As part of a returners course, you will be offered support on preparing your applications.
The Return to Teaching (RTT) magazine offers good advice on how to apply for jobs and improve your interview technique. To subscribe to the RTT magazine, you will need to sign up to the RTT service.
Application tips
These are some of the things headteachers might be looking for in your application:
- Commitment to returning to teach. If you have not completed a returners course, it is important to show evidence of keeping up to date with the curriculum.
- How the experience you have gained since you last taught can benefit the pupils, lesson planning, and relationships with the school.
- Your potential and ambition to go into middle-range management, especially in schools in urban areas where there are middle-management vacancies.
- Evidence of a proactive and collaborative approach to your own and your colleagues’ professional development.
- Key strengths in terms of teaching and school leadership experience, which can be demonstrated through strong references.
- A willingness to travel to a school for work, and honesty about any flexible work patterns you’re hoping for.
- Understanding of national strategies, both in terms of subject and general teaching recommendations, and information communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning.
- Subject knowledge and how you have kept up to date, with specific examples and evidence of this.
Read more about gathering evidence to support your application in Return to Teaching magazine – autumn 2006 issue.
Tips for CVs
When writing your CV, you should:
- keep it to a maximum of two pages of key information
- take into account what you say in your letter of application, and support rather than duplicate its content
- adjust content to fit the position you are applying for
- present achievements and experiences positively for what they are rather than simply listing what you have done
- be prepared to answer questions during an interview on anything that you include in your CV, but resist the temptation to exaggerate achievements. A good interview panel will soon notice that you have done so.
More information about preparing CVs is available in Return to Teaching magazine – summer 2006 edition.
Preparing for a job interview
Preparing for interviews is essential to ensure success. Return to Teaching magazine offers good advice on how to tackle interviews. Subscribe to the RTT magazine by signing up with the RTT programme.
Here are a few tips on improving your interview technique:
- First impressions count. Look well-presented and greet the interview panel with a smile.
- Reflect upon the sort of questions you might be asked and the topics on which you might need to demonstrate an opinion.
- Think and act as a teacher, a serious professional going for the job you want. Don’t perceive yourself as a newcomer, or cast yourself in your previous role, either in your last profession or as a parent.
- Find out about the school and the job for which you are applying.
- Try to give structured and concise responses.
- Show a considered viewpoint and how your knowledge and experience relates to the questions being asked. Be prepared to be challenged by interviewers and to justify your view points.
Find out more about preparing for an interview in Return to Teaching magazine – summer 2006 edition and in the summer 2005 edition.
