To think this is off? Interest in opinions of teachers

[Newbie198]

Think small department- head of department and one other subject teacher. Subject teacher has made good impression in the two years he has been there, works hard, hits deadlines, excellent relationship with students, excellent results, taken on a lot of the head of dept role (writing schemes of work, creating resources, marking exam papers for head of dept etc) outstanding reports from ECT mentor and verbal feedback from colleagues, students and parents.

Professional working relationship between the two, but teacher feels that head of dept not particularly appreciative of his efforts and often takes credit for their work.

Head of dept secures new job elsewhere.
Tells teacher this news a week after securing job as a drop in comment during a meeting. Teacher congratulates head of dept and excitedly asks if school will recruit for head of dept position (teacher would love to do this, and thinks they are more than capable)

Head of dept casually says that oh, it was advertised last week. Teacher expresses interest in applying. Head of dept vaguely mentions the closing date being very soon and changed subject. Teacher quickly applies that evening.

Regardless of your views, eg teacher not as good as they thought- does this seem off to you?

YABU- teacher obviously not worthy of applying
YANBU- weird not to even mention to the only other person in your dept?

Yeah that's weird.

It really depends on the person. Personally when I’ve been moving on I’ve felt that the recruiting and appointment of my replacement is nothing to do with me - I would not have known if/when/how they had advertised the post.

Yup apply good riddens

on a lot of the head of dept role (writing schemes of work, creating resources, marking exam papers for head of dept etc) outstanding reports from ECT mentor and verbal feedback from colleagues, students and parents.

Some misunderstanding here, as none of this is head of department role, or relevant in performance management - maybe teacher is a bit misguided?

"excellent results"

also means nothing, if they are a new teacher, may have been given easier classes in first year or two -

all very subjective, no real way of knowing quality of this teacher from this post

Yup, I’m not head of department and I do all of that - as do all my unprompted colleagues.

Im a good teacher - a really good teacher - but I’m not management material. It’s a different skill set.

I think it’s strange that they haven’t mentioned it to the teacher, but all of the things you’ve listed as a head of department’s remit are tasks expected of all classroom teachers, at least where I am.

@Nimbostratus100
Good point, I’m not sure fair with head of dept responsibilities, if you have any responsibilities you can think of I can tell you if they do them too, they seem to do load more than I’ve listed too.

I voted YANBU, but your YABU I think is incorrect and the other way round. I think they might feel the other teacher is too good!

The teacher by the sounds of it is more than capable of doing the job.

Could it be that the HOD has someone else in the pipeline that wants their job e.g. an external candidate (friend??) so didn't mention it as they knew the other person in their department might get it instead?

Have you posted before? There's another poster who has posted recently about feeling they do most of their head of department's job and also listed things that weren't actually the HoD job (and were standard things for a HoD to delegate).

I'd have thought SLT would have mentioned that it was coming up and you're welcome to apply, but it might be that they feel you're not ready so don't want to blow smoke and give the impression you're a shoe in when they don't think so.

It's weird not to mention it but what teacher has been doing is just good teacher things.

Marking papers and writing SoW is just what teachers do.

How long since they were an ECT - you mention an ECT mentor.
I'd be surprised if someone went from ECT to HOD.

Again good pints about teachers normal responsibilities other than head of dept passed schemes of work off as their own as none existed before teacher created them.

And again, teachers ability aside (as I know they might not be as good as it sounds) that’s impossible to tell from one post, but isn’t it still odd not to even mention?

No schemes of work existed? How would that even work?

It isn’t odd not to mention. When I move on, I couldn’t care less who fills my old role. I wouldn’t give it any thought.

If the HoD has mentioned he's got a new job within a week of being offered it, that seems normal to me?

It's not the outgoing person's job to recruit their replacement, they probably wouldn't expect a fairly newly qualified teacher to apply for HoD anyway. It's the school management's responsibility to advertise the role internally if they thought there were good candidates.

There's can't have been no SoW at all before if there was a HOD.

Absolutely definitely not.

Getting some good perspectives here thank you, not too sure of the whole recruitment process and etiquette in larger schools.

I do agree about the ECT thing being a possible factor.

Still, if I had a good working relationship with the only other person in my dept I think I’d mention the job advertisement,
if only to add that it may be unsuitable for them as an ECT…

I suspect they felt embarrassed/undermined by subject teachers abilities.

If you're the subject teacher, best of luck! Sounds like you're perfect for the role!

(I'm surprised the Head didn't chat to you about the opportunity?)

Sorry, but as a teacher of 25 years, I’d say it wasn’t mentioned to you by anybody because (at the moment) it’s not a role you’re being considered for.

I would expect the Headteacher or a senior line manager to tell the person about the new role so they could apply if they were interested. The recruitment process is nothing to do with the person who is leaving.

@Bovrilla
Understand where you’re coming from, there were new modules added with no resources/ schemes of work so teacher created those, and then an associated subject was offered at A level (think adding philosophy to R.E) and teacher wrote those too.

I do now understand that general teachers do this even though their not HOD

not really, more experienced teachers are much less likely to go for management roles, it is something you do when you are young and stupid

but all this is completely normal, and will most likely all be rewritten within two years as ofsted demands change, school priorities change, exam board specs change - writing SOW is an unending job - there is ALWAYS the next one to be written, It doesnt mean there was none there before, just that the SOWs change constantly

We once had to rewrite all SOW in a school 4 times in 3 years.....

@Nimbostratus100
You’re so right!

Teacher is not me.

HOD is also SLT and their line manager.

Perhaps it’s not their time…