2. Do communicate formally
I know it sounds silly to say ‘use capitals letters and punctuation on your application form and in emails’ but you’d be surprised… If you’re filling in an application form and you don’t even capitalise the names of the schools you’ve worked in, it screams ‘can’t be bothered’.
3. Do ask for a visit or a chat before applying
This isn’t essential at all, but is totally acceptable if you’re unsure about applying, particularly for big job changes where it’s really important to get the right choice of school and understand the scope of the role (e.g. applying to be Head of Maths). And if you have questions about suitability, for example if a role has been advertised as full time and you want to know whether they’ll consider a part time applicant, just email to ask.
4. Do ask about behaviour policies
If you’re given a tour of the school on an interview day, look closely at the behaviour and attitudes of students in classrooms, corridors and playgrounds. In the interview, it’s sensible to ask about behaviour policies and routines (depending on the school, I’d personally be looking for centralised detentions, sensible classroom escalation procedures, and a team of behaviour mentors or equivalent).
5. Do know how it all works
Teaching is a bit different to other industries. There are some fairly standard rules and procedures in recruitment.
- For safeguarding reasons references are taken before interview. So you have to tell your current headteacher that you intend to apply for a job before you submit your application (both as a courtesy, and because they will find out when the reference comes through anyway!).
- The recruitment process tends to work very quickly in teaching so if you’re asked to come in for interview then you’ll normally only be given a few days notice. You’ll have a very busy time preparing for interview, planning your interview lesson and setting cover. Don’t try to negotiate the day of the interview – your current school shouldn’t be asking you to do this. Obviously the school you’ve applied for will have already planned out all the logistics of the interview day and will want to see all the candidates at the same time. You shouldn’t demand a change to the interview date unless you have a really good reason (like you’re going to a funeral, it which case it’s totally reasonable to request a different date).
- Offers are normally made same day, and the expectation is that you’ll accept or reject the offer straight away. This is because the school is waiting to inform the other candidates of the outcome. Make sure you’re ready to make the decision when the call comes in. Or, if needed, tell the school you need to talk it through with your significant other/parent/friend and then phone the school back as soon as you’ve made your decision. Don’t mess them around – it’s not fair on anyone involved. I once offered to a candidate who accepted and later changed her mind (because her school made a more lucrative counter-offer) – but at that point we’d turned down the other candidates. So she left us with no one and we had to start the process all over again.
- Time is precious in teaching. Don’t go for interviews ‘just for the experience’ if you have no intention of accepting the job. It’s not fair to waste people’s time. And once you’ve formally accepted a job at one school, make sure you withdraw any outstanding applications at other schools.
Five things you shouldn’t do
1. Don’t feel the need to show off every teaching technique in one lesson
To me the most important aspects of an interview lesson are:
- a well structured lesson
- clear instructions issued to students throughout
- clear modelling and explanation (this is probably the most important thing!)
- at least one well chosen task [be prepared! – make sure you’ve got something ready in case the students are much quicker or need a lot more challenge or a lot more scaffolding than you expected]
I’d also want to see some kind of assessment of students’ understanding, but you don’t need to show off multiple assessment techniques in one lesson! Bear in mind that mini whiteboards can be tricky with a class where you haven’t embedded routines.
You can’t demonstrate everything you know about teaching all at once. It’s hard to show your very best teaching with a class you’ve never met before. Unless there’s a large number of excellent candidates, a solid lesson is all that’s needed.
2. Don’t worry too much about behaviour being a challenge in an interview lesson
Depending on the school, you might have to use a few techniques to get students on task, but if you have the Head of Maths and Headteacher sitting at the back observing, students shouldn’t be disruptive. And if they are, the members of staff in the room will intervene (obviously you won’t be expected to give detentions or send students out during an interview!). Schools normally pick ‘nice’ classes for interview lessons, so don’t stress about this.
3. Don’t use recruitment agencies
They charge schools extortionate fees. This money should be going towards children’s education, not into agents’ pockets. If you’re applying for permanent teaching roles then go directly through the school or MAT, unless there’s a good reason not to.
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