Primary Teaching Interview Preparation Guide

While teaching assistants don't make the lessons, they do provide invaluable help to prepare them, and a successful candidate for an assistant teaching job is one interested in the role of a teacher and prepared to support them 100%.

You may reflect on a teacher you liked at school, university, or have worked with in the classroom. Analyse what qualities made them successful, such as enthusiasm, pace, resilience, subject knowledge, a range of teaching methods, an ability to hold the attention of the class, empathy, and encouraging children to think rather than being told.

The role of teachers is becoming very challenging these days. Especially with both parents working and the time they spend with the children for their studies is drastically coming down. Also the expectations of the parents on their children both in studies and extra-curricular activities are very high. All this becomes a great challenge for the teachers in giving individual attention to each child rather than just delivering the lesson.

Also the improving technology and communications are giving children a great exposure to the happening around the world and tinge of innocence is completely missing. Children are able to get any sort of information in a click of mouse on the internet. Hence the teachers are facing a great challenge in handling students in the current day. Teachers need to really pull up their socks and improve their knowledge and not just rely on the text books.

This is a kind of trap where the interviewers try to assess your over-confidence. One thing that has to be understood is that any development initiatives can be suggested only after understanding the systems better. As an outsider you do not know what the existing practices are. Hence your answer should impress them that you would like to get into the system and then accordingly contribute for the betterment of the institution.

Think of your own interests and share opinions in different areas like coaching the students in sports, counseling the student on creating awareness on harassment and molestation, creating awareness on healthy food habits etc which can help the society as a whole.
Describe your relations with the principal and other teachers in the current job.A good interpersonal relation with the principal and teachers is very much necessary to fulfill the objectives of the institutions. There would be some differences of opinions which need to be sorted and handled with maturity. Illustrate the situations when you have shared happy moments both professionally and in personal life with your team.

This is a very unspecific question. So I would start out with your class wide behavior management plan. Talk about the details of that. This is a general ed, position and I am sure that this is one of the most important answers you will give. They want to make sure you can manage a classroom and they are looking for your behavior management plan. Mine is a positive approach based on Teaching With Love and Logic (great book if you haven't read it). So I would start out with my approach first - explaining Teaching With Love and Logic. Then I would give examples of a system I have run in the past.

This is an opportunity to talk about your previous experiences of working or volunteering with children and what you enjoyed and learned. Even if your experience is limited to babysitting or volunteering try and bring out pertinent information a positive way:

I volunteered in my local school and listened to the children there read. I enjoyed working one to one with the children, helping them with new words and found watching them gain confidence very satisfying.

I was a helper at a local Brownie group and enjoyed helping prepare the games and craft activities every week and helping the children carry out the planned tasks.

I have spent some time working at an after school club and had to supervise children of all different ages making sure everyone had age appropriate toys and games to play with, stepping in if things became rowdy and making sure everyone behaved and was safe.

This involved setting up the play equipment before the children arrived, giving them a drink and a snack and clearing and tidying the room afterwards. I particularly enjoyed interacting with the children and would love to work alongside the class teacher to help them learn.

This type of question can take various guises:

Describe a successful lesson.
Would you say you make learning fun?
How do you engage the children?
All these questions are designed to see what type of teacher you are. You should try and answer using examples from previous experience and what you do day to day in your teaching.

The answer will change depending on which question you answer but there are ways you can include a lot of the information in each of them.

A model answer could be something like this:

"First and foremost I plan fun and engaging lessons for the children so they are keen to participate and learn. This is my number one strategy in dealing with behaviour issues because if they want to take part they will behave. So when you walk in you will see every child engaged in a learning activity which is relevant to the lesson and their individual needs. This is achieved through differentiation, with the likes of support or use of resources or even doing different tasks."

"An example of this was when I took the higher achievers out of the previous lesson and taught them a new skill that would allow them to push on in their levels. The next lesson each of the higher achievers had a group that they had to teach this new skill to, while I took the lower achievers and carried on with more examples of the previous learning they had done. Everyone was engaged and learning in this lesson which I was observed for and received a good to outstanding."

This question will probably be asked. Now, if you researched the district/school and found out what they are looking for in a candidate, you will be able to focus your response on that information, keeping in mind it is important to tell the truth. With every response you must show your VALUE to the district. This will also give them an idea on how you view your talents and skills as a teacher. Perception is critical... you must be able to confidently discuss your skills using a convincing approach.

It is important the answer shows your hard/tangible skills. For example, classroom management, curriculum development, or technology integration. These skills will show the interviewer(s) what you can do on the job. Don't stop there, you will set yourself apart from the pack if you can back up your claims with actual stories. This will build credibility... it shows you really are good at what you are claiming. Tell them about what you have done to incorporate technology into the classroom and what was the result. The result part of the story sells value... and that produces job offers.

Some of the duties of a TA are: Helping teachers prepare for lessons by, for example, putting out equipment before a lesson starts or photocopying papers; listening to children reading and reporting back to the teacher should any issues arise, and helping children who need extra help in literacy or numeracy. A teaching assistant is there to support a teacher in the classroom.