A teacher training interview with a school or university require PGCE interview questions & answer responses to be well planned for a successful outcome.
The following are standard questions asked with possible response answers and my contribution as a secondary teacher for 6 years.
Applying for a BEd, BA, PGDE, PGCE or school direct training course?
A teacher training interview with a school or university require PGCE interview questions & answer responses to be well planned for a successful outcome.
Questions the interviewer will ask depends on the university.
Those of you that have been a school teaching assistant, unqualified teacher or cover supervisor will be ask more complex questions from experiences in the classroom, pupils and curriculum.
21 standard BEd, PGCE Teacher Training (PGCE) Interview Questions (Answers down the page)
- Why do you wish to become a teacher, How do you know you want to teach?
- Why choose to teach this age group?
- Why have you chosen this university?
- Give an example of when you overcome a difficult situation.
- What is your understanding of the role of a school teacher.
- Educational issues in schools. Name 2.
- How are your qualifications, specially the degree you have relate to the subject area and age group you wish to teach?
- What do you understand/opinion what makes a good teacher?
- What personal qualities as a person can you offer to the children and a school?
- Working as part of a team is important, give an example of your work or personal life.
- What knowledge, skills and abilities do you have to offer that will help you to become a successful teacher?
- What do you understand about safeguarding? and provide an example from your school experience?
- What did you learn from your school experience?
- In a future teaching career how would a child you teach describe you and why?
- How do you deal with anger, disappointment, stress and frustration personally?
- What will be the most challenging for you as a teacher?
- Are you ready to receive constructive criticism about the teaching you conduct as part of the training & learning process.
- What experience do you have working with children?
- Our course is very popular, why should we choose you and not another candidate?
- Do you envisage any conflict with your personal or social life with the requirements of a professional person, such as a teacher?
See also Is a PGCE a master’s qualification
Teacher training interview questions & PGCE general questions and answers
1 ” Tell us about your personal statement “ .
2. Why do you wish to become a teacher, How do you know you want to teach? Past as a school student yourself where you admired what a teacher does/achieves, maybe state a past teacher that helped to positively impact my life.
3. Why choose to teach this age group? (Example Secondary PGCE) Get on with older children, experience, certain skills and subject knowledge you have.
4, Why have you chosen this university? Could be for the reputation of training and support, local to you and wish to teach in the area after training.
5. I see you teach business studies/economics are you aware that as a full time secondary school teacher that subject area does not have a full time teaching schedule, are you prepared to teach an additional subject?
Yes, I can offer English and mathematics as additional subjects to complete a full teaching timetable. Or other subjects you can offer. (One subject area only while training).
6. What do you understand/opinion what makes a good teacher? Effective teaching combines personal qualities of a teacher, subject knowledge and how they clearly communicate and transfer knowledge to learners of different learning styles and ability levels.
Engage pupils in different learning environments. A teacher is well prepared, adaptive; develop positive relationship with teachers and children, set clear rules/guidelines, patient, firm but fair, positive and others.
7. PGCE courses demand full attention for 11 months study and training that will also involve travel. Can you set aside the time for a demanding schedule?
8. What do you understand about safeguarding? and provide an example from your school experience.
(Many examples) This is fairly obvious to answer. Wellbeing of children in you’re care; ie classroom and lessons.
Teachers have a position of responsibility where they are also responsible for the welfare & safety of children, watch for something out of the ordinary and report any issue that they see, hear or are told.
Safeguarding also extends to the rights of a pupil in the classroom and at the school.
– Coats and bags are stored correctly in the classroom so other pupils do not trip in your class when moving around.
– Prevention from injury (Avoid crowded corridors/doorways & stairs)
– Blunt sizzlers only in class for younger pupils.
– Watch for pupils trying to be assertive or bully another pupil.
Classroom safety, inside school buildings and the playground ground are all covered where a school and teachers are all jointly responsible.
A teacher watches for any sudden changes in a pupils behaviour, attendance, dress and school work.
Could be an issue at home or a child is getting attention from an adult that should not happen and to they tell you.
Follow school procedure and report the issue to the school appointed “child protection ” person that deals with pupils welfare, usually they’re an assistant head teacher or at that level in every school.
Safeguarding/Child protection and rights of pupils is a big area in schools. Get ready for this question.
9. What did you learn from your school experience?
(This is the time observing or helping out at a primary, secondary or nursery school to gain some experience working with children). Time I spent at ………. re-enforced the desire to teach and at this level. I found that I have the soft skills to work effectively alone and with other team members, although lack specialist knowledge at this time.
Also I found myself reflecting on how I could improve on what I did for the next time I completed that certain task.
Key part, you reflect on the task you have completed and on how well it went or could you improve something. As a teacher when you write a lesson plan you aim to deliver a lesson on a certain part of a topic area such as fractions with the aim of each child being able by the end of the lesson to complete most or all of the set questions after instruction.
After the lesson a teacher reflects on how a lesson went, pace, learning objectives achieved, student attainment level and expectations, how can I improve, many others.
A teacher is informed for the next lesson by how a previous lesson went and the reflection they’ve done afterwards.
Did it go to plan? Has sufficient learning taken place enabling the teacher to extend learning on the fractions topic or move on to the next topic? or do you require to go over some more fractions in class from the previous lesson you have given as the questions you set in class were not answered to a level of your expectations.
10. Do you envisage any conflict with your personal or social life with the requirements of a professional person, such as a teacher? Issues could be model career, band member using certain lyrics, leisure activities and beliefs.
11. What will be the most challenging for you as a teacher? Behaviour of students at first.
12. Our course is very popular, why should we choose you and not another candidate?
13. What knowledge, skills and abilities do you have to offer that will help you to become a successful teacher?
Subject knowledge, degree in the subject, calm under pressure, problem solver, time management, analytical and others. I can work independently or as part of a team.
14. What personal qualities as a person can you offer to the children and a school? Understanding, abundance of patience, empathy, others.
15. What experience do you have working with children? Tell me about one challenging situation and how you solved the issue, if any. Get some experience if you can from a school attended or ask to observe at a local school.
16. How do you deal with anger, disappointment, stress and frustration personally?
17. Are you ready to receive constructive criticism about the teaching you conduct as part of the training and learning process. How would you react to it?
18. In a future teaching career how would a child you teach describe you and why?
This is how you hope they describe you as a person in a classroom and around the school. Answer: Helpful, knowledgeable, confident, firm but fair.
19. Give an example of when you overcome a difficult situation.
20. How are your qualifications, specially the degree you have relate to the subject area and age group you wish to teach? Specify relevant subjects to what you would teach. How they match, state specialised in the subject area.
21. How would you make your subject interesting ensuring an effective learning experience? Variety in class questions, exercises, use of everyday experience/examples, implement training I will receive.
22. Equal opportunities are very important in schools. How would you ensure your classroom provides every pupil with an equal chance to learn to the best of their ability? Give time, work space, consideration, and involvement in class, participation, question and answering equally between pupils.
23. How could you improve classroom and school experiences for children? Fun interactive lessons, using a variety of teaching aids, extra curricular activities, practical interactive lessons that follow or combine with theory and explanation. (Not just talking about a topic and answering questions).
24. Inner city or rural, what type of school would you like to teach in. Why? You may wish to teach at a school with less students on roll, school with less challenging issues.
25. What are teaching assistants and what is your view on they’re role in a classroom?
Important role in a primary classroom to further guide, explain one to one/groups to support learning in class.
Helping a child’s social development at school. Good resource in a secondary school to reinforce learning to less academic ability students.
26. What is learning support in a school and what do you know about the role it plays in learning? School learning support is a separate department at each school that provides assistance to certain school pupils.
Each student that has been identified as requiring additional support with learning will have a statement. A school child will have a leaning support assistant that follows them from class to class providing assistance in lessons.
Help could be repeating teacher instructions, further explanation of set questions or answering general questions.
27. Educational issues in schools. Name 2: Poverty impacting some children’s progress, behaviour, family issues, bulling, ever increased targets for all pupils to achieve, no child left behind.
28. Working with and teaching children can be difficult at times? Why? Develop issues at school or in life that impacts learning, all children are different. Happy child one week and the next week unhappy for any number of personal reasons.
29. Working as part of a team is important, give an example of your work or personal life. The interviewer wants to find out if you can work with other to complete tasks and how effectively.
Early years and primary teachers work with leaning support and teaching assistants. Secondary school teachers and college lecturers work together to plan and coordinate courses and resources.
30. What is your understanding of the role of a school teacher? A person what facilitates learning, transfers knowledge, provides feedback, answers question and many more. Search on line yourself the role of a school teacher for the age level.
The following questions are unlikely to asked by the interviewer as you have no training
31. How would you react with disruptive pupils in your class? First: Follow school guidelines and rules set. Mild: Direct glance or stare, or remind the pupil to stop or x bring your things and sit here (Separation) or stop the lesson and firmly remind the student/s that behaviour is not tolerated. Stay positive in manner and speech.
32. How would you tackle explaining a challenging concept? Explain what it is, used for with an example. Explanation of the concept. Possibly break it into sections.
33. What would you do if in a pupil refuses to take part in an activity?
34. How would you teach a mixed ability class? This is more of a challenge as you may have gifted children, and of course identify and teach less academically able pupils at the same time.
You will of course learn and adapt using extended questions for more able students. This situation is more defined in primary schools.
35. More than one class you teach could have students with poor English language ability, How would you deal with this and what issues you think could arise? This is a challenging situation in relation knowing if learning has taken place.
Communication barrier between the student and teacher, also other students if pair or group work.
I would prepare before each lesson appropriate hand-outs for all learners, use visual aids, board work/diagrams, pictures that match verbal and hand gestures.
First I would get suggestions. ideas and feedback from my school mentor.
36. How would you respond when a child comes to you with a personal issue from outside school? This is Safeguarding: Think child protection, depression, maybe a family member or pet has died.
Follow school policy. Listen to what they have to say, answer or solve issue, or pass on to appropriate school management person.
For each key stage PGCE from nursery early years, primary, secondary and post compulsory Think about:
Include good teacher traits
Make sure you can include the most important responses for what traits a good teacher has: Good: Listener, Writer, Analyser, Presenter, Planner, Communicator, Knowledgeable, Manage time.
I can also follow instructions, guidelines, empathy, charisma, understanding, considerate, helpful, confident, explain a concept, resourceful, think on my feet, implement change quickly, take constructive criticism (keep calm under pressure)……. Integrate some of these in your response.
Do not say anything that you can not back up.
Personalise each answer to individual questions with past experience, current event, knowledge.
Questions to ask at teacher training interview
See this page questions to ask at a PGCE interview teacher training, although, do not ask an interviewer a question that is answered in the course prospectus.
What should you expect on interview day at school?
Each individual university, school and training provider for nursery, primary, secondary & post compulsory PGCE courses and school based teacher training follows certain formats, depending on the provider.
Regulations, entry criteria and rules for teacher training that are set in stone by Department for Education (DfE) for England & Wales or General Teaching Council (GTCS) for Scotland.
Interviews will most certainly involve some of
- Group exercise.
- Role play (Possibly).
- Open questions & answers in a group format.
- Written task on the day or sent and completed before the interview day.
- Deliver a presentation with a topic provided in advance.
- Written subject tests.
- One to one interview or a panel .
London Metropolitan University primary teacher training interviews are in 4 parts:
- a presentation, plus a Q & A based on the presentation you’ve given .
- a formal interview.
- an English and Maths diagnostic assessment.
- a chance for you to ask any questions about the course.
Part of the interview day could involve tests in mathematics, English, IT and science depending on the age level you wish to teach and subject.
This consists of you completing a short list of questions or subject knowledge test.
You could also be asked to write an essay that tests spelling, grammar, hand writing, timing, response and other.
Interviewers are looking to see what type of person you are, how you respond, mannerisms, interaction with others, cope under time constraints and pressure.
My own initial teacher training PGCE interview process (Year 2000) involved a group question and answer session and a 30-minute informal talk.
This then followed onto an individual face to face interview with 7-8 questions about me, personal statement and what I could offer the teaching profession.
Teacher training preparation for interview day
There is a sequence of events that should be followed for any interview, although the information is not exhaustive:
– Confirm attendance.
– Arrive at least 15 minutes before time.
– Take your prepared notes and other documents required.
– Travelling 500 miles plus as I did, think about spending the night before in the area.
Conduct research on the subject and key stage area ready for the teacher training questions the interviewer is going to ask.
- Try and be yourself.
- Practice the presentation you’ll give, timing and think about equipment you require.
- Dress appropriately in a professional manner.
- Take time and think about the response you provide to questions. Keep answers/response, direct and to the point.
- Subject specific questions: Think about the subject you studied and wish to teach, Primary school: literacy numeracy, reading writing related.
- Project enthusiasm, confidence, respect, degree of passion for teaching and subject area.
- Read and research what are some of the current debates and issues in education.
- Professionalism is important. Act accordingly.
Presentation on teacher training interview
You’ll be given a topic or a choice of topic to present at the interview, probably education or subject related.
Prepare by
- Research the topic area.
- Make an outline presentation.
- Practice out loud while checking the time length.
- Adjust the content or even add more if required.
The interview is not easy and not everyone will successfully pass the selection stage for teacher training.
All is not lost, you can always apply to another provider of teachers training.
Should you receive a “unfortunately we are unable to offer you a place ” (fail PGCE interview letter) sometimes schools and universities inform you why.
Possibly you could not show any experience working with children and at that certain age group, well get some experience, it is an entrance requirement.
Take time and think about the response you were given, then apply for another university course.