Cam’s Ramblings

In the past week, I have had three job interviews at three very different schools. The first is a very large school, which has been around for about 6 years. The school has developed a lot of its own integrated curriculum ideas for students in years 7 and 8, with an innovative program being run with the year 9 students. The second is a much more established school, with fewer students but over the past few years has been involved in setting up a new school in a nearby suburb. The third school is an independent school down the road from where I live, is only three years old and is going into Year 9 next year, with plans to work upto Year 12 in th next four years.

Last Thursday night I recieved a phone call, and subequent job offer, off the first school. I had every intention to accept this offer.

While I was out, I received a voice mail from the second school, the message saying that they would call me back today. I never got another call.

Friday morning, I contacted the third school to inform them that I had this first offer, and as I was very interested in their school I was wondering where I was standing in terms of an offer. They informed me that I was going to be contacted later in the day, with a job offer.

This left me confused, the two schools which had offered me a job were two of the schools I had placed on the top of my ‘wish list’. All day Friday I agonised over this decision, the state school vs the independent, the developed vs the developing, many of these issues I worked through in my head.

So I suppose I can now officially say that Friday afternoon I contacted one of the Principals to accept their offer of employment. I am now employed as a Mathematics and Information Technology teacher at Kambrya College in Berwick (http://www.kambryacollege.com/). I chose the state school which is well developed, has an abundance of resources surrounding it and what I hope will provide me with a supporting team environment for the first few years of my teaching, possibly with the view of building a career.

So there you go. I am now (graduation pending, of course!) a member of the teaching profession.

Updated 20th September – I have been able to upload my most recent Interview Portfolio, hopefully it resembles my last. Head to ‘Interview Portfolio’ on the nav bar above to check it out.

We are now beginning to reach what will be my favorite part of the application process, and that is the interview stage. So far, I have been invited to attend an interview at two different schools over the next week, and am immensely looking forward to meeting the principals, along with some of the other staff for a chat.

I have also been working more on the portfolio, the newest version has been uploaded to the ‘Interview Portfolio’ page – use the nav bar up the top.

At last I am ready to show off my ‘first release’ of my Interview Portfolio. While it is nowhere near complete, I have decided to post it in this environment for a number of reasons.

First of all, I have begun to send out applications. Included in my application is a link to this blog, and I would like any prospective employers to be able to have a look at what I have done thus far. I hope that I will be able to provide a weekly update to my Portfolio, so it doesn’t look too incomplete for too long.

Secondly, in our Mentor Group today we were spending some time looking at portfolios, and as I have done a reasonable amount of work on mine, I was asked to share some of my thoughts and ideas. To give people even more chance to have a look at what I have done, I have decided to post it. I trust that anyone who does view it will not ’steal’ my ideas, instead use what I have done as inspiration to build their own masterpiece.

So please feel free to have a look at what I have done by clicking on the ‘Interview Portfolio‘ link above. And please, leave me a comment. I would love to know what you think, what you like, what you don’t, and any suggestions you could give me to improve what I have done so far.