Not even getting interviews for LSA and admin jobs in schools, whats going wrong?

[Overtinkerbell]

I am not native british but citizen here, I am giving this info as I do have an accent but I studied in english medium so I know English and can speak and write well but I speak with an accent.

I am in mid 40s, I had brief non-UK teaching experience ( for around 1.5yrs), I have a bachelor in science degree.Then I moved countries and did an admin job at a friends company ( in that country) and worked 5yrs, then I brought the same job to the UK (moved to the UK) and worked part-time remote. Just helping out with records, sorting excels, paying providers on time, logistics etc. I do have good excel and communication skills. Then I resigned and now working as a Lunch time controller in a secondary school.

I want to move up, from Lunch time job to LSA or admin, have applied to almost 12 jobs, one admin interview and unsucessful. In the interview, I had an excel task that I did before time and correctly. They commented'perfect' for all the interview questions only to hear I am unsucessful. I am not even getting interviews for LSA jobs, straight rejecting.

One of my friends who has done lunch time for 8yrs with no other experience,hesitates to write emails and very reserved, has scored an LSA job.

What is going wrong?. Are the schools looking for someone who talk like british?. Do they prefer one race? My teaching experience is non-UK so is that the problem?. I do understand that if a team has similar cultural background, they tend to bond well, I just want to know if thats the case.
What do you think?
Thankyou in advance.🙂

Not in the school that I work in, there isn't.

I see spelling and grammar mistakes all the time from teachers, teaching assistants and support staff

Wow! Then you should try harder. School emails should be exemplary. If I were the Head and emails were going out with spag errors I’d take a dim view.

I would also say if completing a competency based application form also use the STAR method here too. It's not enough to just write a couple of sentences. You really need to go in to detail with your examples of how you meet the criteria but at the same time not just writing load of waffle. For example in a question about communication skills I'd give a couple of examples to show how you can communicate verbally and in writing. Don't just say for example 'I communicated with my team effectively' as that means nothing. What communication methods you used, how did you check understanding, how you adapt your tone or style depending on the situation, listening skills, checking back in with your team etc.... you really have to go in to great depth and detail.

What if the head also makes errors?

I've seen lots of emails from our school principal - with errors.

I just think that people are busy, send huge amounts of emails, and don't get spelling and grammar perfect in lots of them

Well, that's part of the problem. I don't think we should normalise it just because it happens at your school.

I couldn't give two figs about errors on MN, but in a school the bar should be set much higher. Otherwise, what's the point of expecting children to develop good written and spoken English if the adults around them aren't expected to meet the same standard?.

That approach works well when applying for jobs, training or university places, does it?

Are you emphasising safeguarding knowledge in your applications and interviews? This is of absolute top importance and anyone not demonstrating even the most basic knowledge and understanding would be vetoed immediately in my school.

Well for a start, many of the staff in my school were not born in England. English is not their first language, so I think that the principal is tolerant of their English mistakes. They try.

Other staff that were born in England don't make huge glaring errors, but they definitely make errors. Typos grammar etc. I think it's normal really

One of the office assistants at our local (VERY expensive) independent school phoned me and said “I understand you was asking about…”

The OP’s grammar’s nowhere near that bad.

Nobody is perfect, but I would expect a higher standard if the OP's spoken English matches her written English. If schools are happy to accept that standard for staff whose roles deal with pupils and parents, schools have even bigger problems than I thought.

I mean, languages are not easy to learn. People try. Languages are extremely complicated.

I used to work in various schools in Spain. There were staff there who came from England. Not one of them had perfect Spanish. Several of them had been studying Spanish by themselves for years and still were at very beginner level. They couldn't hold a basic conversation in Spanish

Also @MyFastZebra many people who speak English as a second language actually have a much higher standard of vocabulary and written English than many native speakers. So I don't think coming from overseas automatically means you will struggle with communication or be at a disadvantage.

IMO that's just normalising a low bar. Socially, I take my hat off to anyone who can speak another language. That doesn't automatically extend to teaching or supporting children in schools, where I think the standard of communication should be higher.

I disagree. The people who have the worst written English in my school are all non- native English speakers.

It's difficult to learn a language. It's also difficult to constantly hold several langauages in your head. One of my colleagues told me that when she goes to visit her sister and speaks her native language for several days with her, her English gets worse - as her brain starts to think in her native language.

It's very hard to learn a language though. People do try. And you have to keep learning it all your life or you forget.

I worked short term once on a week's retreat where Spanish people were learning English. This Spanish woman said to me "I have to learn and practice English all my life, or else I start to forget"

Posters who are pointing out the spag errors in the OP's post aren't trying to be mean. It's just a fact that in many jobs, this will make a difference as to whether or not you get an interview.

Aren't trying to be mean?

Then why didn't they gently suggest that she could improve her English by doing a course.

Instead they wrote stuff like "I see at least five errors in your last sentence op! "

Childish and mean

I wrote that sentence, and to be honest, my main aim was to disagree with the poster who insisted that the OP’s post did not contain many SPAG errors - it blatantly does.

That’s not to say it should be a free-for-all in terms of criticising the OP for errors in a Mumsnet post (I haven’t actually done that), but it should open up the discussion that if she were to make such errors in an application, it could very well mean it goes straight in the bin - having been on the hiring side for competitive positions I have done this many times.

Relevant recent experience is key. Volunteering in a local school would be a really helpful next step.

Obviously there is also a lot of racism and xenophobia in England as well. In my workplace, the English people won't even really speak to the non English people. They look down on them and treat them like they are sub human a lot of the time.

You have just got to keep battling and believing in yourself OP

You added the exclamation mark, which gives the sentence a different tone. I know MN can be a harsh place at times, but I'm genuinely not seeing anything childish or mean about the responses in this thread. People are neutrally pointing out what the likely problem is. Posters who are rushing in to reassure the OP that it doesn't matter are no doubt well-intentioned but are doing her a disservice, imo.

Aren't you taking that out of context. That was in response to someone saying there weren't that many errors.

Other people made suggestions.

If you have a Bachelor in Science degree, could you apply for Science Technician roles in schools instead?

I agree with this. Most sought after jobs will have a lot of applications and things like this can be used to weed out unsuitable candidates. It’s not mean to point this out. OP, keep working on your written English and I’d agree with the poster who advised you to look for technical roles in a school.

No it was rude without an exclamation mark.