career progression - Balancing Act

What made you go into teaching?

We have half a dozen trainee teachers working with us at the moment.

It’s revitalising seeing them coming in particularly eager, mostly knowing nothing but learning so much. Nigel and I are both Maths teachers and as our Head of Maths is who he is we are taking on the mentoring between us.

As well as renewing my love of teaching it’s also making me feel nostalgic and quite warm and fluffy!

My Maths trainee, Saffron, wouldn’t say boo to a goose two weeks ago and sat in the first lesson she observed in my challenging Year 9 class quiet as a mouse. In fact - although before half-term she nodded when I suggested that she see what pupils were doing she didn’t actually move. Today she got up (without direction from me) and helped a pupil who had their hand up.

Okay – it’s a small step but it’s definitely in the right direction and I’ve vowed to stay positive for the whole of November (oh my - how will I cope as that dodgy cold has kept 2 subject leaders and a Head of House at home today)

I still remember the first lesson I taught – team teaching, two of us from college plus the usual class teacher and I was still petrified. I even remember the first time I went back into a school; I was pre-PGCE but by then I knew I wanted to teach. Funnily enough with less experience that was actually a fantastic feeling, so very comfortable – it seemed like I’d been born to do it.

I’ll ask Saffron tomorrow why she’s on her PGCE and if she’s feeling that she’s on the right track. I used to be quite cynical and say that I’d always advise people to do anything but teaching but actually it’s more good than bad and when it’s good it’s really good.

Submitted by Mrs OC on 05 Nov 2008

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Balancing Act

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"Safe from Harm" interview questions

I’d like to start my response to The Fielder’s post about safeguarding in a positive way!

I know I’ve been surprised and a little afraid by the answers to even the most child protection basic from current Heads of Department looking to move to our school.

Let’s get some model answers out there and (re-)educate the go ……

What’s a good answer to this question (one that I used last year):

Define an appropriate pupil-teacher relationship and how do you go about forming one?

Okay – as part of my interview preparation I like to try and use study/memory techniques to remember my planned answers so that I’m not left tongue-tied in a tricky situation.

Therefore first step for me would be to break this down into parts:

Pupil-teacher relationships

Approachable
Trusting
Boundaries

I’d probably turn that into the mnemonic BAT

Forming them:

a) be approachable, fair – show them that they can trust you

b) show good subject knowledge so that they want to trust and approach you

c) work with them in clubs etc. to show that you are available to approach

I think I’d just have a reminder like WORK IT to remind me to talk about each part in turn.

On point c above– this is the only way that I can think of tackling being approachable – you definitely don’t want to repeat the answer that I was given about giving pupils your email address so that they could contact you whenever they needed to.

Submitted by Mrs OC on 05 Nov 2008

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Balancing Act

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career progression

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Team building ideas

So what is it that, in one school, finds 5 members of the senior leadership team in the National Gallery at 4 o’clock on a Friday (following my second INSET of the week) swapping notes on their favourite artwork and trying to decipher the messages that this sends out about them; and in another finds at least 3 members of the team up a mountain (I think it was Ben Nevis – no doubt my friend and former colleague Tom will correct me at some point)?

Senior team bonding – discuss!

Is it a waste of time for us to be together for more than an hour without discussing school improvement? I don’t think so, especially if us being together will ultimately mean that we’re better able to lead and improve the school.

We’re still a relatively young team, 3 of us joined the school last September and although the new Assistant Head isn’t new to the school she is new to the team.

I actually think the most telling (and enjoyable) portion of the evening was the wine drinking in a local restaurant after our artistic temperaments had calmed down. You can tell a lot about somebody even by the way they hold their wine glass (am I over analyzing?).

On the train home I got to thinking about teams; when I was a newly appointed Head of Department I spent time in the summer holidays trying to get to know my team as individuals (partly, I now think, because I was a little apprehensive of getting them together too early in case they tried to gang up on me). When I look back now it might have been more revealing to see them all together to find out their different styles and roles within a team.

We have three new subject leaders plus several new Heads of House at school, has anybody any ideas about the sorts of activities that could be useful? I’m not sure that suggesting a team-building trip to a Gallery would go down well with the Head of ICT although the Head of Art may feel differently. I know the Head of PE who’s also a new Head of House would be up for mountain climbing (if it wasn’t for her crutches!) but I’m not so sure about the other new pastoral leaders.

Our next outing has yet to be decided so I’m have a vested interest in a meaningful but fun team-building adventure.

Submitted by Mrs OC on 15 Oct 2008

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