Rejected for PGCE

[Needadoughnut]

I just got rejected. It didn't even take them 20mins to say no. The feedback implies that I'm almost need to be a "semi" teacher to be successful next time. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding on my part as I would have thought that was the point of the degree.

So you had to teach the lesson to the SCITT board as opposed to actual students?

@noblegiraffe we can if they’ve got ‘terrible’ rapport with teenagers, which is what I thought the OP was saying. It doesn’t matter how qualified you are, you are not going to survive a PGCE if you can’t build an effective relationship with the students.

Yes, there were no students/ teenagers involved. Just three ladies two middle-aged ones and one in her late thirties.

Even if you can’t ‘build rapport’ with teenagers in 5 minutes in an artificial stressful interview situation, I’m not sure we can afford to be that picky as no, it’s not a deal-breaker.

I’m not sure at the time I actually knew any teenagers - like everything it’s something you can get better at with practice.

In most instances we are not looking for people who have already worked as a TA or similar (although for salaried schemes we will often want that much experience as this is a different sort of training route which essentially accredits someone who is already quite proficient) but we need you to have made an effort to spend time in schools - maybe a day a week shadowing a teacher for half a term - so you have a real and current understanding of what it is like in a classroom. There is a shortage of MFL teachers but that doesn’t mean that every candidate is suitable or that every training provider can take every applicant.

If you questioned all that in your interview, you may well have come across as 'hard work' tbh. But plenty of teachers are hard work!

I trained in 2001 and I would have died on my arse on a SCITT placement. The uni based course was hard enough!

The provided emphasised that the sooner I applied the better. Not to wait and get experience and then apply. From their feedback that would have been a much wiser approach and I would have done it if I hadn't felt the pressure to apply ASAP. I'm an LSE graduate who is fully trilingual. I think the course administrator thought that would be good enough but clearly it wasn't the case.

When DS applied for SCITT courses he was given three days notice of day long interviews. Each one expected him to plan and teach a lesson of around an hour on a given topic. The guidance he was given was full of education jargon and one even failed to specify the age group he was to teach.
I thought they were asking a lot of a new graduate albeit he had lots of classroom experience as a volunteer.

I wish they had given me some further guidance before the interview. Just to prepare for three questions that deemed very common sense more about my opinion (so no right or wrong answer).

The advice to apply as soon as you were ready was probably right, that’s because it is now quite late in the application cycle. Many of the most popular courses will already be full and you need to get in as quickly as you can. I think it would be a good idea to reapply as soon as the UCAS system opens in the Autumn for the 2020 cycle. That gives you plenty of time to get into a few different schools, to read the TES each week and otherwise prepare. Many reapplicants are successful and turn out to be amongst the best students once they begin because they have had additional time to reflect.

What were the questions they asked you? Sometimes questions may seem obvious and common sense but there may be different ways of responding. So for example if I ask a candidate “What do you consider to be the main challenges facing MFL teaching?” Most people could answer that with a “common sense” answer based around what it was like when they were at school, what they hear people saying around Brexit etc. This is relevant but a really good candidate will also reference the conversations they have had with teachers now and things they have read in the TES or similar. They might talk about a perception of severe grading or the pressures of the Progress 8 measure in shaping a school’s policy decisions regarding which subjects are given priority. That candidate is showing me real knowledge of the system they are looking to enter and has clearly made an effort to inform themselves of the current issues.

By guidance, I meant the letter telling him he was expected to teach a lesson, i.e. "You will deliver a lesson of 50 minutes on x topic to a class of KS3 who are working towards level xyz."
He had no idea whether this meant top set Y7 or bottom set Y9.

You weren't even put in front of any children but had to deliver a "lesson" to three staff members, it doesn't sound as though you were given much chance to show what you could do.

They were about pastoral care, convincing a student why they should take a language and why teaching now.

maybe a day a week shadowing a teacher for half a term

You’ve just massively reduced your potential pool of applicants to people who have the capacity to do this.

We’re in a recruitment crisis, why is is shit happening? It’s not like the people who are getting through the process are sticking around so the rigour isn’t working anyway.

Nobegiraffe, surely you know that its not about recruitment, it's about retention. Whats the point in training folk who have little experience of schools when the country is full of experienced and qualified teachers who don't want to teach anymore.

We need thousands more teachers to cope with the increasing pupil numbers in secondary even if every single teacher currently in the job stayed on.

We need recruitment as well as retention.

I had pretty much zero experience of schools and I’m still teaching over a decade later. I don’t think we can afford to be that fussy and are indeed rejecting people who could be perfectly good at the job but never get a chance because the entry requirements are too restrictive.

Get a job as a cover supervisor:.... best preparation ever!

You say "I want given any feedback in situ"
If you genuinely speak like that in real life I'm not surprised you weren't picked

It's the autocorrect that does all of that. Obviously I don't... I meant I didn't get any feedback in situ.

Also no need to be so snarky :/

Sorry didn't mean to sound snarky

The only thing that they asked me was "how do you respond to feedback?" Which I replied with "my entire professional career was built-in it, from above, below or even side departments".

This doesn’t answer their question though. They are looking for you to describe how you listen, reflect, respond and make appropriate changes. Preferably with an example.

Then the question was badly constructed. At least that's my experience in the corporate/recruitment world. I would have used the star system (like I have in the past) but the question usually is with "tell me of a time when..." If I had known that's what they asked then I would have answered more appropriately. I don't think it helped that I've had a few job interviews in the past few weeks. The structures of those are quite different and was conditioned would be held in a similar way.

I would listen to WhyNotNowBaby.

Honestly, I know we don't get 'tone' or body language on here, but you really aren't coming across as being very receptive to feedback.

I would expect anyone applying for any sort of teaching qualification to have gained experience in working with young people first - be that as a Scout / Guide / Youth club leaders, a TA, a volunteer in GB or BB, a swimming teacher, a playgroup leader or whatever, if they can't spend time in schools. You sound from your posts (and this might just be your writing style), as if you feel they should have snapped your hand off because you speak the language. Teaching is about a lot more than subject knowledge though. So no, with a SCITT, there ought to be some experiences and ideas about how to work with children of the age group you are training with, IMO.

Three days’ experience.

I get that feedback, I know I can come across as argumentative / assertive which is true. Coming from a corporate background has made me that way. I do wish the course provider and my "mentor" had told me to better prepare for it by getting more involved with youth groups. Not just "three days will do", because obviously it wasn't. Maybe it was common sense, I don't know. I do come from a very different background, went to a private bilingual school. Music at GCSE (which is something they asked) was nothing I would have thought of doing. I got all of my musical training outside of school and think of doing a degree in musicology (which I'm aware you don't have to play an instrument) but I think if you want to do it professionally there are other ways. Again, being more aware of the system /current GCSE system, etc would have been very beneficial but I thought that would be learnt as I went.