Good Ideas For Good Teachers Who Want Good Jobs

Gerald Haigh

• Verlag: Crown House Publishing
• Jahr: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781845909680
• Thema: Education
• Thema: Education General

Good Ideas for Good Teachers Who Want Good Jobs by Gerald Haigh contains everything teachers need to know about interviews, jobs and career progression. Packed with advice for all educational professionals, this invaluable guide originated as the Jobs and Interviews Pocketbook (published by Teachers' Pocketbooks) and has been expanded and updated with even more hints, tips and words of wisdom. With specific advice on teaching (both primary and secondary) and leadership roles (including headship, joining the senior leadership team (SLT) and becoming a middle leader), this good guide should be on every good professional's bookshelf.

GOOD TEACHERS TEACH A GOOD - OR BETTER - DEMONSTRATION LESSON

Above all, interviewers want to know how good a teacher you are, so even if a senior person at the school has visited and seen you teach on your home ground, you are likely to be asked to teach a demonstration lesson to a class in the school. It’s a vital, often decisive, part of the interview. Here’s what one head teacher said about why she wanted to see a lesson:

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For teaching posts (and senior posts to be honest), the key is the quality of the person’s teaching. Being a really good teacher and (for more senior roles) understanding how to develop people into good teachers is vitally important.

The lesson to be taught at interview may sometimes only last for 30 minutes – I’d stress being prepared for the length of lesson they tell you and being prepared to change tack if you find the students are either ‘getting it’ quickly, or just don’t ‘get it’. This is so tricky when you don’t know the children or the school, but being able to be flexible and to respond to the students’ learning is very important.

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IT’S ABOUT HOW YOU COPE

Everyone knows that the demonstration lesson places you in a difficult and untypical position. What matters is how well you are prepared and how flexible and agile you are at dealing with the unexpected.

PREPARING YOUR LESSON

As with all lessons, and also with every aspect of your job application, preparation is the key. To begin with, try to find out answers to the following – some you will certainly be given, others you might have to ask about, but they’re all valid questions.

What you’ll have to teach.

The length of the session.

How it fits into the normal scheme of work – what came before.

Nature of the group – number, age, ability.

Children with special needs (including gifted and talented).

The discipline and reward policy as you’re able to apply it.

Available resources.

Expectations about the use of ICT.

Other adults you’re expected to involve – teaching assistant (TA), special educational needs (SEN) coordinator, assistant technician.

Then you can prepare a lesson that you can deliver in a way that’s familiar and comfortable. It ought to be clear to you, from all your research, and your visit to the school, what styles of pedagogy will be accepted. If you want to take risks with a more unusual lesson, that may work in your favour, but rehearse it with a class in your own school, and have a good plan B ready.

NAMES ARE VERY IMPORTANT

Try to establish a seating plan, with names, before you start. If you can arrange it so you walk in and tape it to the desk in front of you, or have it on your tablet, you’ve won a small victory. Being able to use names right away is empowering and impressive both to the children and to observers.

RESOURCES

Take nothing for granted. Take your own stuff – paper, pencils, whatever the children are likely to ask for. Prepare good, professional-looking support resources on big sheets of paper – showing key words, pictures, graphs. Either use them from the start, or keep them in reserve if the ICT doesn’t work.

Prepare tasks that will include the range of abilities.

If your lesson will be in a science lab or design and technology (D&T) room, make friends with the technician – he/she can make all the difference for you.

ICT

Many schools are very focused on ICT. There’s likely to be a digital whiteboard, or a projector. The class you’r...