Experience in a classroom

Anyone would think they don't want teachers in schools, with what I've been going through recently. Well, they certainly don't want me, it seems.

I've got an interview for entry to the Secondary English PGCE course with a university in the West Midlands, my first choice, in a couple of weeks. Time is running out. Part of the interview (according to the helpful documents sent out by the university I'm being interviewed by) is to talk about spending time in a school observing a teacher in your chosen subject in action; you have organised to spend time in a school and get some front line experience, haven't you?

I had indeed organised something; I was going to my old school (we'll call it St. Hometown High) in mid May. Then the uni hit me with the interview date: a clash! This was no less than a spanner in the works. My original chosen school, back where I studied, is unable to accomodate me before mid May, so I've been ringing around my part of the southern British Isles trying to speak to the Heads of English to plead my case. A number have said "we'll get back to you" and haven't, and one has just phoned up and left a blunt answerphone message saying we've got someone already doing that and can't fit you in.

The most interesting answer so far to my desperate plea came when I phoned the high school where my sister used to attend. The receptionist put me on hold, and came back after five minutes to say that all the members of staff in the English department were on the sick, and they only had supply teachers in, so it wouldn't be really suitable. After finishing the conversation, I thought to myself: is that a school in desperate need of being taken into special measures with the whole department pulling sickies, or was it an exceedingly feeble excuse to fob me off? Knowing the school via my sister's experience there, I suspect it was probably the former. I would like to name and shame the insititution, but it would be bad form for me to do so, and it would also give away my geographic location, something I have no intention of doing.

There are a number of factors that may be contributing to the reluctance to take in eager observers like myself. One may be a fear by the teachers themselves of being observed and being subject to a critical eye. Heaven knows, the Ofsted vampires strike fear into the hearts of teachers across the UK, and what about a student who could innocently report back the findings to a university in interview?

I jest. Fear of criticism may be one, but there is the inconvenience of having a young, know-it-all fresh from university poking their nose in. But it's not an inconvenience really, more a chance for the incumbent teachers to meet their potential new colleagues, pass on the tips and hints that would ensure that an English teacher with NQT status (Newly Qualified Teacher status, gained after successful completion of a PGCE) is not savagely beaten to death in a classroom re-enactment of William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

Finally, it may be the timing is just unfortunately wrong. Year eleven students, and the sixth form (as it was in old money) are coming up to the GCSE and A-Level exams. The focus of good teachers' attentions will be to get them ship-shape and ready to pass. Good luck to them all. Who knows? Should I end up eventually as a teacher, maybe one of them then will be approaching me to say: "Can I watch you at work?" I must ask myself, would I turn away the potential teacher then?