Monday 24 March 2014

Well, well, well... Something to think about

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know I have been working in some jobs that I haven't exactly loved. I have been teaching Functional Skills - a lower level qualification, and GCSE English to students who haven't already passed at GCSE. Most of the students don't like English and have enrolled on vocational courses such as hairdressing, bricklaying and public services. Suffice to say, they're not the easiest to get interested in English.

I interviewed for a job in Nottingham last week. I applied for it at the last second, mostly because it is in Nottingham, includes A level teaching, and is more money.  After the first round of interviews I got an email saying sorry, you don't have the job. I emailed them for feedback (for the first time ever) and received a reply saying - we've made a mistake, you did get through. During the second round, I didn't think I had a chance as in walked a woman interviewing for the same position who was head of deparment at her current workplace and has nine years' teaching experience. However, I found out this morning that.... I got the job. Little old me. Apparently I did great in the teaching interview and I am great with teenagers... but I already knew that.

Now I need to weigh it up and decide if it the right route to take. It would definitely add some skills to my CV - teaching A level English being a key one. I would also be on more money. The downsides are I would need to move from the home I have recently bought and live with my Mum Monday-Friday, only seeing my boyfriend at weekends. The long-term goal would be to spend the extra money on doing up the house and moving to Nottingham. The other worry is that I would be the ONLY English teacher in the school. I'm used to working on my own, but I would be responsible to the entire GCSE achievement for English. It's not as bad as it sounds though. There will only be year ten students in the first year, and after a year I imagine they'll need another English teacher on board so we could then share the burden.

Another thing scaring me as I swore I would never teach in a secondary school. I didn't want to deal with teenagers. However, teaching in Further Education isn't really very different - I teach teenagers who don't like English. In fact, at least in school I'd be teaching students for the first time, rather than pushing them through a retake. I'd also get to teach the students who will get an A-C, so some might actually listen to me, and do homework!

It's a really daunting prospect, but I think I will probably go for it and hope I swim rather than sink. Teaching will never be easy but the worst think I feel I can do is sit still - I always want to be acquiring new skills and trying new things. Also, I would really like to teach Psychology at some point and this could help me in two ways - in a year they may want someone to teach Psychology at the new job, and being employed by a secondary school gets my foot in the door if I want to apply to other secondary schools in the future.

Why did you decide to take the job you are in?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations -- glad the sickie paid off in the end! My impression is that this would be a huge improvement on your current position. Not sure if being the only teacher will get you the support you need though.

Unknown said...

Thank you! Yes it did, thankfully, as I can't take any more sick days now!

I think you're right, it would be better than I'm doing but might be quite stressful too. I think I'll give it a go and see what happens. At least it's in a town I want to be in.

Tall Slim Sally said...

I'm a bit confused. Mum and Dad were school teachers so I have picked up a bit of knowledge on how schools work. In a typical school English is a massive department - one of the biggest - so how come you will be a department of 1?

Unknown said...

It's a brand new school so they are only having an intake of year 10 and year 12 next year. They only need one English teacher as they won't have a huge number of students. It's a 14-19 school so there are no year 7, 8 or 9s either.