School attendance and pastoral officer interview help!

[jojes]

I have an interview for an attendance and pastoral officer in a mainstream primary school next week and looking for some help please.

The interview involves:
30 min task
5 min interview with student council
30 min panel interview

What kind of questions/ tasks can I expect? Especially from the children
Thank you

Safeguarding 100%

LA policy on FPNs, term time holidays, policy on 1st day of absence, contacting parents etc

Safeguarding will be a priority. Also, look at their attendance policy and also any SEND/Behaviour policy.

Do you have any experience in schools that you can draw on?

Gen up on DFE guidance - think 'improving attendance in schools' is still the latest one

Safeguarding will 100% come up

Probably the task will involve some kind of prioritisation.

Read the school attendance and behaviour policies.

Safeguarding, KCSIE, Prevent.
Also probably a question on what would you do if the phone is ringing, a child is stood outside the office, a colleague needs help with a photocopier, and you have three voicemails. What order would you tackle these in.

Check the schools attendance stats and attendance policy. And it might be helpful to research who the EWO is and how the school works with them

I would hammer home the link between high absence and safeguarding.

Be familiar with the government's new 'working together to improve school attendance' legislation August 2024.

Knowing that 90% or lower is considered persistent absence and less than 50% is severely absent

for competency I’d guess they’d ask questions relating to
having difficult conversations
managing multiple priorities
using and analysing data
strategies / initiatives /ideas to improve attendance
something about Sen and attendance
safeguarding
risk assessment/management

Hi, what kind of things did you have to do an answer. I know it was a while ago but I’ve been offered an interview with a presentation then task

I’ve been a level 3 teaching assistant for 9 years so, lots of safeguarding experience. I work with my Attendance lead currently through my role helping get children into school as I do really care about them attending

I used to do a similar job. For the interview I would familiarise yourself with a serious case review, such as the dreadful Daniel Penka case. It will break your heart.

Also, think through how you would approach the job in the first six weeks. What would be your priority, what would be your quick wins and how would you build relationships with parents. Be familiar with the law and fines, but definitely prioritise building bridges with parents, so that legal action isn't needed. Contrary to public belief, schools do not want to fine parents.

Appreciate the great advice. It’s my current school I’m at so I’ve built lots of solid relationships with parents and children but I need to talk about how I’ve done that and will continue to do that in this more challenging role. My presentation is what I’m going to do in my first however long in the role and then I have an interview with a task. I’m not sure what the task is and I’m sure I won’t find out until the day. I’m nervous to make the step up but I know I can do it

I got the job 😊 the advice given was great. The interview was safeguarding heavy. The task was prioritising attendance case load; top being where they had child protection orders etc. There were a few questions like: tell us a time where you had competing demands and how you managed them, what do you feel the purpose of a home visit is (check for any safeguarding issues being number 1). It sounds like you have great experience and are very well suited to the job 😊 thank you everyone that provided advice to me

Great news. Congratulations hope it’s going well. Thank you I’m going to do lots of research on my own policy, obviously I know it but I want to really know it and other policies. It’s the task that is making me nervous because I don’t know what it will be. I have 45 minutes for it. Any other help or details you’re happy to share I will gladly accept. I’ll be looking it up until my interview but first hand experience is better

Thought I would update that I also got the job. This thread was really helpful. It was a very intense interview etc but I got through it and got the job. Now if anyone has any advice when first starting I will be grateful haha

Congratulations! What questions were you asked? And what task did you complete please?

I had to do a task on priority so I was shown attendance across the school and year groups and I had to rank the three main priorities. I then had to write an email to a parent so was given a scenario. My questions were how would I improve attendance across school by using data, I had some safeguarding questions but there was 12 questions in total around how I will improve attendance, what is the main barriers I will face and how I will overcome them and I spoke about how my school is in a challenging area. I’m struggling to remember the others but what I will say to do is if your not against chat gpt is put in the job you’re going for and ask it to give you tasks and get it to mark you then get it to keep asking you questions based on the job spec and title. I did that and I answered very well apparently and my tasks were spot on as I had practised them loads. I did it for the week running up to it and lots of the questions I practiced were given but similar so I found myself being able to think on my feet. If you think you’re not answering right ask them to repeat the question I also did that. Good luck and update us how it goes

The other task was prioritising some jobs so a parent ask to speak to you, a social worker wants some information by 10, a child who has been absent for 3 days isn’t in things like that and you put them in order. Most of that is common sense as it comes down to safeguarding