Career Break

[welshandproud]

I'm currently on my second concurrent Maternity leave and have decided to apply for a career break for 2 years from June. I am a primary School teacher. I was wondering if anyone else had been through this process and had any tips on what to put in the tiny box entitled 'reason for career break'. There is no space on the A4 one sided form to 'sell' myself in order to show the Governors that i might well be worth retaining. Would a covering letter be acceptable?
Any thoughts gratefully received.

I did several years ago, but was working for a bank. I put the reason was to care for my young family, because it was quite obvious as I was pg with my second child. A covering letter won't hurt, but I would imagine that the box is small as they really don't need a lot of information. They don't need to know what you will be doing in any great details while you are off.
What will you do if your employers refuse? With mine there was no guarantee that I would get offered a job after the break anyway, you effectively resigned and you would get first choice of jobs going when you were due to return (if you had the skills).
Good luck MLx

I was going to state the reason briefly for wanting career break - 3 children under 3 but then i wanted to back up my application with a reminder of how good a member of staff i was and so worth retaining IYSWIM.In teaching if granted the school holds open a teaching position for you but not necessarily the year group you last had.You have to agree to work 10 days per year to keep abreast of developments etc. I've been teaching for 20 years.The education authorities have spent a lot of money training me for new initiatives etc.
To be honest if they refuse i will probably have to hand in my notice then look for a new job when my baby starts nursery and the other 3DC are in full time education.