To think they could of at least given me an interview?

[taken4afool]

I have been volunteering at a school for 2 years while I completed my level 2 & level 3 teaching assistants course.

I qualified a few months ago and would love to work in the school, I have been working in reception year. On my course I needed to work 1 day a week in placement, but to get as much experience as possible I had been working 3, the teacher has been very vocal about how much she values me and that she would be lost without me, she has even asked (at least once a month) if I was not doing anything on a certain, if I could come in to help (which I always did willingly).

It is such a good school and due to my own children, working there would be perfect as no other school around for miles and I do not drive.

Jobs coming up are very rare, well one came up and my teacher told me about it, (it was in her class) I applied and the closing date was last Friday, and I have heard nothing. The post said that if the candidate has heard nothing by today, assume you have been unsuccessful. The teacher said that she would be a reference, but stated that the headteacher will make her own decision.

I am gutted as I have given a lot of time to the school, I have always helped extra when needed, I get on very well with the team and always being asked to help out in other classes.

My confidence has taken a real battering and I feel very low, my dh left me 3 months ago, but every time I went into school that was all forgotten as I loved what I was doing and built up good relationships with staff and the children. No one even suspected anything was wrong as I came alive in the classroom.

I appreciate there might have been better candidates for the job, but after giving 2 years volunteering, if I was not selected for an interview, I would of thought at least someone could of said to me, thanks for your application but you have not been selected.

Guess I am waffling now, sorry

In my current school, almost all the TAs recruited iover the last 5 years have been qualified teachers.

What Pippin, and teacherwith2kids and others have said.
Schools are absolutely inundated with applications for TA jobs usually. They have to be seen to be scrupulously fair when it comes to whittling down the numbers, so all sorts of criteria can be applied.
Being a highly valued volunteer or helper is not the same thing at all as being a really top TA I'm afraid.

It's a big problem if training providers continue to be funded (whether that is taking public funding or individuals' hard-earned) to train TAs in vastly different numbers to the likely availability of jobs.

I hope your school has had the decency to inform you properly about the progress - or not - of your application and to give you decent feedback. That should be part of their volunteer policy.

OP I agree with others that you will need to cast your net much wider than just this one school. Good luck.

This is a shitty thread in some ways - TAs are paid about minimum wage or just above

And we live in a society currently that expects perfect English for that

I'm shocked by that comment, and I'm a low paid TA!

As much as i agree that TA's are underpaid for what they do, I don't see any problem with a society that expects a minimum wage worker to have a decent standard of English. Especially as most TAs are paid above minimum wage, the very least we should expect from people who work in schools is good English!

Adding my voice to the 'give it a few more days' posts. I recently applied for a job in a school and was gutted that I hadn't heard anything a few days after deadline. Turns out that they'd had a 'Mockstead' at the end of that week and the focus was on that - I was interviewed last Friday and start after half term

Wishing you all the best and yes, ask for feedback on your application if it turns out you don't get short-listed for interview.

Op

I don't usually do this but given the job you are applying for and the fact you said up thread you proof read your writing, please proof read your title.
The difference between would of and would have is important in my book, especially if you are working with children.
If they have had a lot of responses they may not have looked at them all yet.
Good luck.

morethan IMO proofreading is to check for typos and check punctuation. Anyone who knows "could of" is wrong wouldn't make that mistake, however hurriedly they were typing and regardless that this messageboard is 'informal'. OP wrote that because she thinks it's correct, so I wouldn't want her teaching children that it's correct, (ditto for 'should of/would of etc. of course) I don't think that's being picky.

Sorry, I should have made clear that I mean telling the OP to proofread wouldn't help because she wouldn't see it as wrong however many times she read it.

Grunt

Of course, I didn't think it through.

OP, I don't mean to be arsy or picky when you are worried about your future role. It's just that I think this is important.
I do wish you god luck as stated above.

bloody hell, I'm at it now Good luck

I agree, people only make the "could of" mistake when they don't know its wrong. OP, could you maybe get someone else to proof read your CV to make sure it's all in order? I always get someone to read through my applications.

I'm sorry to add to this but I also think that nobody would make that mistake unless they thought it correct. I wouldn't be happy for DS to be taught such poor literacy.

I wouldn't give up hope just yet. 4 working days for shortlisting sounds quick to me. I could easily see DS' school taking longer, you only need a key person to be off sick or something else to come up.

Considering all the time you have given I would chase at the start of next week and see if they have shortlisted and if you are not included ask for feedback.

I agree, and offer this situation up as exhibit A for the next person who comes along to suggest that poor standards of literacy are perfectly acceptable.

'Should of' is not a typo, nor the kind of error made by those with dyslexia or similar. It is evidence of someone poorly educated who doesn't read enough and those are perfectly valid grounds upon which to discriminate IMO.

I think they ought to give you some feedback, it may have been the need for SNs experience, it may have been that there were better qualified candidates, it may have been the grammar issues, it could have been other things. If you've completed the Level 2 and 4 qualifications you must have a reasonable aptitude for the job I would guess (I'm not a TA).

As you are a regular and very enthusiastic volunteer it seems a great shame that they would risk losing your goodwill by not being honest and open. Unfortunately it is easy to get overly invested in your DCs school if you volunteer on a regular and long term basis (I felt that starting to happen to me a few years ago and pulled back), and I agree with the person who said upthread that you are possibly thinking more about why it's a good job for you than why you are good for the job. Anyway, hope you get a proper explanation.

I'm a former social worker but am currently working in a primary school as a play therapist. The HT's say is final I'm afraid, regardless of how well regarded you are by the teacher you're working with. Lots of qualified teaching staff are working as TAs and they would get priority for an interview over you, sorry but they don't "owe" you anything. You applied for a position and weren't considered worthy of an interview, harsh but that's the way it is. Also, I can't handle "could of" "should of" either, if there was any hint of this in your written application you were never going to get any further in the process.

OP - I really feel sorry for you. It's an awful place to be, when you're doing the job already and someone then comes along who is deemed 'better'.

Unfortunately, as many posters have said, there is such a glut of TAs that the school literally is spoilt for choice. They could easily have hundreds of applications, each one better than the last.

You are right though - they should have at least given you an interview for the role if they've been happy for you to provide that resource for the last two years, and again, you're right - you do deserve some feedback and an explanation if it does turn out you've not been selected. If you don't get that unbidden, it's shitty and cowardly on their part.

It's only a day though, yes? I would wait at least until early next week, and then if you haven't heard, I'd take it in to your own hands and seek a response. You need to be appropriately assertive; have a word with the classroom teacher if you want to, but don't stop there. Ask to have five minutes with the head, ask for some feedback, maybe even see if they would interview you to give you interview experience?

Ask for their advice on what they DID like to see on the CVs... what could you do to make yourself more marketable, etc?

You're in a prime position to get this information - ask for it, and use it to get your next role.

xxxxxxxxxxx

KenAdams "OP, could you maybe get someone else to proof read your CV to make sure it's all in order? I always get someone to read through my applications."

Ken, the OP said (at 20:49:42) "I always proof read my applications and get someone else to have a look.", so I hope that she has chosen the right person, or some mistakes may not be spotted. Thinking about it, though, maybe it's as well given the job in question, that prospective employers aren't given a false impression of the applicant's abilities because their CV has been corrected by someone else, unless the applicant is learning via those corrections of course, so that the mistakes (typos excepted) are not repeated.

I think the OP probably gets it now, that she made a grammar mistake in her thread title.

Or shall we repeat it some more, just to make sure she feels completely humiliated, not just because of not being called for interview, but because apparently discrimination of people with poor literacy is acceptable for some MN posters.

Speaking of which, Steeleye, you might want to revise your use of correct prepositions before you next post criticising other people's grammar. Glass houses and stones etc.

As an employer, although not in a school, I'm amazed at the number of applicants who either just tell me all about what they currently do, rather than telling me how they match the JD for my job, or submit an application which is effectively "I already do the job and you know me". Neither of these groups get an interview because you have to compare their application against the job description and score how well a candidate matches each part of the JD.

You're likely to find that other applicants could prove greater experience or ability against parts of the job description than your volunteering experience was able to give you - experience with children with Learning Differences or who don't speak English as a first language, for example.

peterparker makes some good points about applying for jobs in general.
DH has to recruit for his (national) firm, they get loads of applicants per job. They could NEVER give feedback to all the unsuccessful ones it would take forever!

loads and loads of people will apply late, use really poor spelling and grammar, NOT address the letter to the correct person named in the advert, NOT state how they fit the JD, just basically send a CV and a bog standard letter saying "giz a job I'm desperate a nice person"

some of the TAs in our school have degrees and are excellent. 2 of them teach all the junior classes French for one slot a week, because they are linguists.
a couple have what I would call very basic English and maths skills and routinely make very silly mistakes with your/you're and its/it's all over work they mark. not good! (not saying OP is in that category, just saying that the calibre of TA varies hugely)

You are in a good position to be able to ask for feedback, but I would agree with others that it was probably down to a lot of very experienced applicants, and they have to pick the BEST, not just the one they know.

oh and I do agree that people who use would of/could of are not just making a mistake, they have learned incorrectly and possibly have poor diction or an accent that does not differentiate between the sound of would've (which makes an 'uv' sound not an 'of' sound)

if people are used to actually saying 'would of' when they speak, then that is what they write too.
I have a wonderful friend who is a fantastic nursery nurse, but she speaks using 'we done this/we done that' and it crosses over into her writing too.

I don't see what's wrong with SteeleyeSpanx's grammar. And I am a real grammar nerd (or I thought I was).

OP I really wish you well in your job hunt. I suspect that the school is having their cake and eating it too, by appointing someone else to the paid role. Even though the successful applicant could be massively more experienced/qualified than you, it would have been courteous of the teacher to speak with you (a valued volunteer!) in person.

Do ask for feedback, and remember that your intention is not to persuade them you deserved this job but to find out what you need to change in your next application. All the best.

Yes, I suppose from their point of view if they recruit you they lose all those hours of volunteer time that you are currently putting in for free. That's a cynical view and certainly not a legitimate reason to turn you down, but it is possible.