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Mrs K. has landed an interview for an office position with a local primary. The interview begins with an in tray exercise. Neither of us had heard of this before a quick Google this evening. Any hints and tips or what to expect, particularly with regards to the school environment.
What order would you do things if all the following were in your in tray when you get in in the morning?
1. A parent wants to discuss bullying.
2. A child has some work they're proud of.
3. A safeguarding issue.
4. Etc
Only set them for interviews and completed them as a teacher.
Series of emails, phone calls, maybe a scenario with a parent coming in complaining etc.
Some they'll ask to draft a response to a parent query. You'll also have to prioritise the order you do them.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Scenarios, parent at reception complaining about a teacher or about a lost PE kit etc. How would you deal with it, would you ask for help, call relevant teacher. For one scenario I had one about a boy coming in to school wearing a skirt! </span>
I've done one. The object is about prioritisation and spotting what is important in the background of a large quantity of noise and nonsense. In my case the sort of questions they asked was "why did you prioritise this ahead of that...", and " what did you thing of person A" etc. My advice would be to resist the temptation to deal with things as you find them and take time...a good proportion of the allocated time, to read through everything in the in-tray before actually actioning anything, while looking out for the odd one that might tell of a dire emergency that has to be dealt with immediately.
The child protection issue goes first, just remember that.
Brill. This is all very helpful so far, she's just after a bit of reassurance as its not something we've heard of before. Neither of us have had job interviews for a very long time and it's not cropped up before.!
I've set a few of these.
As said, CP takes priority. If the person setting the exercise is a sly git like me, watch out for multiple items on the list being linked.
Having said that, I was always more interested in the 'why' than the actual order candidates wanted to do stuff.
Brill. This is all very helpful so far, she’s just after a bit of reassurance as its not something we’ve heard of before. Neither of us have had job interviews for a very long time and it’s not cropped up before.!
Don't stress out about it too much - as mentioned, take time to read through everything and then it's pretty much common sense...
My wife had to do something similar, with the difference being she had to identify which she could deal with and which she needed to pass on the the Head as well. So as noted the CP issues take priority, the rest is not necessarily a right / wrong answer but more the thought process and ability to explain.
Depends also what level the job is. As theotherjonv says an element might be about identifying what is beyond your pay grade. But if the role is quite administrative it could be quite practical too to check ability to type accurately, add data to a spreadsheet, take a phone call professionally. It's meant to be a realistic representation of the sort of tasks the role would involve - probably the best way to prepare for it would be to read the job description.
I worked in a place that set one of these exercises. One of the tasks was to count the radiators in the building. Anyone that actually counted the radiators rather than doing the billable client facing tasks first didnt get the job