The School Corridor Tatler

Crafting a relevant CV is hard work. You will have to spend hours brainstorming and rewriting your CV a few times until your CV is a crisp, accurate profile of your knowledge and skills sets for the jobs you want.   I have seen many poor CVs of teachers who apply for Senior Management positions at schools. Many of these CVs reflect that not much thought was given to the relevance and the impact of the CV, especially in the area where the applicant has to demonstrate his (her) knowledge and experience in relation to the job requirements. Most of the applicants fill their CVs with fancy words and lists of experiences that are meaningless for the specific job. In short, there is more fluff than substance.   Elements of a good CV Your CV is your sales pitch. It is your ‘voice’ that will engage with the Selection committee who will decide if you are worthy of that sought after interview. Your CV should be job specific. Tailor your CV to match the job requir...

SMT of Prince George Primary School SMT of Prince George Primary deep in discussion Teaching has always been challenging. In this fast- changing world, teachers are expected to lead the their children to become well- balanced, critical problem solvers who can live and work harmoniously with their communities of family, friends, fellow colleagues - everybody! How tall an order is this? There is often some glib talking about the higher order thinking we want our children to master and the need for teachers to develop these cognitive skills of the learners. As if thinking is automatic, as if all teachers themselves have the capacity to teach the new content and the new thinking skills without the necessary training and support. it is one thing knowing say, certain content and making sense of it for yourself. But, having to mediate that same content and having to teach children the various skills to master the same, you need a basket of strategies and a solid understanding of the pedagog...

Calling all Heads on a Saturday morning... Why would we invite our school principals to a breakfast to hand over certificates of appreciation? Why not just have those ‘forever’ meetings with a ‘draft’ agenda entitled “Affirming our Heads” as per normal and then crack your brain thinking up ways to create ambience to keep everyone awake, long enough to walk the aisle to collect the certificate? Finding creative ways to honour School Heads The start of the certificate ceremony Don’t get me wrong – there is a dire need for such meetings or occasions to engage our Heads of school and we MUST have them. Even run the risk of seeing those droopy heads and getting those stolid looks sending telepathic messages of: ‘ would an e-mail not have served the same purpose?’  However, there are those opportunities to do something differently. We can find spaces and time to show our Heads that we appreciate them and their uneviable mission. In fact, we are humbled by their oft superhuman strength of...

Ordinary teachers do extraordinary things at CAPS Orientation Sessions: Viva to our Heroes! I know the IP CAPS Training or Orientation Session is geared towards teachers because all teachers must be ready to teach the CAPS syllabus by 2013.  We flooded the teacher fraternity with reminders of the 'invitation' to attend the sessions. Yet, strangely, this flurry of activity excluded to a large extent the very leaders - the school principals and district officials - who have the responsibility to build on the foundation laid by the CAPS orientation sessions. Let me explain my soul-searching journey that is causing me to interrogate my role in our changing education landscape... I was part of the CAPS 3-day Teachers’ Orientation Programme for Intermediate Phase hosted at Muizenberg Junior School. There were about 250 attendees who attended presentations facilitated by 24 Lead Teachers, the colleagues of these teachers. The Lead Teachers who facilitated the CAPS Orientation ...