I'm visiting a school next week prior to interview. What do I wear? What questions do I ask?

[EdwiniasRevenge]

I'm interested in applying for a vacancy at a secondary school which has an 'innovative' structure to the school timetable. At least this is as much as I can gleen from their website.

I called to ask if I could have more information on this, and suggested a sample pupil timetable which would have answered the questions I have. Unfortunately they can't do this but have offered me the opportunity to visit the school and meet with the HOD before applying.

Which is great but I feel like I've volunteered myself for a preliminary interview...eek.

What do I wear. I'm thinking not interview suit...perhaps skirt nice top ans jersey blazer...on the smart end of my normal teaching wardrobe.

But what questions do I ask. I obviously want to get good value from my visit and make the time they are giving up for me valued. I will obviously ask the questions that prompted me to call them, but need to have some more in the bag...but also leave some in reserve, hopefully for formal interview.

I'm an NQT and this will only (potentiially) be my second interview so don't have a huge bank of questions. Any suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

[BackforGood]

I've always looked round a school like this before formally applying.
Just wear - as you suggest, something that you would normally wear to teach in (generally staff will be coming from their job anyway).
It's really about you finding out as much about the school as you can, picking up on any directions the school is trying to go in, any mentions of things they might not be doing yet, or things that might be fashionable / out of fashion in your subject area to see where they stand on things (be it setting or homework or whatever).
I'd ask if you were expected to teach other subjects or just your own.
Depends really - do you know the catchment area?
Difficult to say more as I'm not sure what you mean by 'innovative structure' - but if it's something different from 'the norm' then I'd ask lots of questions about that - the philosophy, the way it works in practice, etc.

[EdwiniasRevenge]

I wasn't going to be too specific on here, but I don't suppose it matters.

It seems that the pupils spend a whole day in one curriculum area, although the curriculum areas are actually a consolidation of a couple of s more traditional subjects that most people would think of them. I'm thinking..does this mean I could end up teaching the same little darlings pupils all day. ..this obviously impacts on planning, particularly the need to be flexible if the pupils make unexpected progress...

Or is it team teaching....I guess it comes down to how the pupils time in my curriculum area is managed is the main source of my questions...

I guess I'm just thinking out loud here

[BackforGood]

Yup - sounds like you are thinking of your own questions
If it were me, I'd write down the things I wanted to find out - mainly because writing them out would help me remember, but put it in your bag / pocket anyway so if you get to the time where they say 'Anything else you want to know?' you can have a quick check to see if you've covered everything.