The longest overdue update.
I have literally no excuse for not posting over the entire summer. I mainly want to make this post about interviews and job applications (remember I was trying to be a helpful blog?), but a few quick updates first.
I did the needed corrections to my 1C essay, and passed. We never get anything above a pass/fail, so I have no idea how well.
Over the end of my course and summer, I sent in around five job applications. One rejected me outright, three interviewed me, and the final one decided they didn’t actually need anyone.
I definitely want to do an MeD in Children’s Literature next year, job dependent.
On to jobs and applications.
My secondary school was an independent. Aside from some friendship issues I had in my last couple of years there, I loved it, and thrived there. I started my PGCE thinking I would be perfectly happy to work in a state comprehensive. While my first placement was a nice school, I really disliked my second placement - in terms of behaviour, resources, and how the kids were treated - as an exam factory. I understand not all comprehensives are like this, but I started this course wanting to teach. In my final placement, I was starting to feel like I was just a glorified babysitter.
I started applying for jobs around Christmas - mainly because jobs I wanted came up. One was at my old secondary school (which, to be honest, I’m grateful I didn’t get, due to the school’s location), and one was at a local private school. My tutor was very upset when I told her I was applying to these schools. I think on almost all PGCE courses, your academic tutor will be one of your references, while your mentor at your current placement will be your second. Our tutors and mentors wanted to be notified with each application we made, presumably so they knew they might be contacted.
My tutor outright told me that the course was not geared towards teaching at an independent school, and that I wouldn’t have got a place on the course if they knew that was what I intended to do. This did make me rather uncomfortable, and I felt very awkward about asking her to check my application.
The first three schools I applied to rejected me without interview, after my tutor said my application was “Fine”.
When she heard I was applying to a local state school (I had done some work experience there and knew I liked it), there were suddenly lots of problems with my application that needed to be fixed - it needed a complete re-write. I don’t know if that was a coincidence or not.
Anyway, school applications are tiring; eventually they become cut and paste jobs, but they are still tedious, as every job wants the same information, but in their own particular order, on their own particular form. Some schools will tell you if you haven’t made it to interview - some schools won’t even tell you if they received your application.
My first interview was at a local private school. I was, unfortunately, up against two teachers with vastly more experience than me - one of the teachers was a teacher at another local private school which closed that year. I got brilliant feedback from that interview, but did not get the position.
My second interview was actually after term ended, at an independent school around an hour way. It was absolutely lovely, and the interview went well. However, they again picked someone with more experience. Until, a week after the interview, I got a phone call saying that person had dropped out, and they wanted me. Apparently I had been by far the best-prepared candidate, and they thought my values fitted really well with the school. However, the issue was that they needed someone who could do an 100% timetable, and NQTs at independent schools only do 80%. They kept me hanging on for two weeks while they tried to re-shuffle the timetable and shift classes, but, in the end, they couldn’t make it work. I found this very frustrating; they knew I was an NQT, so why interview me if they wouldn’t be able to employ me?
My final interview was with a grammar school. As the summer went on, and less jobs were up for grabs, I started applying for grammar schools as well as independent schools - they key thing for me was that I’d be teaching, rather than doing crowd control.
This interview was done over the phone, as I was in Menorca on the date of the interviews. Obviously this was a disadvantage, and I wasn’t surprised when they rejected me.
As September the first rolled around, I applied to both a supply agency and a local tutoring agency. Interviews for both were set up on the first day of the new term. I woke up that morning and saw a missed call on my phone (I woke up around ten, the call was at eight) from the area the most recent school was in. I called back, and after going through multiple layers of phone systems, found out that school did want me after all. Their first choice had dropped out. Once they met met, I was reassured that I would have been their first choice if not for the interview being over the phone. Additionally, they wanted me so badly that they took me on for a 100% timetable when they only wanted 90% - the extra 10 percent is the NQT allowance. And they took me on for a year when they only wanted two terms. However, this did involve both buying a car and finding somewhere to live in one weekend!
Funnily enough, the area I’ve moved into is actually the place where I was born, but only lived in for two years.
The school is a girls’ only grammar school and, for the most part, I love it. The kids are lovely, bright and interested. Today I had three lessons; after one, girls stayed back to talk more about World War Two (we’re studying Boy In The Striped Pyjamas), a girl from another class thanked me for my concern about her when there seemed to be some issues with who she was sitting with, and a third girl dabbed at the idea of learning new vocabulary.
I have one tricky class, but I am working on behaviour with them, and that is obviously a helpful experience for me to have.
The department and all the staff are lovely and welcoming - funnily enough, they have a new Latin teacher who did his PGCE at the same university as me, so we vaguely know each other.
This area is about an hour and a half away from Cambridge, so I am driving home very weekend. As a member of my college, I can still go to college events, and I made such good friends that I regularly do. Although I am living in a house share, I don’t overlap with my neighbours that much, and I honestly am not sure how to go about making friends when you’re not forced together by school or university - please, if you have any tips, drop me a line!
I apologise for this being so long, but I wanted to give an honest account. If you have any questions about applications, teaching, PGCEs, or really anything else, please send me a message - I’d be happy to help.
