Your expectations are totally not realistic. 4 years as a mostly C performer and you want to be promoted to SH? Like that the whole school must be full of 10 years exp below average to average teachers holding HOD/VP positions then...

(This is just what I've heard - no first-hand or second-hand observations to share regarding this!)

I've heard that unrelated experience is counted at about 50%. So you might get about 2 years' increment, which is maybe… $200? Shouldn't expect too much here.

Additionally, I've also seen people commenting that promotion for mid-career hires tends to be faster to allow them to catch up with peers. Don't know if this is applicable to someone who's only worked outside for 4 years, though.

That said, like someone else commented - there's no negotiation, so you just have to decide if you want to job enough to take it at those terms!

Some people have no sense of proportion, want to join CS then expect MNC style management program progression. Somemore with barely average type of performance level even in CS...

Just graduated from NIE PGDE Pri in june.
Never receive any notification of promotion or pay incrment until yesterday.

Promoted from Geo 2(untrained) to Geo3. The letter stated 1 year probation. What is this probation about? They will remove me from Geo3 and change to Geo2(trained) if i don't meet their expectations?

Salary changed from 3.6k to 4.5k. Increment supposed to be july yearly but now changed to june (earlier better I guess). My fellow NIE friends increased 200-500 because they are fresh grad. And also they never jump to Geo3. I was quite surprised, I thought I need to wait one year at least to be promoted to Geo3.

To a fellow forumers asking to go back to same school you did contract teaching after NIE, please express your interest to your principal. I did relief teaching, contract teaching, practicum and final posting all in the same school. I happy, school happy, MOE HR happy, all happy, no need headache who not happy with posting. Just voice out, they should be more than happy to take you back (if they like you).

I've never understood what probation is about either - I assume it gives them one year to decidedly aren't cut out for teaching. If so, that's really terrible. Haven't seen anyone fail probation before - by right, they should have been cut by practicum stage, if that bad.

GEO3 after NIE is definitely unusual. Because of mid-career? The fastest I've seen is indeed after one year (for males with NS). Even slower for ladies (maybe after 2-3 years).

Hi fellow coursemate. I can confirm I received a similar increment and jump to GEO 3 too. Worked for about 5 years previously.

By the way, I guess probation is normal for all new staff. As we were previously only on contract, now we are finally trained and considered permanent staff. Don't think they will downgrade you to GEO 2 if you don't clear probation. More likely, you will be given some chances to clear probation, which may even be extended if necessary. But if you could clear your practicum, you shouldn't have much issues clearing probation unless you screwed up somehow. Otherwise, they could probably terminate your employment if you really, really cannot clear the probation period.

I failed probation LOL (after failing and passing practicum on second try)
Paid about 20K indemnity as I was a teaching award holder.

P.S. Now doing well and doing what i set out to do in a tuition centre :)

P.S. **** MOE

How are the working hours like per week in a tuition centre?

What happens if I fail probation? I barely scrapped through in my practicum...

May I know the reason you failed practicum and probation? Like you kinda knew about that before you actually failed? What went wrong?