I’m

GooberTheShit!

Had an interview today, was a perfect fit for the job. I was just a bit shit on the day. Very frustrating, but happy enough where I am so no big loss.

I assume commiserations are in order for SG? Hopefully the zoom shit won’t be for too much longer if that’s the limiting factor.

The Daddy wrote:

I assume commiserations are in order for SG? Hopefully the zoom shit won’t be for too much longer if that’s the limiting factor.

It's fine, but motivation is even harder when it's a person in a window on a screen. It'd probably help if I didn't have Slay the Spire open and stopped drinking coffee during the interview.

poprock wrote:

At least on Zoom the interviewers can’t judge you for scruffy shoes.

Shit, I knew I should’ve worn better shoes.

One of my old pals is recruiting for a coder for his firm just now - high-end engineering tech, and he wants someone with a handle on machine learning. Any use? He’s a coder himself, so he should be a boss who at least understands.

Aye. I’ll see if I can find you a link.

Clusters don’t tend to be hard like that, more based on goodwill.

To give you an example, my school was in a local educational partnership, which had a memorandum of understanding in place to work collaboratively where possible and to help each other in times of need.

That could take the form of collective negotiations or tendering for something like a catering contract - where the price would reflect that maybe 7 schools are buying, as opposed to 1 or 2. Traditionally they would have separate budgets and you’d expect the contact to be signed by each school.

Nowadays, you’ll find fewer and fewer clusters, and more Multi-Academy Trusts (or MATs). Those fall under a single financial authority. They’ll have local budgets, but the money is coming in from the umbrella of the Trust. You could do a single contract in that structure.

I hope that helps, but let me know if you have any other questions.

Ps. I’m not a teacher, I’m a Chair of Governors.

Thanks guys.

So … clusters/partnerships and the more recent MAT structures tend to be about combining purchasing power, rather than about sharing resources and/or staff?

Does that feel about right?

Gotcha, that all makes sense.

Syph79 wrote:

You could get an Executive Principal or Head operating across two schools, for example.

Every heard of that actually happening? And if so, any idea of how it went down with the normal staff - like a lead balloon, or welcomed as helpful?

We don't have clusters like that in Edinburgh. We do in that we have catchment schools for secondaries but I've not heard of what you're describing before.

Give 'em the Gav drop

BAH GARRAH ITS GAV FROM THE TOP ROPE

OH MY GOD! HE JUST GAVE HIM THE PEOPLE'S PORTER!