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6 unknown ways you're making a difference in school

1. As a student, I'm so happy that you listen to my news.
2. As a parent, I'm so relieved that you're noticing that my child has dyslexic tendencies. I really struggled in school.
3. As a principal, I'm grateful that you hand in your cuntas míosúil in time. I hate going looking for them
4. As a student, though I can't articulate it properly - my movement break really helps me listen better through the day.
5. As an AP post holder, I really appreciate that you're helping me with this project. Thin…

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Evidence of LAOS

What Are The Most Challenging LAOS Topics?

The main concerns in interviews that my clients have are...

  • How to answer the conflict question.
  • How to answer the challenging situation question.
  • The fact that they feel that their competition ‘is high’ for the role
  • How to answer the ‘vision’ question.

School principals can avail of coaching to help them plan their vision, to help them strengthen team dynamics, to help them reflect on how they responded to incidents of conflict or discuss challenging situations. Isn’t that cool?

Most …

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Time Management Tips For Interviews

Let’s talk about tips for ➡Time Management⬅.

It’s one of my FAVOURITE topics to help clients with - because there are loads of ways they save time and they don’t notice it.

In this interview question, you need to tell them all the ways that you manage your time.

Examples here might be: 

  • Your calendar/diary/wall planner - ensures that you have records of things you need to do. If you manage your diary correctly – you won’t miss important events etc. Is this something you do?
  • You may forwar…

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How do I answer what is your vision for the school/post of responsibility? 

My clients often find this question tricky! Why? Because they haven't taken the time to dream about the changes they could make. A great way to think about it is - If you had a magic wand and you could make changes - what would they be?

Here are some further tips: 

  • Be authentic – Think about what difference you would love to make in the school. Reflect: How would the school be different in 5 years’ time? What opportunities might the staff, pupils and community have? How would they be acting?…

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5 new tips for the STAR technique

I’m most known for helping my clients use the STAR technique. Why do you need it? Teachers need to harness the powers of the STAR technique because it is the universally known technique for competency-based interviews (the types of interviews that are used in education). The STAR framework is the best one to help interviewees tell stories about their actually experience and not tell stories about ‘best practice’ or what they think ‘should’ happen - and give evidence that you have experience and …

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AP and Principal Application Preparation. How to Prepare for Domain 2: Managing an Organisation.

Every year I work with many experienced teachers applying for positions in management roles in their school and beyond. Here we look at how you can outline your experience in managing an organisation.

 Highlighting your managerial skills and capabilities

In your extensive experience as a teacher, you have no doubt faced many managerial issues. Reflecting on challenges and how you overcame them, initiatives you may have facilitated, staff you mentored, and tricky situations you helped to resolv…

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Creating a Guiding Vision for Your School - The Core Values Approach

Creating a Guiding Vision for Your School - The Core Values Approach

I regularly ask questions my 1-1 interview leadership coaching clients about the guiding vision of their school. Their replies are always really interesting.

From a coaching perspective, developing an awareness of your core values is really important.

My top 3 core values are commitment, growth and variety. When I make decisions about events, situations, investments etc. - each decision will revolve around my need for variety, commitment and growth. If I don’t experience these things then I feel s…

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Preparing for interviews

Preparing for interviews: Ask yourself ‘What else?’

There is one particular question I love to ask my clients when we are trying to figure out all of their talents and capabilities. That question is; What else? As many of the educators I meet are hardworking, modest professionals who show up and get the job done, they often find it hard to declare what is so great about themselves. Once we start to delve into their capabilities and strengths together, I ask them to delve deeper.

Identifying your strengths

Brainstorming is a great way to start to di…

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Primary Interviews

Primary Interviews - are they really all sewn-up?

Some applicants for teaching jobs can lose faith if they are not being called for interview and may feel that the school has already chosen a teacher for the position before the interviews even take place! For the jobs in August especially - you are in with a real shot when you remain hopeful, positive and optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead! It’s a great ideas to take a look at the situation from a different angle!

Your SAF and CV

If you are applying for tonnes of jobs on Education …

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Teaching Interviews

Teaching Interviews: What if I get the feeling that they didn’t like me?

The job-search can be a very daunting thing.

  • You know that you are up against many other applicants, and you hope to be the one to be selected for that great teaching job.

  • You have all the qualifications you need but feel that you may not have come across as well as you had hoped in your interview.

  • You are already working in the school - but you know that your principal will base the job on your interview performance so you really want to impress.

  • Was there something about the way you came across th…

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