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Mainstream secondary vs special secondary

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anchovies · 29/01/2014 10:17

I had planned on applying to do my NQT year in a localish academy where I carried out my first placement. It is an "outstanding" school with excellent GCSE results and well behaved children. It is obviously highly academic and the teachers are under high pressure to maintain results.

A job has become available and my mentor and also the retired head of department (who is still heavily involved) are helping me put together my application and I feel reasonably confident that I would get the job.

This week however I spent a few days in a local special school (also rated outstanding). It is a school for complex learning difficulties with a relatively small intake (160 students in total) on average entering the school at a NC level 2. The atmosphere of the school was lovely - warm and welcoming. The students were polite and helpful, holding doors open and helping you find where you needed to be. The focus was still very much on progress but the progress of each individual rather than a blanket "everyone must be at ..."

So I finished there yesterday and was told that they are moving sites and expanding and would shortly be advertising. They take subject specialist secondary teachers and NQTs so my PGCE would be considered. I was really taken with the school and the students and am now left questioning whether the highly academic mainstream school is for me.

Another possible factor (that I know shouldn't really play a part but does) is that the head at the special school is very family orientated. You are encouraged to leave and pick your children up from school and bring them in on inset days etc (I have 3 dcs in primary). In comparison, it is very frowned upon to leave school before at least 4pm at the mainstream school - even then colleagues keep a close eye and are judgemental about the hours you spend actually in school.

Obviously this job is not even advertised yet and my only experience is having a brother with asd and support work with young people with asd so it is pretty unlikely I'd even get a job there.

Sorry this is so long, was just wondering if anyone had any opinions or insights that they could share as I am really stuck!

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eatyourveg · 29/01/2014 21:50

I would start off in the special school environment - learn the ropes and if you want to move on to ms then you will have the experience of dealing with sn issues which occur in all schools - even superselectives have pupils with sn such as aspergers, ocd etc What you learn in the ss you can transfer into any other environment, that might not be the case the other way around so much

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