Hello all,
I had an interview today and am not too sure about it, so I thought I’ll put it out to the wisdom on here.
This interview was for a science teaching role at an independent sixth form college that specialises in A-level teaching.
I am very experienced in A-level teaching and it is my favourite course to teach, having taught it for 7 years. The bulk of my teaching expense so far has been at other independent sixth form colleges, some staff from which also came to work here at this college where I interviewed today and who greeted me in the corridor. I also hold both a Bachelors and a Masters science degree from a reputable university, alongside my QTS.
However, for this past year I have been working at a school where I have only had years 7-11 teaching, so no A-level. I was actually misled at the interview for this school where it was suggested that I would have A-level as well, and got a nasty surprise when I started last September. The reason for the lack of A-level was that due to low numbers of students there’s only one A-level class at my school, which is traditionally taught by the head of science.
For my interview today I was asked to teach an A-level lesson. It went mostly well but I accidentally forgot to mention something that was quite important to the topic, which I suddenly remembered straight after the lesson. I attribute this mainly to the large gap I had since my last A-level lesson, which was over a year ago.
The lesson was followed by an interview with the Head of faculty and subject lead, where I was quizzed about this thing that I missed out from the lesson. I actually brought it up to the panel, not them, and I was able to demonstrate to them that I had the subject knowledge for it. They asked me why I hadn’t mentioned it to the class in the lesson, to which I responded with utter frankness that I forgot to say it in the lesson, that it was a hiccup caused by my large gap away from A-level teaching.
On a positive thought, I was asked about several other aspects of A-level teaching, the A-level course and A-level question marking as well, and I felt that I answered the questions well. I also mentioned to the panel that I am working as an official A-level examiner for AQA this summer.
The interview finished with them saying that they are interviewing a couple of other candidates as well and will get back to me by the end of next week. And that if I get through to the next stage, I’ll be called in again to interview with the Head.
I’m not sure what to make of today, in honesty. Would you say that overall it sounds positive or negative?
Thanks for your input 💐