'Creative' school - maybe out of my league?

[SarfEast1cated]

Hi all, I just wanted some advice if you have time. I am a PGCE student applying for jobs, and have found a school I'd really like to work at. They gave me an interview which i did well at, but they didn't like my lesson (not creative enough). It was an odd lesson tbh, but I panicked and didn't know what to do. Creativity is really important for them (as are results). I am a creative person, but find it very hard to create 'out there' creative lessons, as am still trying to make sure I have behaviour/learning intentions/quality content, covered. In my placement I am following the teachers plans at the moment and adding my own elements, but don't feel like I know enough to go off piste yet.
The creative school have offered me the opportunity to go back and try another lesson, but although I'd love to work there, I'm finding it a struggle at the moment to deliver quite a standard lesson, and feel that the added pressure of ensuring that each lesson is 'spectacular' might be too much.
Do any of you have any advice?

I'd like to think I'm a creative teacher in that I use as many cross-curricular links as possible so that, for example, writing is for a purpose that ties in with History/Geography/RE, Art follows our general topic for the term and we get out of the classroom as much as possible. We do lots of lovely hands-on, practical lessons and activities too, and the children are very engaged and enthusiastic about their learning. But I would find it very wearing to work in the sort of school where each 1/2 term has to start and end with a WOW experience to launch and finish the topic, and the classroom has to be fully decorated to match the current theme.

I think you are absolutely right to be focussing on getting the basics right at this stage of your career - you have to have them in place before you go off-piste otherwise you'll just end up with chaos and noone learning anything. What feedback did you have from the school about what they are looking for? They must have given you some guidance about what they were looking for and didn't see. And what subject are you going to do your repeat lesson in, and which year group?

It strikes me you are almost asking 2 questions - would the creative school be expecting too much as a place to work, and is it reasonable for them to expect you to be creative at this stage of your training. My answer to that really depends on how they interpret creative. I think it's perfectly possible to deliver creative lessons within a standard format - you need to think firstly about how you will make your input stand out, and then what you will set the children as an independent task - how will you expect them to record their work? I agree that as a visiting student it's much harder than for the class teacher who knows them, but I think you need to be showing them you have an understanding of what they are looking for in terms of creativity, and that you have the capacity to deliver it. That might well come out in a post-lesson discussion about the choices you made in planning the lesson, your reflection on how well it did/didn't work and what you would do differently next time. Good luck!

It sounds like a bit of a nightmare TBH, but then I teach children with autism and love a bit of structure and predictability just as much as they do.

What exactly are the expectations of being 'creative'?

This sort of school sounds like a workload nightmare and not at all what a PGCE student would need. If a lesson works and the kids learn from it, then who cares whether anyone in the history of teaching has ever delivered the lesson before? Teachers kill themselves with workload by constantly trying to reinvent the wheel and a school that marks down teachers for not being creative enough is, IMO, missing the point of education.

They obviously like you if they've invited you back for a second go, but I agree that the pressure to 'be creative' is huge.

As a side note, your mentor is doing you no favours if this is your third term and you're still teaching from their plans. Ask if you can go it alone a bit more and adapt things to suit your classes and try some ideas out. Now is the time to do that!

Thanks everyone, they are going to give me a bit more of a lead for the next lesson, but don't know anything about it yet.

This is my 2nd placement Fallulah, first one was in KS1, this one is KS2 and I have only been here for 5 weeks, so still not feeling like I can change things yet. My CT is lovely though, and very receptive to my ideas, I just don't have any yet! Am still trying to get to grips with what they can do, and what I need them to do. It's all very complex (as I'm sure you all know).
Toomuch I don't think it's unreasonable of them to ask a teacher to be creative, I just don't know if I can deliver it yet. I love the sound of your lessons though, and it sounds like you are the kind of teacher I am trying to be.
I feel like I need to get some good grounding experience in a 'normal' school and then bring out the 'creative' when I know exactly what I'm doing. Teacher training is hard as it is, without the added pressure of being overtly creative.
The head is really lovely though, and I really like her, so I think I will go along to the next interview, give it my best and see what happens. It feels like she is giving me a chance and that I should take it.