Should someone with no teaching qualifications have been given a job as the head of a Free School in London?
There are a lot of people pretty upset by this. It doesn't bother me at all. I just think about the Head Teachers I have come across and heard about during my career and can't see why someone who is 27 and not experienced teaching in the classroom should be any worse than a small, but significant number of head teachers in this country.
I think that the argument shouldn't be about whether the school should have appointed her, but why they thought it was necessary.
The whole profession needs to look at itself and wonder why there were no teachers ready to take on the role and take the school in the direction the governing body wants. There are two elements to this. Firstly: is what the profession believe to be possible and right for the education of our young people out of sync with what the general public expect? And secondly: what does it take to be a Head Teacher and why are so few teachers ready to take this on?
I personally think that the pressure on the teaching profession is vast and unreasonable. The pressure on Head Teachers is career threatening.
My final point is that the teaching profession should not discount the input of people with limited teaching experience. Other expertise is useful to teaching, for example dealing with people, marketing, design and of course the idea of what are reasonable working hours and conditions. (However, I would say these people need to work as part of the team in the school, not as external consultants/companies who are just trying to make money).
Showing posts with label head teacher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label head teacher. Show all posts
Friday, 5 April 2013
Monday, 7 January 2013
Supporting colleagues
This morning our new Head teacher started work.
It may have been a throw away comment, but in the first introduction she asked staff to be supportive to each other. (Amongst other things) I believe her to be genuine because her whole talk was considered and based around a philosophy of learning and developing the students as people.
The request that we support each other really struck a cord with me. Of course we should support each other, but this isn't a culture embedded in every school I have worked in. Some schools are competitive and nasty. Staff use other teachers by throwing them to the lions to cover their behinds. Staff feel their colleagues are people to be stepped on as they rise up the ladder.
My school isn't like that, we are a team. The whole school working together. It was very nice of the head to recognise through her words the importance of this. I hope I remember it too; I intend to.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
It may have been a throw away comment, but in the first introduction she asked staff to be supportive to each other. (Amongst other things) I believe her to be genuine because her whole talk was considered and based around a philosophy of learning and developing the students as people.
The request that we support each other really struck a cord with me. Of course we should support each other, but this isn't a culture embedded in every school I have worked in. Some schools are competitive and nasty. Staff use other teachers by throwing them to the lions to cover their behinds. Staff feel their colleagues are people to be stepped on as they rise up the ladder.
My school isn't like that, we are a team. The whole school working together. It was very nice of the head to recognise through her words the importance of this. I hope I remember it too; I intend to.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:United Kingdom
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Appointing a Head Teacher
How much do you really learn about a candidate during an interview? As I write notes for this blog post I am listening to the candidates for our headship in the whole staff interview.
I am wondering what I am to take from the session. Is it about personality or what they say? Will the questions give the opportunity to differentiate between candidates? What can I find out about someone when they are "on their best behaviour" like this?
The first question is: Would you rather have no hearing or no sight? Interesting, but what does it allow us to find out? One candidate has gone with sight and the others with hearing.
Second question: How would you ensure that individuals within the staff reach their potential? Interesting to hear heads talk about leadership potential but not teaching and learning potential. I actually think this is a major concern because we can't all be leaders, and in my opiniion our school would benefit from more concentration onto being proud of what is happening in the classroom and not about who can get promoted the quickest. One candidate talks about using the teaching school, but we would be part of the teaching school, so my question would be how do you use it to develop your teachers when your teachers are the ones that should be leading it?
Workload is a big issue at out school as we teach 2.5 hours longer per week and 5 days longer per year than maintained schools. It was enviable that someone wold ask: Give an example of how you have looked at workload. Answers involved: Duty, meetings, valuing the contribution of staff, teaching happiness, reducing cover and decreasing absences. Only the candidate that talked about reducing cover seemed to have a coherent idea, but I wasn't convinced they could bring that to or school.
A question that I would have loved to answer is: Which Olympic event best describes you as a leader? Marathon - long time to prepare you for a leadership - looking at drive and determination, resilience and barriers. Decathlon - variety, and looking at everything to make sure it takes you across the line. Gymnastics - balanced, agile in mind. I was very disappointed with all the responses, I would have liked to have seen one candidate at least light up at the thought of the olympics, but the answers lacked passion and imagination.
An interesting question was: How have you used local and international firms to support learning of students and staff? Only three of the candidates could answer that question. One of them seemed to have great ideas of how to make links and use industry to help prepare students for the outside world. Other candidates talked about links with other schools, and using universities to support their work.
The big question. The question that if you watch the apprentice you know you have to be able to answer. The question that I have been asked (in a slightly different way) in every job I have applied for: Why do you want to be the head of this school? So why were all the answers vague and lacklustre? The candidates wanted to make a difference to people's lives, by improving and making things better, but not really touching on how. They are keen on federations and the teaching school, one said because working within a federation means we can pool resources. Why would you put yourself though all the hoops you do for a headship if you are not convinced about the positive reasons for working at that particular school?
How would you like the school to develop in the next five years? And where would you see yourself? Most of the candidates talked about making the school world-class. None defined what that would be except one who said he wanted to see a school that exceeded its targets for all the students. One candidate did mention retaining staff, and another showed his cards as being very ambitious, he wants to be a national leader in education. I just thought: you don't need to be a head to do that. The most impressive answer of the night was in the section when one of the candidates mentioned that they wanted the staff trained to the highest level possible with respect to teaching and learning.
Last question of the evening was How emotionally intelligent are you? There is only one answer to this: Highly. That is what they all said in various different ways.
To be honest I will be very interested to see how things turn out tomorrow and which one the governors appoint, if any. I hope that at least one of the candidates can show more personality and imagination tomorrow though.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I am wondering what I am to take from the session. Is it about personality or what they say? Will the questions give the opportunity to differentiate between candidates? What can I find out about someone when they are "on their best behaviour" like this?
The first question is: Would you rather have no hearing or no sight? Interesting, but what does it allow us to find out? One candidate has gone with sight and the others with hearing.
Second question: How would you ensure that individuals within the staff reach their potential? Interesting to hear heads talk about leadership potential but not teaching and learning potential. I actually think this is a major concern because we can't all be leaders, and in my opiniion our school would benefit from more concentration onto being proud of what is happening in the classroom and not about who can get promoted the quickest. One candidate talks about using the teaching school, but we would be part of the teaching school, so my question would be how do you use it to develop your teachers when your teachers are the ones that should be leading it?
Workload is a big issue at out school as we teach 2.5 hours longer per week and 5 days longer per year than maintained schools. It was enviable that someone wold ask: Give an example of how you have looked at workload. Answers involved: Duty, meetings, valuing the contribution of staff, teaching happiness, reducing cover and decreasing absences. Only the candidate that talked about reducing cover seemed to have a coherent idea, but I wasn't convinced they could bring that to or school.
A question that I would have loved to answer is: Which Olympic event best describes you as a leader? Marathon - long time to prepare you for a leadership - looking at drive and determination, resilience and barriers. Decathlon - variety, and looking at everything to make sure it takes you across the line. Gymnastics - balanced, agile in mind. I was very disappointed with all the responses, I would have liked to have seen one candidate at least light up at the thought of the olympics, but the answers lacked passion and imagination.
An interesting question was: How have you used local and international firms to support learning of students and staff? Only three of the candidates could answer that question. One of them seemed to have great ideas of how to make links and use industry to help prepare students for the outside world. Other candidates talked about links with other schools, and using universities to support their work.
The big question. The question that if you watch the apprentice you know you have to be able to answer. The question that I have been asked (in a slightly different way) in every job I have applied for: Why do you want to be the head of this school? So why were all the answers vague and lacklustre? The candidates wanted to make a difference to people's lives, by improving and making things better, but not really touching on how. They are keen on federations and the teaching school, one said because working within a federation means we can pool resources. Why would you put yourself though all the hoops you do for a headship if you are not convinced about the positive reasons for working at that particular school?
How would you like the school to develop in the next five years? And where would you see yourself? Most of the candidates talked about making the school world-class. None defined what that would be except one who said he wanted to see a school that exceeded its targets for all the students. One candidate did mention retaining staff, and another showed his cards as being very ambitious, he wants to be a national leader in education. I just thought: you don't need to be a head to do that. The most impressive answer of the night was in the section when one of the candidates mentioned that they wanted the staff trained to the highest level possible with respect to teaching and learning.
Last question of the evening was How emotionally intelligent are you? There is only one answer to this: Highly. That is what they all said in various different ways.
To be honest I will be very interested to see how things turn out tomorrow and which one the governors appoint, if any. I hope that at least one of the candidates can show more personality and imagination tomorrow though.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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