* Can anyone tell me why it has become so fashionable for interviews to include teaching a lesson (including submitting a lesson plan)? Or why teachers, meekly acquiesce to it? Is it just a ploy to get a cheap day of supply teaching?

We don’t know the class. We might be fortunate to be given an idea of their ability as a whole - but that tells us nothing about a particular student’s ability or needs. Even if we were given such detail, we wouldn’t necessarily be able to build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect and supply their needs in a single lesson.

And what about the distraction of this “novelty” lesson on the pupil’s education? Who marks the homework set?

Don’t the letters PGCE or QTS or BEd mean anything anymore? Doesn’t being registered with the General Teaching Council count for anything?

What about teaching experience and good references? What about knowing your subject and being passionate about sharing it?

I was just wondering.