Noel Park Primary School

Pros

The only pro of working here was that it was close to my house

Cons

- Marking policy involves "marking slips" for every lesson. These include the success criteria for the week which you are required to grade from A*- C. The grades are then highlighted with a different colour depending on whether that grade is good enough. B and C are considered not good enough. Thern you have to give the child an effort grade ranging from double gold to bronze which requires a sticker on the slip and finally you have to pick out 3 spellings for them to work on. No time is ever given for them to work on those. This policy is throughout the school from year 1 up. I would be marking every day until around 1 in the morning and was still told I wasn't keeping up enough - As an NQT after 3 weeks in the job I was called into the heads office (I believe the head has changed now) and told I wasn't making the progress expected of new teachers and I had the weekend to decide if I wanted to resign. I didn't at the time so I was put on a "support plan" with 30 targets and told to have them all fixed within 2 weeks. - The children's work was regularly ripped out if their books in front of them for not being neat enough. I know that sometimes this can be appropriate but this was every day for tiny things like a slight wobble in underlining. 2 weeks into term SLT ripped every page out of every child's book in my class and made them spend 3 days copying up the work neatly. They learned nothing new during this time and were told to back date so that OFSTED wouldn't see a big gap in dates. -weekly book looks of every single book scrutinised by all SLT. - I was given no support with an extremely challenging class behaviourally. - I was subtly threatened with a bad reference if I did not quit soon. I think you'll agree this was not a good place to work. I hope things have changed since the new head started but I wouldn't count on it.