Highlights from The Exam Man podcast, Series 1 Episode 10
At the end of May, we chatted to Hayley, an Exams Officer working in a North London School. She told us about her unusual route into her current job and the transferable skills she was able to bring to the role from her previous experience as a Met police officer. She described her favourite aspects of being an Exams Officer and those she finds less appealing, and offered some valuable tips for those new to the role.
Could you tell us a little about the school where you work?
I work in an Inner London school. We are a faith school. There's about 1,300 students at our school, so we're not massive. We offer GCSE and A-level, so we do have a sixth form as well. We are a community school. I think as we don’t have so many students, we are maybe able to get to know students on a deeper level. So if they do have specific needs, we are a lot more focused on each student individually, and we know them all by name, which is lovely. I've been there nearly four years. I was listening to one of the ladies on a previous week who was also a COVID joiner and I am another COVID joiner. I actually went to this school as a student as well!
Presumably you had good enough experience at school there to want to go back?
I had a really lovely childhood growing up in my school. It was a happy place to be. I came in just after the first lockdown. I joined in the November time, and then the next lockdown happened around Christmas time. So I had to really quickly learn my job before everyone went home.
Had you been an Exams Officer before that, or was this your first Exams Officer role?
No, it was my first time. Funnily enough, when I interviewed I didn't actually know what the job was that I was interviewing for. So the Headteacher at the time, she found it hilarious that I'd interviewed for this job but I didn't actually know what it was! I couldn't believe that it was a full-time role. I was really confused. How can this be a full-time role? But very quickly, I learnt it is. I came in and obviously exams were cancelled, and I was panicking that I wasn't going to be needed because there were no exams in that first year, so that was a little bit of a panic. But I was lucky because the guy who was the Exams Officer before me still worked with us- he just changed roles. So luckily, I had him still at school. I always say if I hadn’t had him there, then I would have probably quit day 2, because it's such a ridiculous job that without that handover, it would have been impossible. I take my hat off to anyone that does this job without a handover.
So what were you doing before you became the Exams Officer?
Before I became the Exams Officer, I was a police officer for 15 years- I worked in an inner London borough.
I had my children, and then I left there I just realised that there was more to life than being in the police, and I found it really quite hard as a parent. My husband found it quite hard if I was going out and about at night or worrying that I wasn't going to come home. So I made the decision to leave after 15 years. Then I started up my own business, teaching mindfulness to children with anxiety. When I was younger, I suffered with anxiety myself, so I felt like I needed to do something that was for me. I did that for two years and it was really successful, but then COVID happened, and all of my work in schools stopped because obviously I couldn't go into schools anymore. So my business completely dried up, which was really sad. I still had a mortgage to pay, and I still had children to feed. I ended up seeing this job as an Exams Officer, and I thought it can't be that bad. It'll be fine! I rocked up to my interview and, like I say, I didn't have a clue what the job was. The Headteacher laughed at me but I must have impressed her somehow because she gave me the job. We did laugh thinking … who else interviewed, if she gave it to me, and I didn't know what the job was?!
So that's basically it. I've always stayed in the same sort of place. My police career was really long and then I worked for myself. I thought I was going to find it quite hard to come back from working for myself to work in a full-time school environment. But I think the role of an Exams Officer was a really good bridge for me because I find that I'm sort of stand-alone. I can do what I need to do, get on with it. And I found it was a very good step for me to come back into that sort of an environment.
I'm so interested in your background. How helpful are the things that you've done before? Being a police officer and then the work with mindfulness, how have they helped you? They sound like things that would be quite useful as an Exams Officer.
The skill set helps. I've always said that being an Exams Officer is so much more stressful than being a police officer.
You're kidding, really?
I never used to lay awake at night, stressing - have I done this, have I done that? I never had that feeling with the police. I could park it, funnily enough, and leave it at work. But with exams, you get that midnight wake up and you're like - oh no, what happens if I haven't done this? Or did I forget to lock my secure room? Did I do it? I'm not sure. So in terms of skill set, the organisation and planning- we're effectively project managers in what we do. The logic and the following an order, that's all very similar and transferable.
Attention to detail, I guess, is something that as a police officer, you've got to be very careful with, that you follow the right steps?
That's it, paperwork has got to be on point.
Also, managing behaviour issues.....
You're not allowed to shout in our school, unlike in the police force. My 'get back', 'stay away' moments are done. I can't do that no more!
It must be so tempting, though, to just tell all the children at the start of the exam, just so you know, this is what my previous role was?!
It's funny, because somehow it gets back, and I'm not one to shout about what I used to do. It does get back, and they're like, Miss, were you actually a police officer? I'm like, yeah, I was. I haven't had a straightforward career path.
And your business, as well, must have had some really interesting aspects...
I loved my mindfulness work. I still practise it for myself and it does help me. When you’ve got students coming out having a panic attack, I find that that does really help. And they turn up at my door, non-exam time – “Miss, I'm having a panic attack”. We talk through it and then we go to the medical room. It does come in handy. My office is full of positive affirmations all over my walls.
I think that's one thing that a lot of people might not know about Exams Officers, is the number of students that you see being upset and anxious. And you'll often suddenly be the only person with them to help them. That's true of invigilators as well, isn't it? So to have those skills and experience must be very, very useful.
It is. My main access arrangements room, like my smaller room, is near enough opposite my office. So during exam time, if something does happen, then I'm literally there in a second.
Do you feel that this is basically your job now for the rest of your career?
I do enjoy my exam work. It's a weird situation because you feel stressed and anxious with it, and then you get the build up and the adrenaline rush of it. Seeing it from a start to an end. I'm also an Assistant Head of Year. So I have that on the side. I'm an Assistant Head of Year 10 at the moment - 14, 15 year olds. It slots in quite nicely. So last year, I was the Assistant Head for Year 11. That was great for exams. I will follow this year group up next year and so hopefully I'll be the same as I was with them last year. It does help and it does work.
Is that an issue with workload? Do you find that difficult to manage? Because that's quite a big job, isn't it, being an Assistant Head of Year?
It can be. I'm the only pastoral non-teaching staff member. The rest of the Assistant Heads are all teachers as well. So a lot of the time for my year, they will turn up at my door because I am “free” as such - I'm not teaching a lesson. Obviously the work regarding attendance is massive for Assistant Head of Year and it takes a lot of time. If a student turns up at the medical room from my year group, that obviously takes time as well.
As Assistant Head of Year 11, how did you find the relationship with the students? Was that a big benefit to you when it came to running the exams? Can you just explain a bit about that?
Massively. There's probably just over or just under 200 students in the year group. And because I don't teach them, I don't have that time that teachers do to learn about them individually - learning their names and their needs. So I do find it really hard. But with last year, we had mocks in January, and by then I knew exactly who the children were that were going to be in my smaller rooms. I knew the ones I needed to look out for. I could put names to faces a lot more easily; looking at timetables, who's in which form group. So it did really help. By the time January was out the way, I had a much better relationship with them because I was seeing them more. They were coming to me a lot more. So last year, I did find with it being an exam year group, it did help.
Hayley, can you tell us what are your favourite aspects of the job? What do you really enjoy doing as an Exams Officer?
The 4.30am get ups during exam season is definitely not one of them! I live an hour away from work, so I have to get up extra early. But it’s the structure. You know in September what you're going to do in September, and then in December, you know what you need to do in December. So the structure of the exam year cycle - it's quite comforting to know that once you get going, you know what you should be doing and when you're doing it. And in a way, it makes the year go a bit quicker, if you know what you're doing and when you're doing it.
With mock exams, I'm responsible for building the timetable. So the jigsaw puzzle of trying to build a mock timetable, and then the satisfaction when you've done it and it works, and you've got no clashes. Things like that are brilliant. And seeing the kids from the first time they come to me when they're immature year 10 students, and they leave you, most of them, as adults in year 13. You watch them grow from these young people into adults that can drive a car, and go out and have their first legal drink because they're an adult, to celebrate the end of their exams.
One of my most unpopular opinions is that I think students really grow by doing exams. I've watched them through that five, six-week exam period, and you see Year 11 students, some of whom may have been mucking about for a couple of years, and all of a sudden you see them turning into adults, almost overnight. It's quite remarkable isn't it?
It is. It's amazing. They turn up at your exam room as a 14-year-old, and their behaviour's not the best. And then you iron out those creases, and you get them to mocks in year 11, and they're a little bit better. And then you get to results day, and you know what these kids need to get on to their next stage of life, and you know that they need three Bs to go to the university they want, or whatever. And on the day before release day, you see that they've got it, and it's just such an amazing feeling to know you've been part of that. You're part of their journey in a small way.
So obviously the early starts aren't great. Is there anything else that gets your goat a little bit?
In terms of like least favourite things, I suppose the sheer amount of information, as Exams Officers, that we have to remember. Plus the worry of what happens if you get it wrong or you make a mistake which is a massive financial problem to a school or detrimental to that student's career going forward. And there's so many people that work in a school that don't know the pressure that we're under and don't understand the job. They say 'it's your busy time now' - it's always my busy time. I don’t sit here really, really quiet, doing nothing for the rest of the year! That's a peeve. And maybe the fact that we're not paid to reflect our responsibility - I think we would all probably agree with that.
I saw a post today on Facebook, from someone saying that they had just taken the job on today. So I was going to ask you, Hayley, what your top two or three bits of advice for a new Exams Officer might be?
I wish them the best of luck to take this job on at this time of year. They deserve a medal, honestly. Obviously join our Facebook group for exams, that's vital for any exam job. There's always so many things on there, and there's always someone that will know the answer or that will point you in the right direction. So definitely join that group. The other thing that I've found really helpful is that I attend a local networking event for Exams Officers in our borough. I find that does really help, because it's always good to find the people that do your job locally, make those connections. We get emails regularly asking, for example, for speaking examiners, or if someone cancels, there's always things like that.
Definitely invest in your Examscreen as well, John, because Examscreen has saved my life for exams. There's a plug for Examscreen!
I'd like to point out that we did not pay Hayley to say that!
No, no, honestly, for the money that costs, it was the best 25 quid I could have told my school to buy.
£45 now!
Even so, £45 a month would be good. When I had my JCQ inspection last year, they were very impressed with Examscreen. I think the other thing is just to make sure you stock up on good biscuits and snacks, because during exam season you're not always going to get to sit down and eat. I see exam time as my diet plan, because I move more and I eat less!
Yeah, how many steps a day are you on, Hayley, during exams?
During exams, bearing in mind I do no steps at other times! I'm probably up to about 15,000 on an exam day, which is nothing compared to people in the exam group that I've seen. I worry I'm doing something wrong. I never win that game of how many steps!
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