Teaching Assistant CV Example

And yet looking for a teaching assistant job is not that much different from looking for any other kind of job. Competition for the best-paying jobs at the nicest schools with the most regular hours and convenient commutes is always fierce. You’re not the only one for whom teaching is a calling, it turns out.

This article is here to help get your CV to the top of the pile and get you that interview. Below you’ll find a teaching assistant CV better than four out of five out there. Read on to learn how to write one at least as good, including a teaching assistant personal statement that’ll earn your CV top marks.

Teaching assistant CV template

Eva Wilson

079 8888 9999

eva.j.wilson@lcmail.co.uk

linkedin.com/in/evawilson

Personal statement

Enthusiastic teaching assistant with 5+ years’ experience working in primary education, with nearly 3 of those years spent working as a SEN teaching assistant at Ellington Primary School. Assisted in the implementation of Individual Education Plans (IEP/ILPs) for 110 pupils and helped monitor their progress throughout the year. Eager to put creativity and organisational skills into practice in helping Bellbridge Primary School climb in the Canterbury rankings.

Work experience

SEN Teaching Assistant

Ellington Primary School, Kent

January 2018–present

Designed and implemented a classroom system to track student progress, saving the teacher up to 4 hours a week.
Prepared learning materials (under the supervision of the teacher) for over 30 lessons.
Read over 10,000 pages of fiction to pupils as a class, group and one-to-one.
Created art displays of pupils' artwork, 2 of which won awards in local inter-school competitions.

Teaching Assistant

East Beenleigh Primary School, Kent

September 2015–December 2017

Helped teachers prepare lesson materials and equipment for over 500 lessons.
Lead over 50 classes with help from the teacher.
Listened to pupils read for a total of nearly 400 hours.
Helped the teacher with their marking and record-keeping, checking and recording the results for over 1,800 pieces of student work.

Education

Level 3 Diploma in Childcare and Education

Canterbury College, Kent, 2018

Skills

Punctuality: never missed the start of classes..
Creativity: found ways to approach each pupil or group of pupils individually, rarely reusing material.
Teamwork: worked well with other support staff, classroom teachers and professionals such as educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, social workers and external agencies.
Ability to secure a safe learning environment: assisted with over 20 class excursions and sporting events with zero serious incidents.
Organisation: helped teachers organise student records, including grades and attendance, as well as wrangling students on school grounds and off.
ICT: working knowledge of LibreOffice and Microsoft Office suites.

Languages

Croatian – native speaker
Russian – communicative

Awards

Pupil’s Choice Award, East Beenleigh Primary School, 2017
Punter Fibson Prize for Portraiture, 2010

Now you know what a model CV looks like. Here’s how to write your own teaching assistant CV:

1. Start your CV with a teaching assistant personal statement

Establishing a rapport with a single student or whole class early on is important—it sets the tone for all future interactions. Make the wrong impression and it’ll be an uphill battle to regain control or make a connection. It’s very similar with your teaching assistant CV, so make a good first impression.

Your teaching assistant personal statement (also sometimes called a personal profile or CV profile) is where you’ll introduce yourself as a teaching assistant, summarise your experience, and—most importantly—begin to demonstrate what you can bring to the school by showing what you brought previous schools.

You’ll have to write a new personal statement for every teaching assistant CV you send out, but this isn’t nearly as onerous as it might sound. A good personal statement is only 40–80 words long, and you can write one simply by answering the questions below in a total of 3–4 sentences:

How would you describe yourself as a teaching assistant? Choose one or two adjectives.
How many years of experience do you have working as a teaching assistant?
What kinds of schools have you been working in? What year-levels?
What’s your most relevant and impressive achievement as a teaching assistant?
(Optional) If you have a unique, relevant achievement include it as well.
What do you hope to be able to do for the school to which you’re applying?

Given that more and more organisations are using Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) these days, you should do what you can to get past their algorithms. Do this by mentioning the full name of the school as well as the position to which you’re applying and mirroring keywords from the job advert, within reason.

It’s better by far to write your teaching assistant personal statement towards the end of working on your CV, even though it comes first in the finished document. It’ll be much easier for you to do a better job once you’ve gone through the process of preparing your CV job descriptions and skills.

Teaching assistant personal statement example

2. Put your achievements on display in your teaching assistant CV

There’s no denying that experience is key to making a good teaching assistant. Schools know this all too well and the work experience section of your teaching assistant CV is something to which they’re always going to pay special attention. Make sure yours is up to the task, even if you don’t have much experience.

The best CV format for a teaching assistant CV is the chronological format, which means you’ll be putting your job descriptions in reverse-chronological order. There are other options if you’re changing careers or re-entering the workforce after a long absence, but they’re best avoided if at all possible.

Use the following teaching assistant CV template to write a subheading for each of your previous TA positions:

[Job Title]

[School, Location]

[Dates of Employment]

Add up to six bullet points under each heading. Each bullet point should detail a relevant achievement. Don’t simply list your duties—focusing on achievements is going to be far more effective. An achievement is typically a description of actions taken and the benefits they brought to your employer.

Achievements should be measurable and quantified. This is easier in more commercial contexts, where everything can ultimately be reduced to how many pounds were added to the company’s coffers. That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to quantifying your achievements, though.

Emphasise the benefits you brought your previous schools where you can. Quantify the scale at which you performed your duties where you can’t. For example, ‘occasionally led classes under the teacher’s supervision’ is a duty, whereas ‘lead over 50 classes with help from the teacher’ is an achievement.

What if you are writing a teaching assistant CV with no experience? If you’ve ever worked as an assistant (of any kind), prepared a lesson plan or corrected work, you’ve got the skills needed for the position.

Teaching assistant CV sample job description

SEN Teaching Assistant

Ellington Primary School, Kent

January 2018—present

Designed and implemented a classroom system to track student progress, saving the teacher up to 4 hours a week.
Prepared learning materials (under the supervision of the teacher) for over 30 lessons.
Read over 10,000 pages of fiction to pupils as a class, group and one-to-one.
Created art displays of pupils' artwork, 2 of which won awards in local inter-school competitions.

Teaching Assistant

East Beenleigh Primary School, Kent

September 2015—December 2017

Helped teachers prepare lesson materials and equipment for over 500 lessons.
Lead over 50 classes with help from the teacher.
Listened to pupils read for a total of nearly 400 hours.
Helped the teacher with their marking and record-keeping, checking and recording the results for over 1,800 pieces of student work.

3. No CV for a teaching assistant would be complete without an education section

There are many paths to becoming a teaching assistant and most of them don’t require a tertiary education. Still, GCSEs (or equivalents) in Maths and English are generally the minimum requirement. If you don’t have any post-secondary qualifications, then you’ll need to clearly state that you meet this minimum.

Detail your education in reverse-chronological order, just like your job descriptions. Use this teaching assistant CV template for university degrees as well as other tertiary qualifications:

[Degree Type] [Degree Name](Degree Class), [Years Attended]

[Institution Name], [Institution Location]

Add an expected graduation date if you’re still studying. There’s no need to mention grades, either for tertiary or secondary qualifications. Include your high school education only if don’t have any tertiary qualifications. Use these templates:

A-levels: [Subject Name 1], [Subject Name 2], [Subject Name 3]

[School Name], [School Location], [Years Attended]

[n] GCSEs (including Mathematics and English)

[School Name], [School Location], [Years Attended]

(replace ‘[n]’ with the number of GCSEs you’ve completed).

You can add an account of your academic achievements and areas of excellence (or extracurricular activities) if you don’t have much relevant work experience of which to speak. In such cases put this CV section above your work experience section and centre your job descriptions on any volunteer and placement work you’ve done.

CV for a teaching assistant: example education section

Level 3 Diploma in Childcare and Education

Canterbury College, Kent, 2018

4. Showcase your skills in your teaching assistant CV

Dealing with children on a daily basis, whether as a teaching assistant or SEN teaching assistant requires a very particular set of skills, personally traits and knowledge. There’s also that certain something, that knack for interacting with children, with which some people seem to be simply born.

The skills section of your CV is one of the best ways you have to show that you have that special something. The problem is that many people can come up with a list of impressive-sounding teaching assistant skills. And the job advert will usually give these people a ready-made list to paraphrase.

So, you’re not going to resort to telling tall tales of classroom prowess. You’re going to show how you’ve put each of your hard and soft skills into action. Since you’ll be adapting this list to each new job advert it makes sense to start by making a master list. This way you’ll be able to just copy and paste in the future.

Open a new document and brainstorm as many of your teaching assistant skills as you can. Once you run out of steam, go back and add a sentence to each one in which you describe how you’ve demonstrated that skill at work. If you can’t do this for a skill, then it doesn’t make the grade or your master list.

Go back to the job advert and take note of the skills they mention there. Copy 5–10 of your skills across to your teaching assistant CV, being sure to at least cover all those required in the advert (and not forgetting IT skills). Adjust your word choice to match the keywords used in the advert if necessary and you’re done.

Teaching assistant CV skills

Punctuality: never missed the start of classes.
Creativity: found ways to approach each pupil or group of pupils individually, rarely reusing material.
Teamwork: worked well with other support staff, classroom teachers and professionals such as educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, social workers and external agencies.
Ability to secure a safe learning environment: assisted with over 20 class excursions and sporting events with zero serious incidents.
Organisation: helped teachers organise student records, including grades and attendance, as well as wrangling students on school grounds and off.
ICT: working knowledge of LibreOffice and Microsoft Office suites.

5. Support your teaching assistant CV with extra sections

When it comes to getting that knack for working with children down onto the page, a rundown of your work history, education, and skill-set goes a long way towards showing what you’ve got to offer. There’s a lot it misses, though. Fill in the blanks and flesh out your teaching assistant portrait with extra sections.

You can add sections in which you list any languages other than English that you speak, awards you’ve won, accolades you’ve received, any additional qualifications or certifications you hold, even your hobbies and interests. The golden (and really only) rule here is that anything you include has to be relevant to job (references aren't and recruiters know they can expect them).

Teaching assistant CV sample extra sections

Languages

Croatian – native speaker
Russian – communicative

Awards

Pupil’s Choice Award, East Beenleigh Primary School, 2017
Punter Fibson Prize for Portraiture, 2010

6. Pair your teaching assistant CV with a cover letter

It’s easy to fixate on writing a CV when applying for a job, but it’s important to remember that your application is made up of both your teaching assistant CV and a cover letter. Either on its own is going to leave your application incomplete. So unless the advert says otherwise, you’ll need a cover letter.

The good (great, even) news is that you’re easily halfway there to having a winning teaching assistant cover letter written once you’ve prepared your CV job descriptions and skills. Then it’s just a matter of gathering together some additional ingredients, like the full name and job title of a recruiter.

The overall structure of your cover letter will be determined by the standard UK business letter format. It’ll include a properly set-out header, a friendly but not informal salutation, the body of your cover letter, and a sign-off that matches the salutation you’ve chosen.

All that is just a matter of following instructions. The real art is in writing the body of your cover letter. It’s best to start with an impressive, attention-grabbing opening. Follow on from this by showing what you have to offer the school by describing what you’ve brought previous employers.

All that’s left to do then is to neatly wrap up any loose threads and leave a confident call to action. With the right guidance, writing a teaching assistant cover letter can be a breeze. Do your CV justice and be sure to send it in with a short cover letter. The two together is what gets you interviews.

Things to keep in mind before sending your teaching assistant CV

Checking and double-checking all kinds of things are a big part of a teaching assistant’s day-to-day job. Leaving a pupil on an excursion or trapped in the art supply cupboard are never a good look, to say the least. Another place where your attention to detail is on display is your job application.

Choose an understated CV font like Noto, Garamond, Arial, or the default Liberation or Calibri. Use white space as well as subheadings to clearly break your CV structure down into sections. Save or export your CV as a PDF file unless explicitly asked for something else. How long should your CV be? Keep to two pages maximum, one if you can manage it.

Check your work for spelling and grammar mistakes. Check it more than once. These can easily be deal-breakers in any line of work, doubly so when teaching literacy skills is such a big part of what you do. Use any software you need to help you. Get someone else to read over your documents.

Avoid creative CV templates with fancy graphic. Choose something easy on the eye. If you're using a free CV template found online, make sure it is ATS-scannable.

When sending in your job application, avoid the phrase 'Please find my CV attached'. It's old fashioned and sounds weird in the XXI century. Instead, try 'I have attached my CV for your review'.

One last piece of CV advice: don’t hesitate to follow up if you haven’t heard back after a week. It could make a huge difference but even if it doesn’t, it might take some of the guesswork out of how your application is going. A quick phone call or brief email is all it takes.

And that's it! Now you know what a good CV should look like. Good luck!

CR :: https://www.livecareer.co.uk/cv-examples/teaching-assistant-cv

22.4.22