Applying for primary school jobs - meeting the spec?

[AliceHurled]

I'm currently filling in a primary school application. On the person spec is has 25 essential attributes and about another 10 desirable.

I was planning on going through each, and saying how each is met, but that leads to a rather dry formulaic personal statement. And this doesn't sound like a good idea.

So can any wise ones suggest how you show you meet all of the items on the spec, without falling in the dry trap, please? Previous forms I've done have been for council jobs where you must show how you meet them all, but there are far less in the first place. So I'm getting a bit stuck on this one...

On the times ed job seekers forum there is a poster called theogriff who has posted a how to write your cv to get that interview sticky. It's really good. I followed the advice when dh applied for a huge promotion adapting it to higher ed and he got the job. I don't think everything had to go in your personal statement as long as you make sure you address the person spec in the previous experience part of the cv

There should be another page with it; one called personal specification or something similar.

Is it an NQT job? Have you read the guides from NUT and NASUWT?

When I applied for the Ealing pool, the statements to respond to where:

The ability to: -

1. Work as part of a team. Valuing collegiality and participating in team working.

2. Demonstrate pastoral management. Creating an environment that is safe, collectively and individually well organised, stimulating, positively challenging with appropriate behaviour.

3. Understand learning, The planning/assessment cycle and effective lesson evaluation.

4. Communicate effectively, using written ,verbal and non-verbal (presence) communication.

5. Be well organised.

6. Be an active learner. With the personal qualities of reflection, organisation and a commitment to CPD.

See if you can find something like that! And good luck :-)

Alice - I was told I got my (admin) job in a school several years ago, because I addressed each attribute and gave examples of how I met the criteria.

It does lead to a very "dry" and rather long application, but my LEA insist that you fill in their application form, rather than sending a CV, (but it won't do any harm to attach an outstanding CV to your application as well).

Thanks very much all.

Have looked at the TES stuff - looks useful.

And will follow up the union stuff. Yes it is NQT.

You see those ones Juniper, look fine to respond to. And 6 is doable. The things I'm looking at are 25 odd, and like diabolo in the past I've got LA (non teaching) jobs by meticulously saying how I meet each one. And I've also been on the other side, where you do go through the app forms and tick each one they cover. But all the blurb I read is about it being an interesting attractive personal statement, so I'm struggling to reconcile the two.

I think last night we came to the conclusion that the app might be the place to cover meticulously (incl the personal statement section) and the covering letter might be the place to use more of the school specific and engaging personal stuff. But we're also going to try a conversation with a friendly head to get a bit of local insight.

You need to look at this from the point of view of the interviewer. In community schools the LA effectively dictates how the recruitment process should operate along with the national safer recruitment advice.
So the school will have decided what are essential and what are desirable characteristics. Under the regime that schools have been given if you cannot illustrate the essential criteria then you should not be called for interview. The panel should be short-listing on the basis of how well the application matches the essential and desirable characteristics, not gut feeling.
To me this example of 25 essential and 10 desirable suggests a school that does not understand exactly what it should be doing. The essential and desirable characteristics are in the wrong ratio.
The first question that maybe needs to be answered is whether all 25 essential characteristics can be met by an NQT. If it says previous teaching experience for example that either says the school is looking for an experienced teacher not an NQT or they have not got a clue what they are doing if they are specifically targeting an NQT.
If you want to maximise your chances of getting an interview then you are going to have to try and ensure that you do cover all the essential characteristics and the 10 desirables between the form and the covering letter, even if it makes for a boring application. However part of separating the OK candidate from the good candidate is actually making the application interesting.

I do have to say though that there were only about 5 essential (can't remember how many desirable) criteria so it probably was easier but I didn't put it in the personal statement.

Agree with Elph about following Theo Griff's advice on TES. I have got interviews (and jobs) using his Executive Summary in conjunction with a one page letter.

I'm currently waiting to hear about a job app which had 57 criteria to meet - now that was a dry letter, but I shoehorned them in!

Thanks again, very useful.

57 that must have been an, erm, fascinating read

Incidentally, if you want me to send you a copy of my generic personal statement, 'inbox' me :-)

Alice no advice but I am going through this too atm and finding it deadly! good luck with your applications

I went to a job seeking seminar from the tes with John Howson and they used the executive summary sheet (which I've never managed to include yet) as a way of showing that you cover all the criteria. They were clear however that you had to show that you meet all the criteria somehow.

Thanks that's useful. My hunch was it all needed to be covered, knowing what LAs are like generally. Ninah - good luck to you too - not the most fun.

Juniper that's really kind - will PM you

Good luck to all those going through this (I remember how horrible it was!) and also good luck to the NQTs showing off their teaching skills on my Y1s this coming week!

Good advice I got was make it as easy as possible for the person reading your application to give you the job. They aren't going to be looking for style, or how bright/bubbly you seem, they are just looking to tick the "met" box on each of those criteria. If that means you use headings or bullet points to make your skills/knowledge/ability really clear then do it.