sharing data with candidates – ELT Planning

On this put up, I’ll present an instance of the data we share with candidates for our EAL roles. I’ll begin with the instance, then I’ll define:

• Why I made a decision to share this data as a division
• How and when that is shared
• The influence I imagine that sharing this data has on the recruitment course of.

So, right here it goes…

This can be a copy-paste of the data we shared with candidates for position LAST yr. You will discover most of this data dotted round my weblog anyway. Skip to the top of this put up for my rationale:

EAL Assist Instructor: Info for candidates

Thanks in your curiosity in becoming a member of our division. Additional to the data in our job description, we wish to give you some additional context about Excessive Faculty EAL at St. Joseph’s. 

Our division

The Excessive Faculty EAL Division was formally established firstly of the 2023/24 educational yr. High quality assist for EAL learners has all the time been supplied at our college, sometimes by the English division. Nevertheless, elevated enrolment of learners with rising and creating English proficiency lately has resulted in the necessity to broaden our EAL provision. 

Our division has 4 full-time members of workers: a Head of EAL, EAL Instructor, and two EAL Assist Lecturers. There are roughly XXX learners on our Highschool EAL register throughout Years 7-11, with a majority of these learners in Key Stage 3.

The construction of our provision

We use a hybrid mannequin of EAL assist, offering in-class assist throughout mainstream courses together with some pull-out provision. 

Our KS3 EAL learners attend English assist classes instead of mainstream English. They attend six classes per week and observe a bespoke curriculum. Our EAL curriculum aligns with themes throughout the mainstream curriculum, together with from KS3 English, on the applicable grade degree. 

Throughout English assist classes, our learners additionally evaluate subject-specific content material and vocabulary. We prioritize reviewing content material from core topics akin to Science and Humanities, though we embody critiques for different topic content material the place attainable. English assist classes are delivered by EAL Lecturers (together with the Head of EAL).

Along with English assist classes, we offer in-class EAL assist for learners throughout mainstream curriculum classes. In-class assist is generally supplied by our EAL Assist Lecturers. Assist Lecturers assist to construct their very own timetable for in-class assist primarily based on learner wants evaluation. This timetable is versatile, responding to the emergent wants of our EAL cohort. 

Sometimes, learners may have extra research expertise classes as soon as every week. These classes are overseen by the EAL Assist Lecturers.   

Evaluation for EAL

The EAL Division makes use of the Bell Evaluation Framework for ongoing evaluation. You will discover out extra about this framework for Secondary EAL provision right here.

Evaluation primarily based on CEFR ranges is used in the course of the admissions course of and sometimes for periodic evaluation. The EAL division creates their very own assessments to ensure that these to raised go well with our context.

Instructing and studying foci for our division

There are 9 key educating and studying foci for the EAL Division. These areas of focus information our follow. They’re:

Members of the EAL Division share the objective of enacting these areas of focus in our day-to-day provision.

Planning for development

Our EAL Division is at the moment in the course of a two-year growth cycle. Our present division targets are the next:

Our targets:

Clear development alongside the EAL journey

1. Turn out to be extra concerned within the preliminary evaluation of EAL arrivals at admissions stage
2. Clearer induction processes for brand new joiners
3. Clear information maintaining for EAL learners
4. Clear exit EAL procedures
5. Assist with transition to mainstream English 

Embedding clear evaluation processes for EAL inside the Excessive Faculty. 

1. Embedding use of the Bell Evaluation Framework by EAL specialists
2. An method to frequent assessments that’s sustainable and reusable
3. Creating clear end-of-term reporting procedures 

Embedding EAL assist inside the mainstream curriculum.

1. Getting EAL assist workers into courses primarily based on assessed wants
2. Usually evaluate learner wants and priorities, making adjustments to timetables as wanted

Connecting topic depts with EAL lecturers

1. Constructing efficient channels of communication between EAL instructor and topic lecturers which inform the EAL curriculum
2. Discovering methods to share EAL assist methods with topic departments

Making a sustainable mannequin of provision for EAL at Years 7-9

1. Creating an in-house curriculum that’s principally reusable, whereas reacting and adapting to quick wants
2. Connecting the curriculum to a few core topic areas: (Mainstream) English, Science, Humanities. Unit planning taking a CLIL method
3. Provision for an after-school programme for learners to fulfill baseline degree B1

These targets align with the entire college objective of embedding high quality EAL provision, as outlined in our Faculty Growth Plan. Members of the EAL division work collectively to assist attain these targets. As a part of the skilled growth cycle, division members establish actions to undertake which can contribute to a number of of those targets. 

We’re making strong progress in direction of these targets throughout our first yr. We hope so as to add additional targets for the 2024/25 educational yr. 

Why be part of SJII as an EAL Assist Instructor?

It’s a actually thrilling time to affix our EAL Division. We’re a division firmly dedicated to reflective follow, skilled growth, and placing learner wants first. You’ll have loads of alternatives to contribute to the development of our new division and assist us attain our targets. We’re certain you will discover this vastly rewarding.

END

Some background data…

Why did I determine to share this data?

So, a number of years in the past I used to be making use of for tons of EAL jobs. St Joseph’s stood out to me for a way clear the leaders had been about their present EAL provision. My interview was with the Head of Faculty and Assistant Principal for Instructing and Studying. They had been tremendous sincere about the place issues had been at with EAL assist, and the place they needed it to be. They appeared engaged in my tackle issues, and requested targeted questions relating to the precise sort of provision and the way I would develop this.

I felt that they modelled honesty and integrity nicely, and I feel it set them aside. So, after I joined the varsity, I needed to copy that. Certain, I needed us to recruit good candidates, however I didn’t wish to pomp issues up with all of the smoke and mirrors that worldwide college recruitment can achieve this nicely at occasions! I needed to:

• share the information
• make it clear that we had targets for our growth, and we needed collaborators!
• Make it clear that we had been engaged in our educating follow, and we needed our candidates to be too!

So, the objective was honesty (and I really feel the above data was sincere), and engagement.

Maintain up – so its not a regular factor for faculties to share data like this with candidates?

Effectively, primarily based on my experiences of job looking a number of years again, and once more this yr, no. Removed from it, truly. And it actually needs to be. I used to get plenty of generic data, however I’d say what we share is rather more targeted than issues I’ve obtained prior to now.

How and when was our data shared?

We shared this after shortlisting, in preparation for the interview stage. Within the invitation to interview, I shared this data and knowledgeable candidates that I might ask them what they considered our T+L foci, and the way they could contribute to our division targets. No excuse to not learn the factor, actually! Ha.

Have been senior leaders pleased with me sharing this data?

Sure. I ran this by the Head of Faculty, explaining why I felt it was necessary to be clear on our provision and objectives previous to interview. The Head of Faculty welcomed it.

Why share data like this previous to interview? What was the influence?

That is clearly subjective, however…

• I felt the doc was at the beginning a fantastic ‘teller’ at interviews. It grew to become fairly simple to work out ranges of engagement amongst candidates in each the follow of educating EAL, and in contributing to the dept.
• It laid our playing cards on the desk. From there, we might work out who’s prone to be on board with constructing provision, slightly than feeling like they’ll simply consolidate what’s in place (each sort of practitioners are legitimate at completely different levels of the dept growth, for certain)
• The information was a springboard to extra targeted dialogue with some candidates about methodology, approaches, transient debates even! Pretty.
• It made for higher candidate questions. I imply, they’ve bought lots to ask about from that doc.

Can I say that this doc DEFINITELY contributed not directly to our strong recruitment final yr? No! However I can let you know that the candidates we employed had been *wonderful*. I’ll ask them how they felt about receiving this data – replace to observe!

So, TL;DR, offering targeted data in your EAL provision to job candidates is beneficial (obvs), in order that’s what we do!

Classes: Normal, reflections

Tags: eal, training, hiring, worldwide college, studying, studying, recruitment, lecturers, educating