK classroom.
There are unrealistic expectations placed on teacher with little valuable support and resources. You are expected to use your own money to meet these expectations.
Professional development is offered as a selling point yet is often useless and the time could be used to do the mountains of admin that needs to be completed.
The emphasis at SPARK is academic achievement and data not learner centered. Your bonus and increase is based on learners results which often leads to dishonesty and mark adjustments.
I would not easily recommend SPARK as an organization to work for and I would never send my child there as the academic pressure is too high for them and does not develop a child holistically.
Pros
A great line manager, nice people that became friends
Cons
Salary, long working hours, unrealistic expectations
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Learning experience
Supervisor (Current Employee) - Centurion, Gauteng - 23 July 2020
It's a warm environment and the people are welcoming.You can learn new skills and experience a great feeling of belonging. I love that people don't let you fail, there's always someone ready to lend a helping hand.
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Happy
Temporary learnership (Former Employee) - Rosebank, Gauteng - 28 June 2020
I was very happy to be working there. My co-workers were very informative. I gained alot of experience and skill. It was not stressfull at all for me.
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Money driven establishment rather than learner establishment
Ex-employee (Former Employee) - Johannesburg, Gauteng - 23 June 2020
Did not have a pleasant experience at Spark. Management do not have open communication with staff. Staff are ALWAYS in the dark. Environement is terrible - and have noticed some Spark schools are container classrooms - looks horrible and not appealing whatsoever. Fees are affordable, but to what end? Spark is fake - but are really good at advertising and hides under a masked education system that does not work. Discipline at schools is attention getting signals - they do not work, and I feel makes the children seem like robots. I do not think this is the way to inspire young children. As a proud South African, I would like to embrace the essence of what makes me a South African - Spark is very neutral and takes on a neutral, somewhat American way of teaching. Teaching hours for children are very long and 7 year olds can't concentrate till 3pm. There is only PE and if kids want to play sport, they have to join a sports club - which is an additional fee to school fees...so is Spark really affordable? The curriculum is faltered - if Spark really wants to impress parents and future teachers, they should have properly qualified curriculum coordinators to create a curriculum worth using, and doesn't change every so often. As a parent myself, I wouldn't enroll my child at Spark because it seems to me that Spark is run more like a business rather than a place of learning.
Pros
None
Cons
Lengthy learning & teaching hours
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Not for the faint hearted
English Teacher (Current Employee) - SPARK Schools - 8 May 2020
When I first started I was blown away by the professional development that teachers receive as well as the support from management. I didn't have anything like that at my last school so I was impressed.
As time has gone on, and I'm in my third year now, I am still doing the exact same professional development sessions as I did when I started out, so it's a bit boring to say the least and time I could be using to do prep for my lessons.
Since starting I have no time for my personal life, We work very hard until 16:00 every day with no real prep/admin time during the school day. Our break in Flex (Grade 4-7) is 25 minutes long so I have to breath food down before my group comes back from break. It's not fair the kids either as this is their only break for the whole day.
Lessons are very short in Flex (40 minutes) with a lot of content that needs to be covered in a short period of time as well as making sure your struggling learners are being tended to as well. I need to do extra lessons after school just so that we can keep up with the work and so that I can make sure my kids actually understand it.The scripted lesson are a bonus, we don't have to spend time we don't have doing them but it leaves little room for creativity as a teacher. People from SPARK support will come into your class randomly, they don't greet you, they check books and leave and complain about them later because you haven't stuck exactly to the lesson plan or you forgot to put that 1 poster on the wall.
Classrooms are expected to look a certain way with certain things that HAVE to be up on the -
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Fun Work Place
Quality Assurance Clerk (Former Employee) - Rosebank, Gauteng - 18 February 2020
Got Promoted 3 times but salary didnt change personal agendas between the managers and should have focused on on the companies goals and loyal to their staff
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Great working environment
Executive Assistant to CEO and CFO (Former Employee) - Rosebank, Gauteng - 22 January 2020
Gained a lot of working experience. Management is very involved in making sure that you are suitable for the position that you are placed in and that you are doing what makes you happy.
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SPARK Schools
English Teacher (Former Employee) - Midrand, Gauteng - 7 January 2020
Thrown into the deep end when starting the job at SPARK Schools. Management not friendly. Some management not qualified for their positions.
Friendly teachers and facility management.
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Jobs at SPARK Schools
Excellent
Supervisor (Current Employee) - Randpark Ridge, Gauteng - 26 November 2019
Great company and a lot of work
You have to be dedicated in order for you to work in this company, you have to love kids make sure that they are safe at all times.
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Stressful
Ex - employee (Former Employee) - Ferndale, Gauteng - 23 November 2019
SPARK Schools is very stressful environment to work in. Teachers are not treated fairly and the hours are too long for the work load. The curriculum changes every year and class sizes keep getting bigger and unmanageable. I would not recommend SPARK Schools to any teacher or parent. Your children will have a better school experience at any other school.
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Fun workplace too competitive team wise
Blended Learner Facilitator (Current Employee) - Springs, Gauteng - 6 November 2019
I love being at SPARK I would just like a more effective and fair working environment in terms of the team part of it.
I feel i could be paid more as my job is the face of Spark Schools.
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Unrealistic Expectations
English Teacher (Current Employee) - SPARK Rynfield - 11 September 2019
There is a big expectation for excellence, however, the means to achieve this are often not provided. The assessment standards are all over the place and do not correlate with what is being taught in the scripted out lesson plans. For example - the assessments are set by a 'Learning Model' team, the Assistant Principals of each school are expected to 'moderate', however, when teachers receive assessments it is laden with numerous mistakes and content that was covered in example term 2 is being tested in term 3 - why cover all the content for term 3 if it is not being tested then? On top of that, the deadlines to conclude with marking are unrealistic. There is a big emphasis on writing (especially in English) and no focus whatsoever on grammar. Reading is to be taught in small groups - however, the timetable does not allow for the teacher to see each group to teach reading and often times scholars are left without being taught any reading skills.
SPARK Support - which acts kind of like the network's head office rarely provides support. The management is still juvenile and I am sure there will be a difference in 10 - 15 years. A lot of systems are not yet in place, and small irregularities make for a very unpleasant working environment Leadership (which are all young, inexperience, millennial leaders) clearly displays favouritism, and often times they have a very childish approach to handling things and even conducting meetings. There is little to no empathy shown for one's personal life and support is very little.
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Unrealistic expectations and long hours
general worker (Former Employee) - Gauteng, Gauteng - 22 August 2019
SPARK Schools is a great way to get involved as a new graduate that has no experience teaching, to hone your skills and teaching strategies to suit the SPARK model. Experienced teachers who want to teach to their own methodologies cannot shape to their own standards, but need to always be in line with the SPARK model, thus individuality is dismissed.
The hours are very long - for teachers and for scholars.The school day ends at 4pm for all teaching staff; excluding prep after hours for the next day. Expectations for teachers are overwhelmingly unrealistic and the curriculum is never stagnant. Spark schools has no culture relevant to embracing South African culture and is somewhat neutral - instead SPARKS Fly is required every day where children dance and presume to say their Daily Creed, without any prayer as most schools do; which I think is unfortunate, because I don't believe our cultures should be celebrated only on Heritage Day. Teachers are not supported by the "Support" provided and parents are constantly in the dark. I do not think SPARK Schools is a great place to enroll children because the model does not cater for all learners. Struggling scholars will continue to struggle because the curriculum is too difficult. SPARK does not have any academic assistance such as class assistants or educational professionals i.e. educational psychologists, speech therapists, psychologists, etc. to guide them, and class sizes are too large for the academic rigor placed on teachers to perform successful teaching; neither are scholar assessments done for for any scholar being enrolled -
Pros
Learning a unique class culture
Cons
Long hours, excess workload
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Friendly staff and nice enviroment
Enrolment Clerk (Current Employee) - Johannesburg, Gauteng - 20 August 2019
I'm loving this company. One feels at home and always fun and I love the interaction by management to staff. I would not work anywhsre else this is the best. Company I've worked for
Pros
Popcorn on friday
Cons
None so far
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Major growth opportunities
Assistant Principal (Current Employee) - Stellenbosch, Western Cape - 15 August 2019
Amazing learning and growth opportunities
Great support from team
Creative and innovative
Changing the face of Education in South Africa
Work-life balance can become a challenge
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Unhealthy working environment
Teacher (Former Employee) - Johannesburg, Gauteng - 16 June 2019
This company does not care about the well being of their employees, to them it's about getting as many learners as possible, and making money, even if the resources and facilities do not accommodate the learners. The only people whose voices are heard are those with head office positions, nobody else matters. Their 'so-called American curriculum' is non-existent. Teachers have to source out a lot of their learning and teaching material which is not included in a teacher's salary. Teachers are not given time during working hours to prepare any work, therefore it means that a teacher must work outside of 9 hours as well as on weekends and school holidays which is unfair and unhealthy. They do not care about the future of South African children, this is just a money-making scheme. Many of these schools shouldn't even be operating based on health and safety standards. It's organisations like SPARK Schools that destroy our youth and kill the passion within our teachers.
Pros
None
Cons
Many
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Challenging work place
Administration (Former Employee) - Gauteng, Gauteng - 11 June 2019
Fast growing organization with young inexperienced management and immature, ineffective systems. Policies are not consistently adhered to leading to the perception that management shows favouritism. Emphasis on affordability means constant budget issues that leads to immense frustrations - especially regarding teaching supplies, safety, security and maintenance. Employees are expected to work hard with little reward and and even less support.
Pros
Core values and Social emotional learning
Cons
Long hours, frustration due to lack of support, low salary
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Fun working environment
Literacy Teacher- Grade (Former Employee) - Turffontein, Gauteng - 10 June 2019
Design, write and utilize lesson plans conforming to school’s curriculum. I learned the importance of administration work and structured work formats The hardest part daily afternoon review meetings . Enjoyed most was seeing the joy in a child's face when they understand what you are teaching
Pros
family environment
Cons
Long hours
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Change is the only constant
Maths Teacher (Former Employee) - South Africa - 9 June 2019
As a developing network of schools, SPARK was constantly changing and adapting while I was there. In some ways this was fun and exciting but in others it was highly frustrating. One thing I can compliment SPARK on was the curriculum, I taught Mathematics and we followed the PRIME textbook.
Pros
Great salary
Cons
long hours, no school counselor.
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Ratings by category
2,6Work/Life Balance
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Questions about SPARK Schools
- How is feedback from management delivered at SPARK Schools?3 people answered
- What are the working hours at SPARK Schools?3 people answered
- On average, how many hours do you work a day at SPARK Schools?2 people answered
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- Does Spark's schools have assistant teachers?2 people answered
- What was the most challenging part of your role at SPARK Schools?One person answered
- What is the dress code at SPARK Schools?One person answered
- How long does it take for someone to get an interview at SparkschoolOne person answered
- What is the most stressful part about working at SPARK Schools?One person answered
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