How we recruited more than 25 teachers in lockdown

Sometimes schools and academies need to recruit a lot staff quickly.

A new leader can spark a shift in personnel, for example, and Ofsted reports, good or bad, can often cause a bit of a staffroom reshuffle.

In the case of Ambitions Academies Trust, the influx was the result of the trust’s schools expanding. The recruitment process was in full swing until the Covid-19 school closures threw a spanner in the works.

“We had everything ready to go, including proposed dates when people would be invited and a list of who would be involved in the process,” explains Jon Webb, Ambitions’ director of secondary education. “And then the announcement about closures came.

“At first we had our attention diverted towards getting the school ready; rolling out remote learning, and supporting vulnerable pupils and the children of critical workers.”  

Coronavirus: Teacher recruitment in lockdown

Once the shift to remote learning was complete, Webb and the trust were able to refocus on the task of recruiting multiple teachers without the use of a school campus - including, in one instance, an entire senior leadership team.

“We met and thought about what we could do and what we couldn’t,” he says. “We accepted that some things were beyond our control.

“Under normal circumstances, as a candidate you would arrive at the school and have a brief meeting with the principal. Then you’d have a school tour, a lesson that you would teach, a pupil panel and, depending on the role, you might have a data exercise or a prioritising task which would then feed into the main interview.”

This process would last an entire day, if not two. With candidates now unable to come to the school, it was time for a rethink.

“With the best will in the world, having someone sat at a laptop for hour after hour just isn’t realistic,” Webb explains. “We put forward some proposals, and realised that there were a lot of tasks that we could still deliver on.”

Tackling the tech

Recruitment was moved online and candidates were taken through a series of tasks via Microsoft Teams and an online interview. But the process wasn’t without its teething problems.

“We would have a pre-meeting and then, through no fault of their own, the internal candidate would click to join the meeting. A couple of times you would be mid-sentence and suddenly the candidate’s face pops up.”

As well as adding additional levels of sign in for staff with school email addresses, there were other elements that were refined as time went on.

“We made the decision that we would switch our cameras off except for the person who was asking the question,” says Webb.

“This meant that interview panellists were not falling over themselves or interrupting each other. I was grateful when Microsoft Teams introduced their ‘hands up’ button.

“We also made it clear to the candidate that there would inevitably be some technical issues. It’s trying to alleviate any nerves like you would in a normal interview situation.”

A new-look interview lesson  

While the interview lesson in the traditional sense was not possible, this hurdle wasn’t seen as insurmountable by Webb and his team. In fact, on closer analysis, this part of the process seemed to hold less and less importance.

“I’ve taught interview lessons myself and I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of a relationship that a teacher builds up with a pupil, and that is very hard to do during an interview lesson,” says Webb.

Instead of teaching a lesson, candidates were asked to present a plan based on a given lesson objective. They would be asked to explain how the lesson would run and how it would fit into a wider scheme of work.

“We then altered our interview questions so they were more focused around teaching and learning, especially for our subject teachers, and we encouraged teachers to be reflective practitioners and share with the panel what their strengths and areas for development are.”

For leadership positions, tasks would vary based on the position but would all be emailed out during the course of the day, limiting the candidate’s preparation time.

“We wanted to make it pacey and accountable, putting the candidates under a bit of pressure to see how they’d respond to the situation in a remote perspective,” he explains.

Implementing an ‘informal filter’

With so many positions to fill, Webb and his team gave candidates the option to speak with the trust before submitting an application. According to Webb, this served as a sort of “informal filter”, helping to narrow down the field.

“It gives candidates a chance to get a sense of the sort of person they might be working for, the culture that they’re buying into, and the aspirations of the school,” he explains.

“That’s particularly important when you’re recruiting for senior positions and I think it really does help on both sides for those involved to say, ‘Actually, this is a waste of time.’”

Despite this new-look process, Webb doesn’t think the trust has had to cut any corners when it comes to candidate quality.

“I don’t look back on the appointments we’ve made over the last three months and think, ‘Well, I’m not too sure about that person,’” he says.

“I know from talking to them, and the extensive notes that we’ve made, exactly what the strengths of that person are, what they might need support with and where they want to go professionally.

Jon Webb is director of secondary education at Ambitions Academies Trust