I'm spitting mad.

I just got off the phone with the headteacher from the school where I interviewed last week. The one that didn't hire me.

When she'd called last week to let me know I hadn't got the job I'd asked her for some feedback about the interview, and she'd said that she'd call back when she had more leisure to chat. Which she did, and I appreciate that.

But I'm mad as hell anyway.

She said that my qualifications were excellent, that I presented very well in the interview, that I was clearly child-centred and empathic and intelligent and generally a good candidate. But. The panel had some concerns that I wouldn't be able to keep control of a class, because they'd had three or four other South African teachers leave, saying that the children here are just too rowdy and ill-disciplined compared to South African kids; and that I didn't know "the English system".

I really think it is totally and utterly unfair to tar me with the same brush as those other random South Africans. And Bobby pointed out that if the panel did have that concern, they should have voiced it during the interview and taken my response into account. Heck, maybe I wouldn't deal aswell with rowdy kids as some of the other people who interviewed - I am not an authoritarian person - but it really irks me to be judged according to my nationality rather than on my own merits.

Anyway, the head teacher asked to keep my application on file, and said that if a teaching assistant post comes up in the new year (that is one-on-one work with a particular child) she'd offer it to me.

I don't know if I'd take it, mind you.