Do you work in a positive motivational school?

[Teaguzzler]

I'd love to know in what way it is positive and how the leadership team or other members of staff keep it that way despite everything going on in education. Does anyone have any tips for how to spot these schools when job hunting? I hope to be looking for a new primary teaching job to start in September but can't face ending up in the same kind of negative environment I am currently in.

Watching with interest...

Too many seem to be feeling as we do fudge!

I have worked in one school like you describe (and a couple that aren't!)

At interview, I'd say good signs are - the head teacher sitting having a cuppa with all the other staff, no gossiping about the children in an unprofessional way (I know gallows humour is common but this particular environment was so incredibly positive in every way, it just wasn't necessary and would have seemed very inappropriate), a break time where all the staff seem to chill out together and chat about normal stuff at a normal heart rate, not manic laughing and chatting or stressing about work related stuff; admin staff who may be showing you around seem confident to open every door to let you in rather than tiptoeing around with you (both on their own behalf and because they have a visitor)(I don't mean classrooms, I mean management offices etc), staff visibly listening to each other with good body language.

Thanks ballroom. Did you get those good vibes when you looked around before interview? I fear my school would look good to an outsider as the underlying negative environment is hidden as actually the staff get on really well. I am so worried I will make a bad judgement call.

I think a lot depends on the HT, I've found if I like and respect them the rest follows.

I agree with all that's been said so far. The school I have been in for over a decade has always been a positive one for me (secondary) but this varies from dept to dept. I know other staff who have a completely different experience and feel under pressure a negative.

I would ask to be shown EVERY lab, and if it was obvious they were tying to avoid showing me their rubbish ones, and/or if any of the labs wee a shithole, then I would walk immediately. In the two awful schools I've worked in, both times at interview I was only shown the nice newly reburshed labs, but then when I turned up to my first day at work, I found myself teaching in the shittiest dump of a lab you could possibly imagine, in fact the word 'lab' would be a bit of a misnomer. I was an idiot for falling for it the second time. One of them only had one sink, the other one only had room for 18 pupils, only half the gas taps worked, and it had a bad smell of gas or sewage. I was expected to teach classes of 30 in that room, and work miracles, obviously. The powers that be could not see what a health and safety risk it was. Needless to say, both schools were a mess, both in RI.

On a more general note, I would ask to visit for a day, before I applied, and look out for all the things mentioned above by other posters.