If all else fails then there’s always the plan B, to submit a place-holder reference. Just do the groundwork so you can say as much as you would for your more long-term students. An admissions tutor might look at a tiny reference and wonder what’s so terrible about the student that such huge swathes of information have been omitted. Being lazy and writing a short account based on the little amount you know is no help at all to that student. They might have more pieces of the jigsaw to help you fit together a fuller picture.ĭon’t take off that deerstalker yet! How about calling their employer, volunteer coordinator, or previous school to get some extra positive views to build up that recommendation?ĭon’t take shortcuts. Still with your detective hat on, talk to their past teachers. After all: would you want someone writing you a reference when they had only known you for three minutes?
What and where would they like to study, and why? What have they enjoyed in this subject? What do they aspire to in the future? How do they use their time outside of lessons? What would they identify as their main strengths? Not only will this help you get cracking on the reference, but it’ll reassure the student as well. Take time to chat one-to-one with the student: there’s no better source of information than right from the horse’s mouth. Panic stations! Other than drawing a crude sketch of her face with a scrawled note underneath, what can you do? OK, well, by the end of the lesson you’ve ascertained that Alice is new to the school / has transferred classes / is an undercover Ofsted inspector, and you’re somehow expected to write her reference for her UCAS application in the next couple of weeks. “Alice…? Alice? Who the fudge is Alice?” (Little joke for teachers of a certain age, there) It can be daunting trying to figure out where to start with a task like this, so sit down and read through this guide to tackling those tricky references. Obstacles can take one form or another, usually due to no fault of the student, and you want to support them and endorse them as best you can. But it’s highly likely that you’ll be called upon, at some point, to write another kind of difficult reference. And fortunately, you’re unlikely to every have to write a recommendation for someone who has been so outrageous, and that’s truly a blessing. There’s a relief to be had on the other side of the coin: as a grown-up and fully responsible, respectable (ahem) teacher, you might need to write a reference.
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