Heads may be increasingly desperate to fill posts, but teachers know that climbing the promotion ladder is not easy. And it’s getting more difficult as new obstacles get in the way of hopeful applicants - such as the list of desirable criteria usually included in the mass of paperwork known as “further details”. One such list for a senior management post recently requested as its last point, “Evidence of life beyond school”.
How should candidates address this when the pitfalls are so obvious? No one in their right mind admits to one of the seven deadly sins unless, of course, the question is designed to test honesty, in which case an admission of lust or gluttony might give you an advantage.
I drifted on to the question again one Saturday evening, my mind wandering from the director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso. I was also giving serious thought as to whether or not I should pour another beer. Weighty matters, indeed, for as many Year 9 pupils fresh from studying Macbeth will know, drink can provoke desire but take away performance. It was a question of finding the balance, weighing up how another beer would affect any, as yet hypothetical, performance I might be called upon to give later that evening, or how it might detract from my efforts in a 10km race I was to run the next morning.
I poured another beer, produced an ego-satisfying performance and achieved my fastest-ever finishing time. I’m not prepared to say which was which.
But those application forms would not go away, and the list of desirable criteria had to be addressed. Usually, when filling in forms I adopt a Stanislavski-type pose, method-acting for all I’m worth as the committed professional, the 247 man always giving 110 per cent. But I realised another approach was called for, a suggestion that beneath the suit beats a human heart, and as the wanton Antony declares of his soulless rival: “tis paltry to be Caesar”. So armed with the conviction that the world is our classroom and that our pupils need role models with rich and varied interests, I decided the time was ripe for me to reveal that I am, in fact, Renaissance man.
Consider my poetry, where I am carving out a reputation as an amalgam of Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and, with a nod to my Cumbrian roots, William Wordsworth, producing work that is witty, trenchant and derivative. Or my burgeoning talent at watercolours, drawing from my tutor the admiring comment: “This is watercolour and you’re just using colour. Get some water on your brush!”
Mention also my standing in sports circles, still gracing the field of dreams although playing from memory and a developed skill that keeps me on the blind side of referees.
It was with some satisfaction that I looked at those forms again. Could I provide some evidence of life beyond school? I did just that. I filled in the application, posted it off and waitedI and waited.
John Clarke John Clarke is head of English at Balby Carr school, Doncaster. His poetry collection, After the Storm, is due out in the summer. Visit his poetry website at http:poetryjic.tripod.com
