Rollercoaster city...
Well, the last two days have certainly been 'interesting' (mostly in the Chinese insult sense).
Wednesday, I got hauled in for an investigation into allegations of poor conduct in my lead school. The allegation was that I had been showing weak behaviour management, poor planning and wasn't a team player. The result of the investigation was that putting a trainee teacher into a bottom set group with no support an telling them to 'wing it' was inadequate provision by the training school. To make up lost ground, my assessment date has been moved from the 7th of June to the 12th of July. I now have to have weekly mentor meetings (I've had none this term), regular written feedback and need to keep my course organisers aware of any shortcomings from the school. On top of that, specialists from the LEA have been brought in to help me with behaviour strategies and lesson planning and I've been told to stay on at school every day, just in case. Not ideal, but only for another six weeks. Wednesday evening, I drove to St. Albans for a Thursday interview. It rained HARD for the whole trip and throads were lethal. I barely got over 90 for the whole trip. The hotel was nice enough, big room and the receptionist was a 6th former at an affiliated school. Spent the latter part of the evening writing a lesson plan for the lesson I would be teaching the following day.
Thursday I drove into St. Albans to the Verulam School for my interview. There were meant to be four candidates, but two didn't turn up - one of them didn't even call in! Met the Headmaster and we talked about being in Tower Hamlets, which is where he taught previously. The other applicant wasn't impressed with this as she'd never heard of the place. My lesson got juggled because of the others not turning around, so I ended up with fifteen minutes to prepare instead of two hours, so I had to scrap half the lesson (the practical) and replace it with a demo. The boys kicked off a few times in the lesson, but I kept it under control and managed to bring them back on task. I gave out 'Five Outcomes' pencils as rewards for answering questions (this is a big thing in education at the minute and looked really good!), so soon everyone wanted to get involved. Related the whole lesson to 'real life', which went down well. My interview was with a panel of the Head of Science, one of the Deputy Heads and a Governor. They asked som pretty tricky questions, but I'm told that I "interviewed very well" and gave good responses and asked excellent questions. There were some issues raised as a result of the investigation from Wednesday, but they were dealt with - the Deputy head suggested that the problem might have been 'poor mentoring' rather than poor performance on my part.
The long and short of the day was that they offered me the post and I accepted. As of September, I'll be a Science Teacher at the Verulam School in St Albans. I'm thinking of living on Hemel Hempstead as it'll be cheaper and I know a few people there. I didn't get an awesome package in terms of acash handouts, but the training package they've offered is more than compensatory and was the key drive for me at the acceptance stage. So, I'm back, as of July. I'm due in the day after my TDA assessment for an induction programme and will be moving up late July, early August, once I find a place. Hertfordshire is only about an hour away from Northamptonshire for those of you in the area!
Hence I have established that Pie Dancing is a form of mystical synthesis of prayer and magic. Long live Pies!
Wednesday, I got hauled in for an investigation into allegations of poor conduct in my lead school. The allegation was that I had been showing weak behaviour management, poor planning and wasn't a team player. The result of the investigation was that putting a trainee teacher into a bottom set group with no support an telling them to 'wing it' was inadequate provision by the training school. To make up lost ground, my assessment date has been moved from the 7th of June to the 12th of July. I now have to have weekly mentor meetings (I've had none this term), regular written feedback and need to keep my course organisers aware of any shortcomings from the school. On top of that, specialists from the LEA have been brought in to help me with behaviour strategies and lesson planning and I've been told to stay on at school every day, just in case. Not ideal, but only for another six weeks. Wednesday evening, I drove to St. Albans for a Thursday interview. It rained HARD for the whole trip and throads were lethal. I barely got over 90 for the whole trip. The hotel was nice enough, big room and the receptionist was a 6th former at an affiliated school. Spent the latter part of the evening writing a lesson plan for the lesson I would be teaching the following day.
Thursday I drove into St. Albans to the Verulam School for my interview. There were meant to be four candidates, but two didn't turn up - one of them didn't even call in! Met the Headmaster and we talked about being in Tower Hamlets, which is where he taught previously. The other applicant wasn't impressed with this as she'd never heard of the place. My lesson got juggled because of the others not turning around, so I ended up with fifteen minutes to prepare instead of two hours, so I had to scrap half the lesson (the practical) and replace it with a demo. The boys kicked off a few times in the lesson, but I kept it under control and managed to bring them back on task. I gave out 'Five Outcomes' pencils as rewards for answering questions (this is a big thing in education at the minute and looked really good!), so soon everyone wanted to get involved. Related the whole lesson to 'real life', which went down well. My interview was with a panel of the Head of Science, one of the Deputy Heads and a Governor. They asked som pretty tricky questions, but I'm told that I "interviewed very well" and gave good responses and asked excellent questions. There were some issues raised as a result of the investigation from Wednesday, but they were dealt with - the Deputy head suggested that the problem might have been 'poor mentoring' rather than poor performance on my part.
The long and short of the day was that they offered me the post and I accepted. As of September, I'll be a Science Teacher at the Verulam School in St Albans. I'm thinking of living on Hemel Hempstead as it'll be cheaper and I know a few people there. I didn't get an awesome package in terms of acash handouts, but the training package they've offered is more than compensatory and was the key drive for me at the acceptance stage. So, I'm back, as of July. I'm due in the day after my TDA assessment for an induction programme and will be moving up late July, early August, once I find a place. Hertfordshire is only about an hour away from Northamptonshire for those of you in the area!
Hence I have established that Pie Dancing is a form of mystical synthesis of prayer and magic. Long live Pies!