What to include in your teacher training application
Chris Powell has 12 years teaching experience and is a professional mentor and ITT lead for a teaching school alliance. He’s shared his top tips for completing the application for Initial Teacher Training.
You’ve decided which route suits you best and you know where you want to apply: it’s now time to complete the application for Initial Teacher Training. As with any application form, it can be useful to get some advice on what to include, so here are some useful tips:
1. Work/school experience
You will be asked to complete a section, similar to a CV, in which you outline any school or work experience you have. Ideally (although it’s not mandatory) you will have spent some time observing lessons in a school or have some experience of working with young people that you can list here. At this point you only need to give a brief outline of your experience. For example:
“I spent three days observing English lessons in Estrick High School across all key stages, delivered by a number of different teachers.”
If you have no school experience, simply list your previous jobs and, as with any CV, make sure there are no unexplained gaps in your employment history.
2. The personal statement
It may seem like a long time since you last wrote a personal statement for UCAS, but the same ideas apply. You’re limited to 4,000 characters split across 47 lines, so you have to be concise!
Although not compulsory, providers are keen to see evidence of school experience visits that you are able to comment on. A good teacher is a reflective practitioner, and we look for this in the application. How did your time in school confirm to you that you wanted to go into teaching? What did the best lessons you observed all have in common? How do teachers enthuse and motivate young people into studying your subject? Try to also show a little knowledge of the curriculum and current issues in your subject/age phase.
What should be abundantly clear in your personal statement is why you want to teach. Emphasise the passion you have for your subject/age range and why you want to work with young people. Don’t forget to also highlight any transferable skills you have and how they will make you a good teacher. For example, presenting new information clearly, meeting deadlines, teamwork skills and, perhaps most importantly, patience! Mention any volunteer work you’ve done or any other setting in which you’ve worked with young people.
As with any application, the spelling and grammar (or SpaG as it’s often known in schools) needs to be of the highest standard. It goes without saying that if you’re going to be teaching young people and correcting their SpaG, yours needs to be very good too!
3. Referees
Choose your referees carefully. They will need to respond promptly, as UCAS won’t release your application until both references have come through.
If you’re currently at university or gained your degree in the last five years, one of you referees should be from someone at your university who can comment on your academic ability. Your second should be from someone who knows you as a colleague or anyone who can comment on your character — it can’t be a friend or family member though.
If you gained your degree over five years ago, you can still use a referee from your time at university but can also choose to use two professional referees who can comment on your suitability for teaching instead.
Good luck with your application! Don’t forget, you can register with Get Into Teaching to get help and support from your very own Teacher Training Adviser.
