New teachers in Scotland get together in the TES Scotland Probationers Group to discuss career options, to give jobseeking advice and to share their experiences. This is also the place to find a shoulder to cry on if you’re having a tough time.
Hi All, I'm desperate for some helpful advice here...
I'm a probationer on the flexbile route and my school have notified me that one of my department is to be made redundant; with me being the obvious choice - the others in my department are the head of department, and the school's Director of Studies who also keeps a number of Computing teaching periods per week.
I work in an independent school as a part time Computing teacher, a job which I took immediately on completing my PGDE. Initially I was offered a temp contract but when I said I coudn't give up my probation year for a temp contract they changed it to permanent, hence (i thought) giving me job security to at least complete my probation. I started in Aug 2010 and this week they have said about redundancies... I am about 2 years away (on my current 0.4 rota) from completing my probation period. There's nothing written in my contract about probation, i'm employed solely as a teacher of computing.
I'm looking for advice, please please please:
1. i have a 1-2-1 meeting with the rector next week which i'm treating as a job interview, selling my positivity, etc etc. any help with this would be appreciated.. i'm already doing the usual interview prep but is there anything that would be particular to this situation i should include?
2. we haven't been given the selection criteria yet, but can i assume that length of service (last in first out etc) is going to be on there, and if so,does anyone have any effective strategies to counter this?
3. i've heard it said (read it on TES actually) that selection criteria are used 'mathematically' so that e.g. a score is given to each criteria for each candidate and the candidate with the highest/lowest score wins their redundancy package... so that it's all quantifiable in an appeal. is that the usual process? is it rigid - can anything be argued?
4. we've been told that the redundancies are being driven by a desire for increased efficiency, rather than having a financial basis. IF the selection criteria are being used quantifiably, is there also a need for them to show a quantifiable basis for having the redundancies in teh first place?
I may think of some more questions later, but for now any helpful responses would be most welcome!
thanks
N
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