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Before embarking on my PGCE I volunteered for a term as a temporary teaching assistant in a primary school, working with a pupil with SEN. My role involved.
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16 Station Road, City AB1 2CC Mobile: 07777 888 999 Email: jsmith1@email.co.uk Teacher Registration No:
Teamwork and relationship building My ability to foster good relationships with other staff, pupils, parents and carers has been noted by my placement mentors. I enjoy collaborating with colleagues to develop resources co- operatively and to share ideas and specialist knowledge, taking the lead on projects such as the well-received Environmental Week during my final placement.
Planning and organisation I have considerable experience of successfully organising activities and using detailed planning in my teaching, in my voluntary committee work and as district organiser for Watch. Achieved Excellent for this area within my final placement assessment.
Communication My time spent in schools and with Watch has shown that I can successfully communicate with, and relate to, a wide age and ability range. Through my undergraduate degree and PGCE, I have developed high- level written and presentational skills, achieving consistently high grades and great feedback. I enjoy using a wide range of science communication tools including real world learning, video, lab work and visits to engage students and increase their understanding of key concepts
Commitment to continuous improvement and innovation I am proactive in my professional development and have undertaken a number of additional CPD opportunities, such as attending The Big Nature Study conference. I used ideas gained to devise creative new resources and to reflect on practice. I have a passion and enthusiasm for my subject area and am a member of the Royal Society of Biology.
Inclusive practice I set high standards for myself and all pupils and always aim to understand the needs of the entire class – on placement I have worked with pupils with SEN, the highly able, and students with EAL and have received good feedback on my abilities to differentiate my lessons and my use of assessment to check progress.
Information communications technology I have a good knowledge of a range of Microsoft applications, including Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Photoshop, which helps me to produce creative teaching resources.
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
2018 - 2019 PGCE Secondary Biology (Distinction) City University
2015 - 2018 BSc (Hons) Biology 2.1 City University
Your statement should be tailored to the particular role and school you are applying for. Mention any specific reasons you are keen to work there, any key points, e.g. their ethos, and show how you also share their vision. Using the introductory paragraph to set a ‘tailored tone’ is a great start. Show you’re not just applying for any job – you are keen on their vacancy in particular and you are a good fit for them.
Mentioning specific strategies you have used makes your points more meaningful.
Mention any gradings received so far.
Give a short overview of your teaching experience to date, year groups worked in, types of schools if relevant. You could also talk about how a particular placement was especially relevant for this application and why.
I am writing to apply for the Year 3 classroom teacher position at your school. On my visit today I was made to feel very welcome within a warm, caring and inspiring environment. It was lovely to have the opportunity to share the learning that was taking place, and the creativity in the curriculum was really evident through the abundance of classroom displays. Your school evidently promotes an environment where children and staff work together to produce engaging learning and I would love to be a part of this team. It is very important to me to enthuse children and celebrate their achievements. I noted your emphasis on helping children to be ‘Happy - Respectful - Kind - Responsible - Proud – Resilient’ and I am very excited about this opportunity to become part of such a positive, fun, learning environment.
On my PGCE, I have taught primarily across KS2 (in a Year 3 class and a Year 5 class) but I have also delivered a block of lessons in KS1 and phonics in FS & KS1. This has enabled me to gain a good understanding of the whole school and progression through year groups. At this stage I have met all of the teaching standards to a Good or Outstanding level. My organised planning, patient behaviour management and flexibility have been highlighted as my core strengths and I am eager to develop and improve my practice at every opportunity. I am obtaining positive feedback from mentors and aspire to be ‘Outstanding’ throughout my teaching practice.
As a result of my PGCE, I now have an excellent working knowledge of the new National Curriculum and planning new schemes of work. I have good skills in assessment and monitoring, marking work and providing feedback to children, using summative and formative assessment to inform my teaching, differentiating activities and personalising learning, and liaising with parents on a daily basis. During lessons I ensure that my plans contain activities which cater for all learning styles. This includes making learning very visual for EAL children and allowing higher ability children to investigate topics in greater depth and with greater autonomy. I believe in children taking the lead as much as possible in their learning and I actively promote discovery learning and challenging investigations. I often use strategies such as talk partners and group activities to promote children’s confidence and to create a safe learning environment in which to experiment.
On my first placement I was responsible for taking children for intervention sessions and giving extra support to children for literacy and maths in Year 3. I really enjoyed offering the children learning opportunities to build their confidence and understanding of these subjects and I used assessment as a vital tool to structure individual learning and progression. My mentor commented that I had built up an excellent rapport with these pupils. Before embarking on my PGCE I volunteered for a term as a temporary teaching assistant in a primary school, working with a pupil with SEN. My role involved working alongside the class teacher and adapting the work to a level of understanding to which the child could access the curriculum. I was expected to keep detailed records and assessments that monitored his progress and have strong links with his parents and external agencies to support him. Through this work, I saw the impact that such interventions can have on a child’s progress, and gained valuable SEN experience.
In my second placement I developed an empathetic relationship with my class, highlighting the strengths in their work, to create a positive working environment in which the children were regularly challenged and praised for their behaviour and
2008 - 2015 City Grammar School for Girls
2019 Comprehensive School, Nottingham 11-week block practice My overall grading: Outstanding
2018 Royal City High School, Nottingham 6-week block practice
2017 New Road School (Comprehensive)
WORK EXPERIENCE
2015 - 2017 Part-time district organiser for Watch (environmental charity)
2015 - 2017 Asda , Customer service assistant
INTERESTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
REFEREES
Professor Jones Dean of Education Faculty of Education City University City AB1 2CC Tel: 01234 567 890 Email: edadmin@uni.ac.uk
Mrs Smith Head of Science Comprehensive School City Road City AB1 2CC Tel: 01234 567 890 Email: jsmith@science.school.uk
It is good to give a specific example of your behaviour management strategies. You could also show an awareness of the behaviour management policy at the school you are applying to by referring to their policy.
Give specific examples where possible.
Mention hobbies and interests that you can use in your teaching and pastoral work at a school.
End with a positive conclusion.
Concise lesson examples to address criteria from the person specification can bring your statement to life. Use the CAR methodology: Context – Action – Result to structure your examples.
Using one or two short quotes in your statement can be helpful to provide evidence of what you are saying about yourself.
work. I have high expectations and employ effective strategies for classroom management and achieve this through using such strategies as ‘Golden rules.’ I manage behaviour effectively, whilst valuing the importance of ensuring that children are happy and confident in a safe learning environment. My placement mentor noted that I “created an ordered and inclusive environment where children felt safe and happy to contribute their ideas”.
I know that for every child to succeed there must be a good relationship between staff, parents and carers, and the child involved. Parental involvement is a key element in a child’s learning, as both parents and teacher need to support the child’s learning. During my placements I invited the parents into the classroom as much as possible as this allows the child to feel supported. On placement I wrote notes in homework diaries and included samples of children’s work, as well as talking to parents in the playground to keep them updated and check on progress.
I use my enthusiasm and hobbies, such as singing, to energise my lessons, using all resources available to make creative and imaginative learning opportunities across the Curriculum. I am committed to creating innovative, engaging lessons, sometimes using familiar popular culture to help. For example, I devised a series of poetry lessons around favourite songs, such as the theme song from the film Frozen. The children were engaged from the start, learning and performing the song with different tones of voices, demonstrating how the nature of a poem can change from performance to performance. At the end of the unit, the children used the rhythm and rhyming pattern of the verse to write their own rhyming couplets. Not only did this fulfil the National Curriculum requirement for teaching contemporary poetry, the children also thoroughly enjoyed themselves and could, weeks later, use their learning from this unit in their other English and guided reading work.
I realise the importance of working as part of a team, particularly with other professionals, in my classroom. I believe that this collaborative approach to work acts in the best interests of the children and school, promoting good teaching practices that impact positively on children’s learning. As the teaching assistant in my second placement class was a very capable mathematician, I used her expertise to challenge the higher ability children further in their maths work. For example, as I taught the majority of the class how to find the area of regular shapes by counting, she taught the higher ability children how to calculate the area of compound shapes.
In my personal time, I have completed a level 1 Makaton course, which I have found highly beneficial both to communicate and to teach, and also to pass on this skill to children. I am keen to contribute to the wider life of the school and have had experience of running after-school French and music clubs, attending parents’ evenings, organising school trips and helping out at staff training days.
Once again, thank you so much for your time today. It was lovely to meet you and I look forward to discussing my application further, should I be successful in the shortlisting process.