To ask for your school job help! For tomorrow!!

[GalactatingGoddess]

I have a visit to a school tomorrow, to see if I want to apply for a role there (non teaching).
This is a multi- question:

1.) The Head has just confirmed the annual salary and I've just realised it's too low due to being 2 days only part time (more than my salary technically but not enough hours). If I got the post do you think it would be out of order to see if they could offer more hours/an extra day?

2.) What do I need to wear/brush up on.

3.) I currently wfh fully, this would be a good career move in terms of where I'd be wanting in the future (retraining) but id lose the wfh perks. What are the specific perks to school working if I am already term time only!?

Every school is different and working in education is definitely not for everyone but for the sake of balance, I work in a non-teaching role in a school and absolutely love it. The kids are wonderful. I'm never going to be rich but salary is decent for the level of responsibility, I find the work interesting and rewarding, I've made some great friends and for the first time in my life I have some semblance of work/life balance. I do have quite a bit of flexibility in that I manage my own diary, prioritise my own workload and my line manager is very supportive so if I need time off for appointments/childcare emergencies it's never been a problem. IME the key is finding the right school with a supportive LT and the right ethos.

@neverbeenskiing that's lovely to hear!

Anyone who has done safeguarding roles in a school, what is your day like? @PandaOrLion it would be useful to have your take on this?

I'm with Neverbeenskiing . My experience is exactly the same. I'm very aware of safeguarding, as should everyone be in a school. Id read up on their policies and be aware who the DSL are.
I love working in a school. I'm respected and it's fun and challenging. No two days are the same

I’d begin with emails and phone calls from parents - mainly those who couldn’t get their child out of bed/in to school. I’d delegate some of them and deal with some of them myself. I’d meet children at the car/gate/reception to get them in. I’d pick up any safeguarding that had come in from the police overnight.

Id usually have booked in to have a daily check in with a few individual students so they would be coming to me during that time and during morning reg. I’d then respond to anything from teachers about students who were in but weren’t able to learn and meet with them at the beginning of first period. I’d pick up anything the HOYs has passed on to me from their contact with parents.

Some days there would be safeguarding meetings (core groups, reviews, conferences) or meetings with families. I worked with another assistant DSL to allocate students or years each. I’d do break duty and lunch duty but usually also had at least one student eat lunch with me.

The rest of the day was working 1:1 or small groups with students around self harm/anxiety/depression/anger or responding to conversations parents had flagged with us too ie my child hasn’t eaten for 3 days can you talk to them. I did this job whilst training as a psychotherapist. Rarely students could access school counselling but only if they fitted the correct box.

Id call parents throughout the day to update them on things and usually have one or two meetings after school every day. I’d do staff training each month around something like trauma or wellbeing for the whole staff and have weekly pastoral and weekly SEND meetings with those teams too.

This was an outstanding school. At another good school it was similar, but Parents wanted less contact.

Sorry on top of that long post I’d also be checking my concern/cpoms for safeguarding concerns staff had left. We also had an internal system which picked up what students had typed too which flagged self harm/suicide/drugs etc.
Id also have students coming down all day too for a chat or to try and skive lessons.

Find out the name of the DSL, it will be on their website. When they ask you about safeguarding, say “I’d refer it to the DSL, who I believe is Mrs X.”

Thank you @PandaOrLion that is incredibly helpful to try and understand what the role might look like!! It sounds busy and varied, but a step away from Social work which is great!

For info, the 8.30 meeting went well. It was really interesting and the HT seemed keen for me to apply and said there was scope for different hours or salary for the right person

Good news on all fronts then, @PandaOrLion, great! Tbh it could be that they're frantically rewriting budgets atm anyway and so things are more fluid, esp if someone already in a parallel post is eg about to go on maternity or they know is interested in redundancy.

@PandaOrLion can I ask how big yr school was roughly? All schools do things a little differently, I know, but at our place the DSL doesn't do that much "hands on" with students at all, it would go to Heads of Year or Key Stage Leads. But she's also a Deputy Head and teaches a little, not sure if that's similar to your previous roles.

It's interesting to see how various structures work.

Sorry first para should have said @GalactatingGoddess

Sorry, I guess the main difference between schools is whether they have a teaching or non-teaching DSL.

I’ve worked in three schools. One was 4 form entry, one was 9 form entry and one was 10. It was the same in them all BUT they’ve all since cut all provision and made the DSL role to someone who on SLT and also teaching. The smallest school didn’t have HOYs but the larger two did. The issue was in all of them though was that everyone else was teaching so the day to day stuff often came to pastoral and DSL

Thanks

All the DSLs I've worked with teach. They teach a reduced timetable, and if something awful happens and they are needed when teaching, someone will step in and cover them.