School Administrator Interview tips

[ImJustMe91]

Hi, I recently applied for a School administrator role and I’ve been shortlisted for an interview in just under two weeks time! First part out of the way with 😆.

I’ve never worked within a school before, I am a single parent to a six year old boy. I have spent the last 12 years working in the NHS, starting as a Dental Nurse, moving to NHS Complaints and Patient Experience, I’ve been working as a PA/Team Leader in A&E for a large Trust for the last 18 months. I know I have transferable skills with being first port of call.

I’ll be taking a pay cut and I think they will pick up on this but this is because the school administration role is 32 hours per week which will enable me to be felixable to meet the needs of the service for example staying late for parents evenings and school plays, I also feel that the working hours would make a healthy work/home life balance.

I understand I will be asked questions on confidentiality, safeguarding this is already part of my working day.

Can anyone advise me on SIMS as I’ve never used this before and assume it’s the database that holds the confidential information on pupils?

There will also be a short test, any suggestions on what kind of things they may ask me to do?

Any advise on questions they may ask me?

And the one that I feel I’m not good at is......any examples of questions that I could ask them at the end?

Thanks

Hi, I work in school admin. Is it a secondary school?

Hey 😊 it’s a primary school

OK, I work in a grammar school but can hopefully give you a few tips.

I had a test before my interview. It took about 20 minutes but felt like 5. I was put in a small office with a telephone. I had to do a word processing exercise (easy) and deal with a phone call half way through, which involved some other documents in my in-tray. It wasn't difficult but you just need to keep a calm head and make sure you pay attention to detail. It's possible that you may get an in-tray exercise involving putting items in order of priority. You may also be tested on your Excel skills if you are dealing with finances as part of your job.

SIMS is fairly straightforward although there are many layers to it, a lot of which you probably won't use as an administrator. It holds pupils' personal details plus info like medical issues, behavioural incidences, test results, attendance. If you are confident in using IT packages then you'll be fine. If you've used PAS working in the NHS, then that's a good comparator.

At my interview I was asked about what value I could add to the role; working under pressure/to deadlines/managing conflicting priorities; how I would deal with an angry parent complaining about lost property. I was given 5 questions to answer in 20 minutes and a clock so I had to make sure I gave enough detail for each answer but was concise enough not to go over my alloted time.

You may be asked about safeguarding and confidentiality/GDPR. The school should publish its policies on these on its website so read them carefully and also try to get a feel for the ethos of the place do you can reflect this in your interview answers.

You sound like you have a good set of transferable skills that are applicable to the role so be confident in what you have to offer!

Good luck - let me know how you get on 🙂

Sorry, I put paragraphs in my reply but they've disappeared...

Thank you so much for your response, I will let you know how I get on, thanks again 😊