Tes Reviews 76

If I could give 0 I would. I never write reviews but think what TES did was completely disgraceful. They just shut down a community that talk to people without warning - literally stopping people who would have passed their details to each other if they had known and copied information they needed. Then they stopped us being able to access articles unless we pay. Plus the new layout is worse. The ironic thing is clearly the agenda was to stop people talking as worried about the impact it was having on teaching. But some people used it as a vent so they could cope with the ever increasing stressful job. All you do when you take away the opportunity to vent is create further crisis. The shortage of teachers is just getting worse. What a stupid selfish decision that shows what teachers are having to face.

First they took the forums.
Then they took the free news articles and ruined the layout.

I have advertised myself as a secondary Spanish teacher since 2018 there. Their matching algorithms are absurd as they have nothing to do with my speciality. I have been matched in such absurd positions as English and primary school teacher in Fenghua or high school drama teacher in Hangzhou. I have never found it to be a serious company in terms of job search and now that I see the general use that was made of it (for discussions in forums) even less so.

I can’t even be bothered to explain myself but 1 star is generous!

Paid for a resource once that was poorly described and a complete rip off. It was five paltry PPT slides that looked awful to say the least and certainly weren’t what the description stated.
When I contacted them about getting a refund they blamed it on ‘different teaching styles’ and refused to refund me. They still haven’t responded to my recent email. Useless.

Always been a leader for classroom resources and advice, but they seem to have brought in quite a few new services recently. The online parent evenings have saved hours.

Would give zero if I could. As others have mentioned, the disingenuous way the community forums were closed down, at a time when we as professionals need all the support we can get, is shameful and cowardly.

TRUSTpilot - TES - how can you TRUST any organisation that shuts down it's widely used Comunity Forum at a critical time for it's users (23rd December 2020 - middle of pandemic), claims to all enquiries for several weeks that it's 'down for maintenance' and then finally admits they had actually shut it for good without warning on December 23rd. Poor show TES.

Love TES for providing so many fantastic resources - saving hours of time. Good articles about teaching too!

Why shut the community page down?
Poor work TES.

I will not push my school to advertise with you again.

Next up........Making teachers pay to register.......a la search associates.

Unfortunately TES has gone down hill year on year. I used to enjoy freely sharing resources and always appreciated those resources that others had shared. I used to learn so much from other teachers, from a variety of sectors & career stages and receive virtual subject & professional support on the Community forums. I used to freely offer my own help & advice where my experience seemed relevant & useful. The articles used to be well written and often thought provoking. Now all that quality education support & teacher to teacher collaboration has gone and TES is just another large global business providing cheap, badly written, filler content and links to similarly vacuous Twitter/Facebook content. Such a shame that their only concern now is pure profit. I don’t think they should be able to use the acronym TES any more as the current offering is light years away from the original Times publication & online content that truly supported the teaching community.

TES got rid of Community without warning.
Many teaching professionals around the world used Community to ask questions, receive information and socialise.
TES got rid of 20 years of contributions to forums in a blink. The timing was particularly bad. Teachers around the world were/are teaching online and encountering stress like never before. Community was a place to share ideas and to sympathise with colleagues.

I am disgusted by what TES did.

I was a loyal and happy TES customer and supporter for 20 plus years, taking the hard copy magazine and using the website on a daily basis for education news, resources and job hunts. I was also a regular viewer and contributor to TES community.
I still find it difficult to believe that the Community was permanently taken down on Christmas Eve with no notice or warning. The Community had a very solid and loyal user base who were a great support to each other with both professional and personal issues. This support has been even more valuable in these challenging times. To take the Community down at a time of year when many were alone and vulnerable was callous, thoughtless and unforgivable, showing that TES have little regard for their customers.
They have lost a very long term customer here; I've cancelled my subscription and will not be returning.

Appalled by the lack of empathy and emotional intelligence in pulling the community forums, without warning on 23rd Dec 2020, during a global pandemic. Shame on you, TES.

TES started going downhill badly when they became a profit-making concern rather than a source of information and support for teachers. Resources - once freely uploaded by teachers and freely available to others - became a sellable commodity. Intelligent articles written by experts in the field were replaced by articles of much less value by writers with much less experience. Advertisements dogged the sidebars. The final insult to teachers and others in the field of education was to have the much-used forums removed with no notice and excused by a lie. While these forums had become increasingly badly managed by moderators who didn't seem to be able to follow their own T&Cs, they were still a source of support and information for thousands of people. And then they were disappeared, in the middle of a pandemic which has caused huge mental health problems, right before Christmas at a time when many teachers were struggling with fears of infection from schools in which they were obliged to be present, from children who have no concept of social distancing. The one reason that hundreds of thousands of TES supporters and members visited the site was removed without notice.

And then they had the gall to make posts about 'empathy week'. Well, sorry TES, but you lost yet another customer.

It would not have killed TES to have given even 24hrs notice of taking the community forums down, so members had the opportunity of getting contact details from posters likely to be alone or unwell over Christmas. The fact that this was not even considered does not sound like an oversight, more a calculated and callous decision, showing utter contempt for community members. Disgusting.

TES was once a decent company with education and teachers at its heart. Those days are long gone, sealed by the transfer of ownership in 2018 to Providence Equity Partners L.L.C.
The constant stream of paid low-research articles and the closure of its community forums that left thousands bereft of support mid-pandemic make a mockery of the weasel words in its 'mission' to connect and support teachers. Don't use, don't encourage.

I was a satisfied customer of TES for decades until 23 December 2020 when, without warning, they suddenly closed their Community pages and discussion forums.

To begin with TES said that they were carrying out essential maintenance. A few days later, after Christmas, I emailed them and the 'maintenance' story (lie, as it turned out) was still being stated in their reply to me. A week or more later, after the New Year break I asked again, and had a similar reply. Then this week, without more warning we were told that the site was being closed permanently. And, from answers given to other concerned former users of the TES, it seems that this company have deleted all the contributions made to the forums over the many years it has been in existence (around 20, I believe).

The owners of TES have the right to close their forums, of course. No-one can dispute this. But any company with a professional approach and a decent set of morals would first give due warning (so contributors could retrieve copies of their work - 'Friends Reunited' did so, for example) and also would not lie about what they were doing and why.

Given this I have to say I will be cutting all ties with TES and I would encourage anyone else to do the same.

TES have just closed down their Community with no good reason and no notice, despite hundreds relying on the advice and help found there. After well over a decade of membership, I find it deeply offensive that they should treat me and my colleagues in such a cavalier fashion. Our Community meant nothing to them. It would have not cost them anything to allow us a period of grace to gather contacts. Some of the members are lost to each other for good now - after years of support and shared experience. The statement issued was a mass of excuses. If there had been a decline of the boards, TES is entirely to blame as they indulged in managed decline and lack of will to moderate effectively.
In the same day, TES began to trumpet their Empathy Week events. Sheer brass neck.
Decent people and companies do not act this way to their consumers.
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, TES.