Posted in Interviews, Jobs on Feb 14th, 2008 13 Comments »
No, not some advert for a stage show. I’ve been appointed as (Acting) Director of Education and Children’s Services for East Lothian Council. I went through a very rigorous interview process involving a 90 minute in-tray exercise on Tuesday and 90 minute interview on Wednesday in front of a panel of seven elected members.
I’m excited [...]
Posted in Interviews on Apr 26th, 2007 3 Comments »
Interviews are a very stressful but there are some key points which people should try to keep in mind:
Always answer the question (you’d be surprised by how often people drift into some other area);
Keep referring to your experience and mention children (once again too many people never mention kids);
Don’t keep rambling (I always try to keep to [...]
Posted in Head Teachers, Interviews, Parental Involvement on Nov 6th, 2006 4 Comments »
I was interviewing all day for the vacant head teacher post at Ross High School.
We’ve recently introduced a more rigorous long-leet process which has three parts.
1. Candidates were asked to write an essay in response to a set task which they received on the day. They had 45 minutes to write their response.
2. Candidates had a ten [...]
Posted in Head Teachers, Interviews on Jan 22nd, 2006 No Comments »
Friday 20th January
8.15-8.45 Education Officer's Meeting - I had to leave early to get to the Town House for the North Berwick Headteacher interviews.
9.00-12.00 We interviewed three candidates for the vacancy, which is due Colin Cutherland's 18 month secondment to the Scottish Executive. We appointed Stewart McKinnon, Depute Headteacher, Musselburgh Grammar School. I'm convinced Stewart [...]
Posted in Accountability, Communication, Interviews, Performance Indicators, Social media on Oct 10th, 2005 No Comments »
Friday 7th October
In at 7.00am to clear my desk for the day. Meeting of Education Officers at 8.15am. This is the weekly sweep of school issues arising from contact with HTs. Ive missed the last few EO meetings for a variety of reason but it is proving very useful in tracking problems and improving communication [...]
Posted in Integrated Children's Services, Interviews on Oct 3rd, 2005 No Comments »
Directorate Meeting 8.30am -10.00pm Range of items but had a very interesting discussion relating to criteria for evaluating the success of education and children's services integration - with a particular focus upon intergated community schools. The Scottish Exec have shelved ideas to have a “How Good is Our Integrated Community School”. Ths can only be [...]
Posted in Head Teachers, Interviews, Leadership on Sep 28th, 2005 No Comments »
Primary/Nursery Headtreachers' Executive Meeting. We are determined to make this a more strategically focussed meeting - previously it was overwhelmed with school specific detail. Patricia MacCall, Headteacher Campie Primary School, has put together an excellent set of proposals to ensure that issues are properly filtered and addressed - mainly using the clusters and Education Officers. [...]