Brookes School in St. Petersburg

As a former employee, and friend to many of the good people that still remain at Brookes Saint Petersburg (BSP), I feel a moral obligation to share the concerns I have for the future of the community. While others may share my opinions, those expressed are solely my own and do not necessary represent those of others. BSP has obvious qualities unique to the school, notably the sympathetic parents, incredibly well behaved students, and outstanding teachers that I was very fortunate to learn from, on a professional and personal level. It has come with great displeasure that I have had to see colleagues/friends leave in the short time that I was at BSP. When a school sees 4 teachers with over 20 years experience each in the one building all leave for personal reasons Elena Bystrova (HR manager) and Zarina Abdulazizova (Director of Human Resources) ignored the pleas of the expat teachers for support during the peak for the Covid pandemic last year, with all of us unable to visit friend and family during the holidays. If it wasn’t for the great comradery of Russian teachers to keep us informed on what was happening, we would have been in total fear. Unfortunately, this came too late for one employee, who out of sheer fear, left overnight and carried the burden of not being able to say goodbye to his. Such is the delicate ego of Charlie King, he refused to let the employee carry on teaching through distance learning for the sake of the students and colleague. All we received from Charlie King (Director of schools) were updates that we should be grateful to be employed, and that he had solely kept us all in the job. I, like everyone else, received no clarification regarding renewal of contract, or what the future of BSP would be. When I formally expressed interest in a position elsewhere during the uncertainty, I was vilified by Charlie King & John Downey (Moscow Principal) for my disloyalty to the organisation. Other teachers who had been informed they would not be having their contracts renewed as early as Christmas 2019, had their medical insurance withdrawn, bonus removed, and given 3 days to vacate their apartment, again, all during a global pandemic. This year has seen contracts drastically changed, with holidays cut by 5 weeks, bonuses and flight allowances heavily reduced, all without notice. The ever delegating Mark Broom has brought the school moral to an all-time low amongst staff and students. A principal fired from ISM, and given the sole mission of recruitment and retention at BSP has adversely put teachers under constant and unnecessary strain due to his unorthodox approach of delegating every single minor task, such as emailing someone to ask another person when they’re available for a meeting. The only time he has been active was during the arrival of two VIP students’, who were duly given the ever mysterious new Macbooks (promised to the school by Charlie King since the previous academic year) ahead of long suffering students and teachers still struggling with outdated laptops, along with a goody bag of Brookes merchandise to compliment a special discount. Teachers have been the last to be informed of positive COVID cases in the school, with Mark Broom and Charlie King deeming the information irrelevant. Those vulnerable to infection have been silenced, ignored and sent away from the school with no clear guidelines on how this will affect their salary or sick days. Those who did return found their salary reduced due to the confusement amongst the ever revolving 9+ team of accountants in Moscow. While multiple teachers have already left BSP, none have been replaced, leaving the over worked learning assistants to take classes, and combine year groups. All this while the school saw fit to promote administrators into sensational titles such as ‘’academic dean and director of….’’. Along hiring personal assistants. The Moscow team travel on a weekly basis to BSP, staying in hotels and/or apartments kept on retaining, dining out on the schools’ expense. I can assure you their presence in the BSP offers little to no support. All are found wondering the corridors or keeping tabs on what is happening in Moscow from the aesthetically pleasing, yet deserted ‘’parent’s café’, which was deemed more essential than having actual changing rooms for the students, who lose between 10-20 minutes either side of lessons, due to overcrowding in the toilets where they are forced to share with the entire floor. Some parents have taken legal action, others demanding refunds, and a majority (almost the entirety of the previous year 11 class) simply removed their children from the school, as 2 very well-respected teachers resigned. They still haven’t been replaced, and mystery surrounds what qualifications the highest fee paying students will graduate with should the school remain at its fiscally unsustainable retention rate under its 2nd incompetent principal in as many years. It has also come to my attention that these same students are now being forced to take on break time duties due to the shortage of teachers, and unwillingness of the management to help out. Swimming will be on the agenda this term, despite my professional objection to John Downey and Mark Broom that the facility is unsafe, the none English speaking teacher inadequate, and the message sent out that it is a part of the Physical education curriculum, which I can assure you it isn’t. If you ask to see swimming units, assessments, policies, or alternative work for non-swimmers, there is absolutely none in place, again due to the mismanagement of Mark Broom and the BSP administrators. A vote of no confidence from staff and students toward Charley King and Mark Broom would unanimously support the notion that they are not serving the best interest of their BSP project, as they will simply refocus all their attention and finances back into the much favoured Moscow branch, before BSP is unfortunately closed. It’s regrettable that I should have to write this, but I could not morally allow these points to go unheard, when there are such good children in the school, parents paying high fees, and my friends/colleagues being mistreated to the extent that they are resigning, which I envision will see a total turnover in 2021.The BSP school community is aware of the situation at Brookes with Charley King and Mark Broom at the realm, and are already benefiting from the growing trend of poor reviews mounting across the internet, which will see recruitment of good teachers and students near impossible under its current managemen

When this school was the Anglo-American school, it had a great name for itself. Over 20 years of service. Then once it closed and Brookes took over, they managed to destroy its legacy in under 6 months. Now that it has hit a year since opening, it has managed to go further down the rabbit hole and created an educational hellhole in which parents, students and staff are neither happy nor feel safe. Most of the staff have left in that time, including staff who had been at the Anglo-American school for over 20 years. The root of its problem is its egomaniac director, Charlie King. King happily takes the money from us parents with promises of great education, world-class facilities and technology, and efficient communication with families. The truth is, none of this has happened. Our money has disappeared and our children have been left with the most mismanaged educational experience I have ever heard of. My children were promised new Macbooks and instead got given dated laptops that had been used within the school for almost 10 years. Once we had to do learning online because of COVID, these relics from the past made it impossible for my children to learn. Constantly freezing, not being able to install any programs that would help the kids, no IT help from the school - it was a nightmare! From what I've heard, King is extremely disrespectful towards his staff. He has got rid of some in the middle of COVID, leaving them stranded in Russia with no way out. He fired one after the staff member became injured at work after the principal forced them to move a shelf and couldn't return for weeks because of the injury. He got rid of another one because they were extremely worried about their family and needed to return home to see them once COVID and lockdowns started to kick in. This was one of my child's teachers. The school gave him no information about the lockdowns coming and even raided his apartment when he was late for work one day. This teacher offered to still teach our kids online, which all teachers were doing, but King still fired him. Anything to protect King's fragile ego. I could go on and on about more examples, as they are in abundance. But I'll make it short and sweet - avoid this school at all costs!

Ignore the above. The comments written have been written by the administrators of the school - the people whose pockets get lined if you send your children to this atrocious nightmare of an institution. My children went there for a short while and based on the way they were treated by the then principal, Laura Rennard, and how myself and my wife were treated by the director, Charley King, we got out before the school year ended. Luckily we left before COVID hit as we received reports from other parents that the school was not taking the virus threat seriously and were putting the lives of their teachers and students at risk. Everything we were promised when we paid our school fees was never delivered - laptops, a steady education, food without pieces of glass in it, a principal who cares for their students - none of it. Instead what we got was a disorganised mess of organisation where my children didn't get to learn a thing. Waste of money and time. The people here only care about your money and then after payment, good luck as you're on your own!

The latest international school in the very center of St. Petersburg. Teachers are expatriates, all study in English, international IB certificate.

The best of British, American and international education for children aged from 3 to 18. Highly qualified and experienced international teachers, great standards of academic achievement and behaviour, licensed according to Russian norms and a safe, well resourced, well located school building. Part of the fast growing and dynamic Brookes Education Group which operates international schools around the world and which has also opened a next generation school in Moscow. Enrolling expat and local students now.