ABSTRACT
The probes used in both the Semi-and Fully Structured approaches can easily be adapted to candidates without teaching experience, whether NQTs or graduate trainees. Encourage candidates to search for examples in their college career, other jobs, hobbies and clubs or their private life. You do need to address the question of whether they will apply their characteristics in school: a passion for a hobby may drive behaviour that is not carried over into work. In particular, you should ask that one of the incidents be selected from work experience and seek to structure probes from the Professionalism cluster to focus on learning. For example:
Tell me about a time when you helped someone achieve something they hadn’t been able to do before
You may also want to gather evidence on the seven groups of teaching skills confirmed during the research. As these are heavily classroom-based, and relatively easily observable, we recommend investigating these through an observed lesson on the day of the interview, and we provide an observation schedule in Part 3, Practical 2 to facilitate this. It would be even more effective to visit their school and observe the teacher in their usual setting but this is not always practical. It is, however, not impossible to gather skills level data through the interview process itself: you could either make particular probes against particular skills or examine the data generated in pursuit of characteristics for additional evidence of skills. Interview data from the Leading cluster is often rich in evidence for pupil management and varied teaching strategies; stories about Challenge and Support may provide data about setting expectations; the Planning and Expectations cluster may also provide data about lesson planning, time and resource management and assessment.
