​Teachers Fleeing Overseas: Multiple Choice Grammar Test

by Sally Weale

Thousands of teachers who honed their skills in cash-strapped English comprehensives are now working abroad. What’s (1) _________ the brain drain? It provides you with the opportunity to focus on quality of teaching rather than crowd management. (2) _________ on a hill above the historic Swiss city of St Gallen, set in 25 acres of private parkland, sits one of the most expensive boarding schools in Europe. Costing up to £100,000 for an academic year, the Institut auf dem Rosenberg is more than twice (3) _________ expensive as Eton college and educates the offspring of some of the (4) _________ people in the world. Most of whom, it turns out, will be taught by teachers who trained in the cash-strapped classrooms of UK state schools.

Those teachers who find themselves in Rosenberg’s five-star setting (5) _________ a small subset of the thousands leaving their students in Oldham and Lewisham, Liverpool and Leicester, and heading for Switzerland, China, Canada, Dubai, Australia, Thailand, Mexico, Nepal and numerous other international education destinations.

The quaint art nouveau villas that form the school campus (6) _________ in a bleak mountain mist – making it (7) _________ more a series of unfortunate events than the sound of music. The 230 pupils of more than 40 different nationalities are just back after their half-term break – the younger children are cute and chatty, while the older pupils sidle by with (8) _________ a glance.

The Rosenberg offer could not be further removed from your average state school in the UK. Certainly it makes uncomfortable viewing for an education correspondent more familiar with our overstretched comprehensives and academies. While schools in England and Wales have been forced (9) _________ jobs and close early to save money, here pupils are invited to bring their own horses, and meals are served in a high-end restaurant (10) _________ for every dietary requirement.

The benefits include small classes, capacity to save, private healthcare, free flights home.

For sports and recreation there is skiing every weekend in the winter, golf training by pros, a health and fitness club, and tennis courts.

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