So are you like me and want to be a drama teacher but you can't think of a good reason to persuade your family it's right for you. Me too. However what does happen in the teaching interviews? Well I'll talk you through the two interviews I had and how they went. You ready? Let's go. School Number 1 St Wilfrids Catholic High School 8:30am. Arrive at the school 8:40am. Brief introduction This consisted of a short discussion with one of the assistant head teachers who talked about the course and gave you an insight to a typical school day at St Wilfrids. She was a lovely woman and she spoke to me and the other candidate about what would happen during the day. 9am. Tour of the school. The other candiate went off to have her 20 minute lesson with the Year 7 class chosen and then her interview afterwards. When this happened I was taken on a tour of the school. The school impressed me, especially as it had a Sixth Form, three cafeteria's and a swimming pool.. Yes, a swimming pool! It must've been a rich school if it had a swimming pool, my high school never had one of them. 9:30am. Waiting. I waited in the staff room until 10am. I found out the fridge had four bottles of milk in it, teachers must drink a lot of coffee! 10am. Lesson time. It was now my turn to teach the same Year 7 class for 20 minutes, this was the scariest part of the day by far. I was ready for it, yes, but I didn't know how smart they would be or how behaved they would be. Luckily they were both. First of all I got them walking around the room and I shouted out various emotions, so for example "show me scared, show me angry, show me confused." I knew Year 7 were working on exaggerated characters so I then told them that I would shout out a number between 1 and 10. 5 being normal, 1 being extremely subtle and 10 being really over the top acting. This lasted roughly 8 minutes. I was really happy with the energy each pupil had and the level of enthusiasm they put into this exercise. I then told them we were playing a different game called Jewel Thief. One pupil said "I don't know what that is but it sounds good" which was good to hear. I then told them the rules of the game and they kinda understood it. I then gave them a demo and they got it straight away. (IF they don't understand the rules, a demo always helps). Everyone had two go's at this game which was good, it went a lot quicker than I thought. At the end of the game I asked them "Why did i pick that game?" Politely they raised their hands instead of shouting out which was helpful. They said all the keywords I was looking for. (Spacial awareness, sense of hearing, sense of touch, levels, character development). The pupils at this school were really clever and already had a grasp of basic drama knowledge which was surprising to me. 10:30am. Interview. I didn't know what they were going to ask at all, they never gave a list of questions they would ask in the email. This was nerve-racking as I'm not good at interviews, I'm very gestural. They then started the questions three asked were: "How do you think the lesson went?" I answered with "surpising, I never thought the kids would have that much drama knowledge already. It was productive too as I managed to do two exercises in the space of twenty minutes and the kids seemed to enjoy both my games and my teaching. "What kind of teacher are you?" This was a difficult question to answer as I'm not even a teacher yet but I just had to reflect on what teacher I want to be. So I said "A creative hands-on teacher, I don't just want to sit back and watch, I want to be in the action teaching or directing, it's no good sitting back and letting the kids do all the work. They'll think you're either a boring teacher or an unprepared teacher. If you're on stage with them they will be able to see your passion for drama." "Why do you want to be a teacher?" I answered with "Well as we all know acting or directing is a difficult proffession to get into so what can you do that let's you do both of them on a daily basis. Teaching. I also do believe kids are the future and they're the most interesting people to listen to. Kids say the funniest things and one funny thing could make your entire day, why would someone want to miss that. Also teaching is something I do have a passion for and an area of work I think I can really excel in, I won't let you down. 11am. Leave. Overall St Wilfrids was a brilliant school and the pupils were so well-behaved, completely different to the kids from Liverpool. The interview process was a good format to have, not too busy at all, apart from the little wait I was always doing something, if you're constantly busy you don't get bored so well done to the school on that one. I'd be happy to teach at this school, they seem to have a headteacher who believes in the arts and wants it to succeed compared to other schools.
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Jewel Thief1) Participants all create a wall with their bodies. |