CPD


Dot Struthers shares a seven- step process to help you make


your next career move A


S THE old saying goes, it is not what you know but who you know that is really important when thinking about your next career move. Let’s face it, finding a new job can often take time so it is important to get as much


help as you possibly can. Some people are good at helping you think through your career options while others are good at opening doors for you.


Get help from others


Someone who sees you on a regular basis and knows you well like your boss or your boss’s boss will be a good person to help you identify what your strengths and weaknesses are and give you a good overview of what career options may be available within the school and possibly the local area depending on their network and relationships with other schools. But a word of warning – your boss may not relish the thought of losing you from their team so really honest conversations may be difficult. Your friends and colleagues at work can help in that


they share the same perspective as you and might offer advice based on experiences they have had. And, taking on an external coach or mentor can


provide a fresh perspective as they generally are unbiased and can challenge assumptions you might be making about yourself. If you are looking to broaden your horizons and


work outside of the area then you will need to draw on your network and ask them who they know who could be helpful. So how do you get started? Make a list of people who can help and then...


Work out where you are now There must be a reason why you are thinking about a career or job change. Are you bored, restless and feel like there is something missing or are you just ambitious? Perhaps you feel you have outgrown what you are doing. Think about your current job and career and write down the things you like and dislike about it, the routines, the responsibility, the variety, the control, the subject or content, the future or lack thereof. Another way to think about it is to imagine you


are designing your ideal job and can take some things with you but also leave some things behind. What would they be? Just by engaging in a conversation with someone can be a great emotional release and help to clarify what is driving this need for change.


Identify your key strengths and skills


Think about what you find easy and have no problem doing in your work, the things that come naturally and you don’t even have to think how to do. Ask your colleagues, friends and even family what


they think your strengths are, even if they describe them in negative terms – e.g. bossy could mean you have good leadership or organisation skills. Being able to play to our strengths is far easier than


‘


trying to sort our weaknesses, although sometimes we cannot ignore our weaknesses – if the job requires us to


There is a myth that


there are well trodden career paths but the


truth is that you have to create you own


use a particular skill we do not possess then we have to find a way to manage that weakness like co-opting and finding support from others. Once you have identified let’s say your top three-to-


five skills you might want to consider what you would be able to do if you did more using your strengths, or if you developed them further. Sometimes our strengths are hidden in our hobbies or social activities, what if they were realised?


’ What’s important to you?


There truly is more to life than work even though teaching is one of those professions where you never feel “done” and work is always in progress. The truth is that unless your life is fully balanced and you are doing what makes you happy you will not be the best you can for the children or students in your care. What are the things outside of your teaching career


SecEd • April 7 2011


that are important to you and how can you protect time and space for them. We are a whole person – our hands are a part of us just as our hobbies are a part of us. We need to honour each part and be prepared that if we make sacrifices to aspects of our lives we call important then this will have a detrimental affect somewhere else. What is really important here is to understand why


we chose to become a teacher and what the burning desire and motivation is that gets you out of bed in the morning. What is driving you?


What are your aspirations?


What is your ultimate goal – to be a head of department, a headteacher or perhaps doing something more strategic like working in a local authority responsible for driving the government agenda? What potential do you believe you have and who can help you to release that potential? Are you clear about what opportunities exist within


your current school? What would you have to do to get further? Are you prepared to make the sacrifices in your life to meet your career ambitions, such as moving away from the area? There is a myth that there are well trodden career


paths but the truth is that you have to create you own because what worked for one will not necessarily work for another because our age, experience and personal circumstances are unique to us.


Creating some options


Do not just think about your current school, think other schools both local and national and outside the scope of a school, like a local authority or body such as a union, Ofsted or other agencies involved in assessing or auditing certain parts of the education process. Gaining a broader and wider perspective stretches your imagination and validates what you really want and what you don’t. Examine the pros and cons of each of the options


you have identified and get clear on the personal impact on your life and family. Has it highlighted the need to develop any further skills?


Understand the game


Finding a job is a political minefield which you need to discover the rules to and includes finding out how you go about raising your profile both within and outside of your school. How do you go about making yourself visible to the right people who can either open doors for you or offer you a job? The key is to ask lots of people and find out different views and try them all, but remember what worked for one person may not work for you because our circumstances are all different and things change. Whatever stage of finding a new job you are at, the


thing to do is keep an eye on the bigger picture, i.e. your overall life, be open to new suggestions, and above all be true to yourself.


SecEd


• Dot Struthers runs workshops and coaching sessions for teachers. To get her monthly CPD newsletter, go to www.merechats.co.uk


Talking CPD The oil in the engine


We need to shift the observation process away


from performance management to something used by teachers to support other teachers, says Andrew Newell


LESSON OBSERVATIONS are a key part of effective programmes for initial teacher training and ongoing professional development. This is why significant opportunities for lesson observation are built into the initial teacher education process. It is only by watching others that it is possible to fuse the theory you have learned in the seminar room with the real-life practice of day-to-day teaching. Lesson observation is, however, one of the more


delicate issues in the field of education as it is also the mechanism to assess teacher competence. Teachers in the UK are used to being observed, but generally as part of the performance management cycle rather than as part of a positive, developmental and group learning process. Knowing that you are about to be observed


and your performance evaluated on the basis of (what can be perceived as) a narrow subjective experience, can be highly stressful. I am personally dubious about the recent assertion from the National Foundation for Educational Research that most teachers welcome Ofsted observations! Performance management is a fact of life. However, to improve standards and support teachers we need to fundamentally shift the focus of the lesson observation process away from simply a performance management tool onto something regularly used by teachers to support other teachers. As Professor Dylan Wiliam notes, teaching has


historically been an “orphaned profession”, it has not developed a sustainable or effective “signature pedagogy” for professional learning.


An obvious way of evolving a signature pedagogy


is to promote the widespread implementation of teacher learning communities, in which small groups of practitioners work together around specific objectives to develop their practice over time. However, in the real world such approaches are undermined by a number of practical constraints. Peer observation is the oil in the teacher learning


community engine. It is only through modelling of good practice, observation by and of your peers, and developing constructive professional dialogue that a learning community can discover, develop and share what works. However, observations are hard to do. Regular observations leave schools having to


task one high value resource to observe another. Consideration of classroom dynamics means that the number of observers in the room has to be strictly limited, so the only practitioners who benefit are those directly involved in the process. Further to this, the feedback and dialogue process


associated with lesson observation often takes place sometime after the observation itself. This can result in the observed practice lacking the value of immediacy and context – it becomes dim in the memory and feedback is inevitably broad and subjective. The net result is that teacher learning communities


(and coaching programmes) have proved to be hard to introduce and sustain. Unless a very significant commitment to their funding and support is made centrally, it remains unlikely that enough oil will be provided to get the engine to turnover. So where does this leave us? Technologies in the 21st century now deliver and


enable online communities of practice to congregate, develop and share practice by reducing the need for live observers and introducing one-to-many interactions. Teachers can now effectively engage with each other in the process of discovery, development and sharing without imposing the long-term drain on resources implicit within traditional modes of delivery. By enabling teacher learning communities


between a group of partner schools we increase significantly the likelihood of teachers finding partners with shared interests and appropriate expertise. By developing networked learning communities we can provide the economies of scale and return on investment required to get the teacher learning community engine to turn over.


• Andrew Newell is managing director of IRIS Connect. Visit www.irisconnect.co.uk


in association with


Career moves


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