There was a moratorium on Posts of Responsibility for almost a decade and in 2018, they came back, albeit in a reduced form. If your school was lucky enough to get some extra posts, here are some ideas of the types of questions you might be asked. Before I list them, please be aware that all schools are very different and there is no definitive answer to these questions in reality.
Assistant Principals are no longer named Posts of Responsibility because they are now leadership positions rather than having a few extra responsibilities tagged on to your teaching role. It means you will probably be given responsibility for some aspect of leadership in the school and this will differ from school to school. It is likely you will be asked about your own leadership skills, any leadership training you may have done, or anything around your understanding of the concept of leadership in general.
Of course, before they launch into these sorts of questions, there is the matter of your opening statement. Usually the first question will be something along the lines of giving the panel some sort of update on where you are at in your career. It’s a little more than the “tell me about yourself;” it’s more of a what have you been doing since you started here type of question.
Back to the leadership questions, you might also be asked what kind of leader you think you are or how have you shown leadership in the past in the school or a previous career.
You’ll likely be asked about conflict and how you deal with it, and, you’ll likely be asked how you would react if you weren’t successful in the interview.
Depending on the advertisement, you might be asked specific items around the post. Say for example, part of the post advertised was responsibility for leading sports after school, it would be a good idea to have something prepared around a question in this area. Essentially, you need to study the post and what it entails and be prepared to answer a question about any aspect of the post.
Finally, you may be asked questions about relationships with other staff – how can you get people to do things, for example. How will your relationship change with colleagues if you got the post? is another common question.
I hope this gives somewhat of an idea of the types of questions you’ll be asked.
Last Update: March 28, 2018