Female teacher beaten to maths job by man with 'firm handshake' wins tribunal case

[HecatesCats]

Congratulations Vanaja Greenwood. It's unbelievable that this sort of nonsense still goes on. (Hope I haven't cross posted) www.thetimes.co.uk/article/vanaja-greenwood-female-teacher-beaten-to-maths-job-by-man-with-firm-handshake-h6xlqttn5

He'd never even taught the subject. Jeez.

Hard to credit that this sort of thing still goes on. Our work is not yet done!

But she couldn't teach rugby and other sport or be housemaster as couldn't work evenings which was also part of the job.

@Ducksurprise

But she couldn't teach rugby and other sport or be housemaster as couldn't work evenings which was also part of the job.

He couldn't teach the subject

@Ducksurprise

But she couldn't teach rugby and other sport or be housemaster as couldn't work evenings which was also part of the job.

That all sounds like indirect discrimination, as none of those functions relate to teaching maths.

For those who are skeptical, she was encouraged to apply for a job she was qualified for (teaching maths) and told not being around in the evenings wouldn't be a problem, then told that she also had to teach rugby etc (which she showed willing to do when put on the spot in the interview) then was beaten by a man with no qualifications who boldly said he would have a go and "inspired confidence", ridiculous.

The only sensible solution would have been:

• do a proper job specification - maths + rugby + house duties (in which case neither candidate should have got an interview and they should have looked elsewhere)

OR

• offer a job option with just the maths duties for less pay and then allocate the saving towards external coaching, or towards paying other staff to cover duties. Which she could have qualified for. (Or recruited for rugby and house master and employed someone like him, but paid her more for maths etc)

Employing a man who couldn't do the main job but said he could was crazy. Bet that wasn't what the parents thought they were paying for - someone who had never taught maths before without any qualifications but thought he would have a crack at it!

I mean to me (not from a teacher background so what do I know) it sounds like neither is the ideal fit for the job regardless of gender or being "dynamic".

He isn't a maths teacher.
She isn't able to fulfill the additional requirements that the job entails like looking after boarders.

I have lost count of the number of highly-qualified, experienced women friends who have not applied for great jobs because they couldn't tick every single box on the "essential qualities" list, only to find that job had then gone to some bloke who could barely tick half the "essential qualities" list but applied anyway, and expected his half-assed efforts to be plenty good enough.

Good for her.

Was he qualified in anything (other than rugby)? I was taught maths by one of the physics staff one year as there was a shortage of maths teachers in the school.

I do agree though based on the job as being maths+rugby+housemaster neither were actually right for the post.

@ShopTattsyrup

I mean to me (not from a teacher background so what do I know) it sounds like neither is the ideal fit for the job regardless of gender or being "dynamic".

He isn't a maths teacher.
She isn't able to fulfill the additional requirements that the job entails like looking after boarders.

"Mr Hoyland told her that the school could be flexible and encouraged her to apply for the role. He did not tell her that the job may also require her to teach rugby, the tribunal was told."

Sounds like they are rather shit at recruitment all round.

Valuing firm handshakes and such like is such crap. It really tells you little about how good people will be at the job. Neither does appearing super confident (some confidence is of course important): sometimes the most confident are the biggest bullshitters.

As well as being prejudicial against women (damn that pesky female socialisation!) It also potentially discriminates against people with disabilities and those who are not neuro typical. I thought job interviewers had got smarter about this kind of stuff.

The idea of appointing someone as a maths teacher who had never taught maths sounds utterly bonkers to me (it wasn't clear whether the man appointed had a maths degree, but I assume not). It's also a bizarre specification that bundles maths in with teaching rugby. What kind of school does that?

Imagine being a parent paying £21k a year to have your child taught maths by someone who isn't a qualified maths teacher.

@SunsetBeetch I fully agree that it's sexist and dodgy as hell! But I equally can't see how either should have had the job.

I applied for a job a few years ago, it was not mentioned in the application but was brought up in the interview that it was a rotational post working 6mo in one area (where I had experience and wanted to work) and then 6mo in another area (where I had no experience or interest). I didn't get the job, probably quite rightly, because when they mentioned the rotational element I was frank and said I was willing to do so and learn, but I had zero experience of the area.

[quote ShopTattsyrup]@SunsetBeetch I fully agree that it's sexist and dodgy as hell! But I equally can't see how either should have had the job.

I applied for a job a few years ago, it was not mentioned in the application but was brought up in the interview that it was a rotational post working 6mo in one area (where I had experience and wanted to work) and then 6mo in another area (where I had no experience or interest). I didn't get the job, probably quite rightly, because when they mentioned the rotational element I was frank and said I was willing to do so and learn, but I had zero experience of the area.[/quote]
Oh I do agree with you. It seems that they led her on somewhat though.

@Ducksurprise

But she couldn't teach rugby and other sport or be housemaster as couldn't work evenings which was also part of the job.

She was encouraged to apply, which suggests that these weren't in fact part of the job, just extras that the school regarded as desirable. It sounds also as if they were penny pinching because they didn't want to appoint a sports teacher/head of house. if they did advertise for a housemaster, that would have been discriminatory in itself.

Something like this happened to me. I was working in a school as a 1:1 TA for a child with SEN. I applied for a different role in the school, working with groups of children with additional needs. Which I'd been doing as part of my 1:1 job several times a week since I started. I didn't even get an interview. I was told I didn't have enough experience, despite working there.

The job went to a man. Also a TA. A TA employed specially to do PE. He had no experience at all in working with kids with SEN. He'd only been at the school months.

I left not long after, the SLT and academy chain treated the staff like shit.

They screwed up on several counts, but you can't use a man's firm handshake as a reason for recruitment. It's a useful reminder that biases still play a big part in the recruitment process. It's not an isolated case. For me this mainly highlights how ingrained male/female stereotypes still are.

The "firm handshake" excuse reminds me of a solicitors' office where I worked in the 90s. They called in for interview someone with an English-sounding name who turned out on arrival to belong to an ethnic minority. They terminated the interview within ten minutes and didn't offer him the job, although he was better qualified than the person they did appoint. He brought race discrimination proceedings. At their first meeting with their barrister, he asked why it had been such a short interview, and the person interviewing said "We just didn't like his, um, suit". Needless to say, they were advised to pay up, review their recruitment practices, and never to let the idiot take part in an interview again.

If I were a parent coughing up fees at that school, I think round about now I'd be re-evaluating whether I wanted my child to stay somewhere where they regard it as more important for a maths teacher to have experience in teaching rugby than in teaching maths.

Being encouraged to apply does not mean that she would definitely get the job. In private schools you do not have to have a teaching qualification or a degree to teach. I did not see what age group that required a maths teacher but I have taught maths until age 12 without a maths degree in a state school. I do agree that they need a better HR department.

I do agree that they need a better HR department.

And maybe some unconscious bias training from a decent provider.

I'd rather my child left school knowing how to do maths than play rugby. For 21k per year, I'd be seriously pissed off if my child's school employed a maths teacher who had no experience in teaching the subject.
Why can't the school employ a sports teacher and a maths teacher? Their attempt at penny pinching and absolute incompetent recruitment process wouldn't exactly inspire confidence if you were a parent considering that school for your child.

I once helped a rugby coaching man with his appalling job application. Against my better judgement as we were both going for the same job.

He got it even though I was much better qualified.

Lesson learnt.

And yes, he did end up coaching rugby at the school. And no, it wasn’t mentioned in the job ad.

@Ducksurprise

Being encouraged to apply does not mean that she would definitely get the job. In private schools you do not have to have a teaching qualification or a degree to teach. I did not see what age group that required a maths teacher but I have taught maths until age 12 without a maths degree in a state school. I do agree that they need a better HR department.

What sensible employer would encourage someone to apply when they know they don't fit the criteria for the job? I strongly suspect that the reality was that they wanted a man but encouraged the woman to apply just in case they didn't bet any other applicants.

This story is pretty revealing about how private schools work. People sometimes assume that you get a much better quality of education at private school, but in practice there's a huge variety in the sector. You have the top schools (Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc) which are presumably OK, but underneath there are an awful lot of schools that are now struggling financially and are pretty clueless about teaching. The main advantage from a parent's point of view is that your child will be mixing with other rich children and have access to good sports facilities etc - but they almost certainly won't have better teachers.

In a state school, something like this would be unlikely to happen. They might recruit someone without a maths qualification to teach maths, but only out of desperation (there's a shortage of maths teachers), not because they thought the maths teacher needed to do the sports coaching. A teacher who had both a maths degree and a teaching qualification would probably be welcomed with open arms.