Geography Interviews

Havn't been able to get onto exc-el for the past couple of days?

Monday 26th June 2006

I met with Paul Raffaelli first thing this morning to speak with him about Friday and the duty head referrals that had arisen during the morning. It was good to chat over the incidents with Paul and learn a bit of background on some of the cases that had occurred. During the last year I have found Paul incredibly approachable as a head teacher and a firm believer in the ‘door is always open’ policy. This is something I hope to be able to take with me to MGS next term.

During the rest of the morning we carried out the remaining of the interviews for the temporary geography position within the department. Now that we have carried out all of the interviews I can post the question here:

1. What personal qualities do you think that you have which make you an effective classroom teacher?
2. Can you give an example of an initiative that you have worked on as part of a team and tell us a little bit about how you have evaluated its success?
3. Raising attainment is a major aim of all schools. What can you do as a classroom teacher to raise attainment?
4. What are the opportunities and barriers for fieldwork in Geography?
5. ICT is an important part of any modern day geography classroom. Can you give an example of how you have used ICT to improve your classroom practice?
6. What do you think are the major challenges facing geography in schools? How would you overcome them?

I’ll post about the successful candidate after we have made contact with all of the candidates.

If you’re reading this blog and you have an interview coming up before the end of term or early next session. Why don’t you use these questions, record an answer (off the cuff) and email your audio to me? I’ll try to give you some constructive feedback.

I also picked up a good tip from Colin Borthwick today. Colin is away with the Enhanced Curriculum for two days on a camping trip. He has set his class work in the normal way. However, instead of writing the work on the whiteboard or on a piece of paper. He has written a set of individual instructions per class. Then he has photocopied the instruction so that each member of the class gets a slip of paper. Each slip is hole punched to fit into the students folder. A very simple, yet effective idea which prevents individual members of the class continually asking what they have to do next.

Taught a couple of lessons on Limestone during the last two periods and then headed home for another flat viewing (we go to closing sometime in the next two weeks – thank goodness!). Will be working on the Boulder Conference poster this evening.