Your personal statement is your chance to make yourself memorable with teacher training providers and show them why you’ll make a great teacher.
You do not have to write it all at once – you can start it and come back to it. Successful candidates often take a few weeks to write their personal statements.
How long should my teacher training personal statement be?
Your personal statement can be up to 1000 words. 90% of successful candidates write 500 words or more.
You could include:
- skills you have that are relevant to teaching
- any experience of working with young people
- your understanding of why teaching is important
- your reasons for wanting to train to be a teacher
- any activities you’ve done that could be relevant to teaching (such as first aid courses, sports coaching or volunteering)
Teacher training providers want to see your passion and that you understand the bigger picture of teaching.
How to write your personal statement
When writing your personal statement you should make sure you check your spelling and grammar in your application. You want to make the best possible impression.
You can use ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help you write your personal statement. You should not rely on it to write your entire statement because:
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AI tools use bland language and will not be able to give details about you as a person. Using them may result in your application being unsuccessful
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your account to apply for teacher training may be blocked if you consistently submit personal statements that look like they have been written with AI tools
Do I use the same personal statement for each application?
You can use the same personal statement for every course you apply to.
However, there may be some instances where you’d like to tailor it to different courses.
For example, if you want to apply to train to teach maths and also to train to teach physics. In this case, you might want to change your personal statement to talk more specifically about the subject you’re applying to train to teach.
Should my personal statement be different if I’m training to teach primary or secondary?
You should use your personal statement to explain why you feel passionate about teaching a specific age range or subject.
If you’re applying for a primary course with a subject specialism, or you’re particularly interested in certain primary subjects, you can talk about that, too.
If you’re not sure if you want to teach primary or secondary, you can find out more about teaching different age groups.
Do I need school experience?
You do not need school experience to apply for teacher training, but it can help strengthen your personal statement.
Teacher training providers like to see that you have a good understanding of teaching, how the school system works and what your transferable skills are. You need more than just good subject knowledge and school experience can be a great way to get this.
Getting some school experience can also be a good way to make sure teaching is right for you before you apply for a course.
Find out how you could get school experience.
Get help with your personal statement
You can get help with your personal statement from our teacher training advisers. They have years of teaching experience and can give you free, one-to-one support by phone, text, or email.
Advisers can also help you understand more about what teaching is really like, which can help improve your application.
Having a teacher training adviser was really beneficial when editing my personal statement and preparing for interviews. My top tips for the application process would be to get an adviser, and to think about what transferrable skills you have when writing your personal statement and answering interview questions.
Start your application
Create an account and start your application for a teacher training course.