University Offer Refused Due to my Spoken Communication

Here is the feedback from the lecturer who interviewed me.

I’m very happy to share a summary of positive feedback. The areas where you scored well were:

1. Understanding of Safeguarding
2. Leadership potential and career aspirations – particularly your passion for supporting young people
3. Individual presentation

You also had sufficient scores in subject knowledge and resilience.

I have also included a copy of my interview record.

application –
strengths
Part time Business lecturer (teaching 16+)
Youth group leader (up to age 12ish)
Creative and Professional writing 2:1 predict Plymouth
GCSE B/C
Excellent written personal statement – high quality of written communication, with focus on supporting disadvantaged students, success
for all etc

Application –
areas to explore at interview
Knowledge of the full breadth of the English curriculum
No A level

Interview –
subject knowledge
Discussed grammar as a subject knowledge need
Discussed strengths and limitations of knowledge against the curriculum –
strong on literary historical and social context; keen on classical literature;
has researched literature on the curriculum e.g. Lord of the Flies, Christmas
Carol, Gatsby etc. Discussed how the degree included study of literature in
order to feed into understanding of writing, and writer craft. Also strong on
genres of writing and media studies (has studied podcasting, audio-video);
has also taught debate and pitching. Also studied Multicultural Lit.
SK target – grammar; Shakespeare.
Excited to teach use of language – example of microteaching loan words
and portmanteau. Also looking forward to teaching literary classics;
Dickens and the sociocultural context.

Interview-
understanding of the current educational
policy context, including any subject-
specific curriculum developments
Has been researching KS3/4 using e.g. BBC Bitesize. Aware of multicultural
literature as a priority/debate area at the moment.

Interview –
understanding of the role of trainee
teacher/teacher in the safeguarding of
children
Discussed the importance of boundaries and roles.
Has done safeguarding course and professional boundaries course for FE
teaching; aware of policies, key procedures.

Interview –
ability to reflect on prior experience
Discussed experience of teaching nonnative speakers and students from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
Asked re. difference between lecturing and teaching in school – discussed
wanting to work with young people before they are alienated. Asked re.
shared planning and shared teaching. Asked re. how many students
teachers will be expected to teach? Suggested students may be less
independent. More of a full picture of the student e.g. through
communication with parents at school.
Capacity for reflection though losing train / focus often; understanding of
schools and reflection on what it’s like to work in a school context is less
strong

Interview –
organisation including planning and
preparation for interview
Well organised

Interview –
organisation including planning and
preparation for interview
Well organised presentation. Other tasks were not completed e.g. prior
experience form.

Interview –
communication and interpersonal style
including empathy with young people
Good oral presentation; dominated in discussion task to the detriment of
other participants. Very nervous in interview and struggled to maintain
focus on questions asked.
Clear empathy with students - discussed how to help students engage with
classical literature, with example of Christmas Carol – focus on
understanding and relating to characters, looking at different contexts, look
at social issues e.g. around Christmas and presents; making themes as
relatable as possible.

Interview –
resilience and adaptability, including an
awareness of the demands of the PGCE
route/course
Expects to find organisation and administration challenging, will need
adaptations / strategies for managing workload and writing in the moment
– discussed the adaptations and strategies currently in place for this.

Interview –
leadership potential and career aspirations
Dream job would be working in special provision, able to use passion for a
subject (e.g. English / Drama / History), enabling children to be successful.

Interview –
aptitude for teaching
There is clear intellectual capacity and desire to support young people, as
well as clear capacity to teach post-16 in current role. The issues around
communication in the group discussion and interview as well as
organisational issues (not completing documents required) and lack of
confident understanding of what teaching in school is like gives rise to concerns about aptitude for teaching in a secondary school environment.

I was only invited to interview three working days before, so was not sent accessible prior experience forms which I contacted them about 48 hours before and was given in paper form on the morning of the interview, so should not have been marked down because of that.

From their feedback there are three areas they flagged up in total:

1 - Capacity for reflection though losing train / focus often; understanding of schools and reflection on what it’s like to work in a school context is less strong

2 - Expects to find organisation and administration challenging, will need adaptations / strategies for managing workload

3 - The issues around communication in the group discussion and interview as well as organisational issues (not completing documents required) and lack of confident understanding of what teaching in school is like gives rise to concerns about aptitude for teaching in a secondary school environment.

Each of these would work against you and point 2 probably raised red flags that you are likely to be hard work for them (not a fair assessment, but I suspect what they mean).

I can only assume that they had another candidate that met more criteria than you and they got the job over you.

Sometimes the breaks don't go your way, but keep applying and working on any areas you see have room for improvement and you will get the role you dream of.

It's not a job, it's a university place and as I have ADHD I have to be honest about what support and reasonable adjustments I would need from the university. I did complete the documents as soon as they gave them to me, which I mentioned in some of my responses above, I sent them proof that I had requested access several times within one day of being invited to interview and up to the day before, their administration team did not reply to me and I was assured when speaking to them on the morning of the interview this was common and would not effect my interview. And point 1 I'm already a lecturer working with children from age 16.

I spoke to SEN legal who were super helpful. I've made a formal complaint, so will see what they say to that first. Thanks for coming back to me x

NAS88174 said:

p until final closing which was last week, there was still places available to apply for and they were still accepting applications.

That does sound like a discrimination case worth persuing then.

I'm sorry if I assumed the places were taken and that this was the reason you didn't get the place - you are clearly being discriminated against in this situation but at least they were dumb enough to put it in writing so you can now take them to task over it.

If I were in your shoes I would start with a lawyer and get them to write to the head of the faculty highlighting that a lawsuit will be made if you do not receive an offer of a place in the next week.

Again it's not the getting the QTS that's the problem, I know all of the routes available to me and chose the university route. My issue is the discrimination not being turned down. I have faced rejection my whole life, I even teach the go for no concept in some of my marketing. It's the blatant discrimination I have a problem with. The whole point of me wanting to teach us to help children that are held back due to neurotypical standards, obviously I have first had knowledge myself, my children are also ADHD AND ASD, and ADHD and Dyslexic and my step father is Asperger's, we shouldn't be teaching them just to give up when someone says we do not fit, and overlooks all the many talents we do have x

I understand your point and if they had said I fortunately there were stronger candidates and the places are taken fair enough, however they didn't they said I wasn't suitable due to my spoken communication for their particular course, and up until final closing which was last week, there was still places available to apply for and they were still accepting applications. I don't believe this is a case of dusting myself off, this is a case of someone who is strong to challenge discriminative practices. Tbh I'm not sure I would want to go there anyway now, as their reputation is clearly not good for inclusivity,however I am a single mum so have to weigh up my choices when they are limited. 

NAS88174 said:

they scored my communication as excellent

The point I was making was that we don't know if the other applicants out performed you in this and/or other areas.

There will be a number of criteria on which the candidates are selected and it is possible that while you are good, they may be better.

Sometimes it is only that - we need to dust ourselves off, work on improving and keep on trying.

Have you looked at other ways of getting QTS?  I mentioned the Society for Education and Training -

Have you looked at other ways of getting QTS?  I mentioned the Society for Education and Training -

Again it's not the getting the QTS that's the problem, I know all of the routes available to me and chose the university route. My issue is the discrimination not being turned down. I have faced rejection my whole life, I even teach the go for no concept in some of my marketing. It's the blatant discrimination I have a problem with. The whole point of me wanting to teach us to help children that are held back due to neurotypical standards, obviously I have first had knowledge myself, my children are also ADHD AND ASD, and ADHD and Dyslexic and my step father is Asperger's, we shouldn't be teaching them just to give up when someone says we do not fit, and overlooks all the many talents we do have x