If they ask you about equal opportunities, which they will, "maybe tell them about how the boys were always hogging the computer in your classroom, so you made out a timetable to give everyone a fair turn".Elizabeth Holt, the author of The Newly Qualified Teacher's Handbook, also suggests making sure you know what the interview day is going to include – will you be asked to teach a lesson or be given lunch with the other applicants? – and taking along a portfolio of lesson plans, or pictures of work displays you have done, "anything, really, that shows you are fully engaged in your professional development, because that's what they'll be looking for".As agony aunt for the teaching website eteach , she gets "lots and lots" of e-mails all about getting a job. "I think the training institutions are too busy getting through other things at this time of year to be able to focus on this." But, she says, it's not surprising people feel anxious since a teacher's induction year is a vital investment in their whole career. And it's clear, she says, that some schools do it much better than others. So be sure to find out what support there will be for you, whether you'll be on your own or with other NQTs, and whether you'll be expected to take on roles such as being a form tutor.The lucky candidate may well be offered the job on the spot, says Sara Bubb, which can take some people by surprise But you don't have to answer there and then. It is perfectly OK to say you want to sleep on it, or that you'll take it subject to a satisfactory job contract being offered.

"You don't want to grab at it, then find you're being paid at the bottom of the scale, or that it's only a temporary contract, or anything else that you hadn't expected.""And think about your gut reactions," says Elizabeth Holt. "If you think, 'The place is a dump, but the people are lovely', ask yourself how that's going to make you feel if you actually go and work there. Stand in the car park and ask if you can imagine yourself driving in there every morning. Because teaching isn't just a brain thing, it's a physically and emotionally demanding job as well.". Having taken the trouble to commission a report from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education on the effectiveness of its literacy and numeracy strategy, the Government should have spent more time considering its findings before rushing into a response. The research suggests that the setting of ever more ambitious targets for 11-year-olds' national-curriculum test results is in danger of alienating teachers, who will see them as unattainable It is quite right. Having failed to meet the target of 80 per cent reaching the required standard in English this year, and 75 per cent in maths, the Government immediately reaffirmed it was sticking to its prearranged targets of 85 per cent in both subjects for 2004.

It would have been far more sensible to determine the next target once it had seen how much progress had been made towards the first. It is not all gloom and doom in the classroom, as the headlines would have us believe. Many teachers enjoy their work, finding it rewarding and interesting and certainly not boring. The latest figures from the Department for Education and Skills show that 22,000 new teachers gain Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) each year, and that the number is rising. So what do these Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) go through in their first few months of teaching? Do they feel that they've joined a circus and are walking the tightrope? Or are they the ring masters? Three NQTS talk about their work. She and her classroom at the Oratory Primary School in Kensington, central London, are immaculate, even trendy.

There's an abstract rug, and jazz plays softly in the corner. You have no sense that you are in a primary school until her tribe of five- and six-year-olds bursts through the door with enough energy to power the National Grid.It's the children's vigour, she says, that gets her through the day. "I just feed off the energy levels of the kids," she explains. "If I'm feeling tired, the children will give me that extra lift.