Top 5 Teacher Training PGCE Interview Questions and Answers

In this video I'll go over the five most common

questions

asked in PGCE

interview

s and help you plan some really great

answers

that will land you a

teacher

training

place, so let's start with a next question. in every

teacher

training

interview

and that is why you want to become a teacher and now if you have not prepared for this question your interview will not go well. This question is really good for assessing people who are just not right for the job, some people want to go into teaching because they haven't gotten a job elsewhere and aren't really committed to teaching and those people usually do well. very badly, they quit and generally fail, so this question helps the interviewer gauge whether you are really serious about being a teacher and to be successful on this question you want to include a few key things in your answer, so fundamentally you are looking for three things : The impact of the subject and young people, these are the three things you want to focus on.

Your answer revolves around the love of your subject, the impact you can have as a teacher and that you are truly interested in helping young people and are passionate about working with young people. Fundamentally, the interviewers want to see a few things in this answer and the more of these you can include, the stronger your answer will be, so when you are planning your answer, try to include as many of these facts in this list that I am going to give you in your answer, so that fundamentally they won. You are not an expert in the subject, if you do not know your subject very well, you will never be effective as a teacher.

They want people who really know and are passionate about their subject, so talk about your love for your subject and your desire to obtain others. people interested in that topic and advancing your topic as a teacher, that's a great starting point. They want people who really care about young people, so show enthusiasm for working with young people and be really explicit and clear that you are applying to become a teacher. As a teacher because it gives you the opportunity to work and help in the development of young people and future generations, you want to have an impact so talk about the impact you can have as a teacher, perhaps reducing educational disadvantage could be one of the impacts. which can have inspiring young people to achieve more improve the quality of education improve the teaching of their subject at national level as a long term goal all these are basic impacts that teachers can have the teaching profession has an immense impact on the society and You want to be part of that if you think about your personal life and can give examples of teachers who have had a big impact on you and link what they have done to your motivation for wanting to become a teacher, which can really strengthen your application, for example. if you had an amazing chemistry teacher, now you have a chemistry degree, that's probably not two separate things, the fact that you had brilliant chemistry teaching helped you get your chemistry degree, for example, if you had had amazing chemistry teachers terrible chemistry, you probably would never have been no matter how successful you were and you could tie that into whatever your major is and the teachers who helped you on that path really like kids, this is something that teachers talk about a lot because there are some teachers who, frankly, have You don't like children and you don't like working with young people, but they have stumbled upon the profession and are still here for reasons we don't know, so you need to make it very clear that you like working. with young people, if you have any experience in this, make sure you bring it up and talk about it with some passion and most importantly, you should be passionate about the topic, if that passion doesn't come through you probably won't do it.

To be successful, you must next show an active interest in education, so make sure you are aware of recent news within education and the issues facing education. That's another thing that is very important for this interview in general and the other thing you can do is make it clear that you enjoy the teaching process, that you enjoy teaching things to other people and think about any experiences within the university, such as tutoring in youth organizations or clubs or in any sport, maybe where you've taught other people new skills, and talk really positively about how to do it.

You enjoy it, now that we have done this, we can look at the next question: How do you handle bad behavior now as a teacher? This is something you will have to deal with, so it makes sense to ask this. In an interview and depending on your particular teacher training provider, you may have to do a mock lesson where the interviewers may pretend to be children and may behave very badly, so you may have to put some of this in. practice for To answer this question, you need to get some fundamental insights, so first start by talking about relationships.

Basically, good behavior management is about good positive relationships if you have good relationships with the students you teach, who like you, and who respect you. As a teacher, your behavior in your class will be much better. You will have classes with better behavior because you are appreciated and respected. If you have a fight with a student, for example, the student has misbehaved in your lesson, you have punished them. If you ended up with a detention, it is very important that you repair that relationship and make sure that they understand exactly where they went wrong and why you took the action that you did and that every lesson is a new beginning if you perceive it as an unfair means. or an unpleasant teacher and you don't have positive relationships, you will never be successful in behavior management, then mention consistency and challenges, the most effective teachers are consistent, they have consistent routines in their classroom and their expectations do not change day to day . what they expect on Monday in first period and what they expect on Friday in fifth period are the same: you know exactly where you stand with that teacher.

They are phenomenally consistent, they don't let anything slip and that leads me to challenge them when there is bad behavior. It is very important that this be challenged, that there is certainty of a sanction, for example, that when a student does not model the correct behaviors and is disrupting the learning of others, what is challenged never goes unquestioned, it always always has to be questioned. . So consistency and challenging all bad behavior is really important and that's not something you're going to accept. You should also know the conduct policy and in your interview you should mention the conduct policy so that all schools have certain written rules. into a policy and that is how teachers are expected to manage behavior.

Different schools have different policies and since you enter as an elementary student and not as a principal, you will have to follow the policy they have. has been established, so be sure to mention that and say that you are going to follow it consistently, correctly and fairly. Lastly, and most importantly, use the phrase high expectations. Teachers who are effective have high expectations. They don't let things slide. Allow students to behave however they want. They create calm, positive and very well controlled learning environments. High expectations are absolutely essential. If you set your expectations low, students will lower them even more and you will never be able to teach effectively.

The best teachers have the highest expectations, so dealing with bad behavior is about high expectations. Unfortunately, we see a lot of really bad

answers

to these

questions

, so people say they literally have no idea, go around in circles, and don't give a strong answer to this. a lack of challenge, they don't necessarily say they wouldn't challenge it, but it gives the impression that they actually don't mind bad behavior that much and maybe even expect bad behavior, they can talk about schools that have very bad behavior and that's something what you will have to deal with, there is no idea that you are not going to accept bad behavior and that you want your classroom to be a productive, safe, well-managed learning environment where bad behavior is not tolerated. and the worst thing you can do in this question is to give any indication that you have low expectations, absolutely emphasize high expectations and you will succeed in this question.

My other tip is to make sure you look up a guy named Bill Rogers and you can find his stuff on YouTube and he's really the go-to person for behavior management for new teachers. Really cool techniques. Very good research base, so look it up and look at the stuff on it. It will be very helpful, so let's go ahead and look at the next question. is why you would be a good teacher or what makes a good teacher now you could be asked both questions or either of these questions but fundamentally you are going to approach it in a very similar way because the reasons why you would be a good teacher and what you do to a good teacher in general it's really the same thing so I'm going to give you the characteristics associated with good teaching and you can customize this to your situation and use as many as you want. possible, so let's start from this side, so the most important thing for good teaching is what we call gatekeeper skills, so behavior management is an absolutely key skill.

If you don't have behavior management in place, you would never be an effective teacher if you did. He walks into a classroom where seven kids are out of their seats for no reason. Half the class is turned around. Everyone talks. There are paper airplanes flying. It is a classroom where there is virtually no learning or progress. Without behavior management, you will never be effective. As a teacher, presence is another key thing that you may have noticed when you were in school, that there was that teacher who, if he walked into a room, there would be silence, that maybe the class was misbehaving, but when this member of the staff came in, suddenly everything changed. that is presence, that teacher has authority and that really helps to be an effective teacher, they have confidence in that presence, having a weak presence will really cause you problems, the next thing is that great teachers are attractive, students want to listen to them.

They are interested in what they have to say and involve the children in what they are teaching. They have that high level of commitment that is really important. Another really important thing in education is reflection. Good teachers are reflective if they have had a lesson that wasn't as good as they wanted they think deeply about that lesson they think about what they could change great teachers are extremely reflective they are always thinking what they could do better they go and watch someone else teach and think about how they did it. Would you teach me differently Are there better ways than mine? what can I learn from this?

They are always thinking about how they do their job and thinking about what could change. I've been teaching like this for years, but maybe this isn't the best. way to teach maybe there is a better way to impart this so reflection is really key to being an effective teacher also subject matter experience you can definitely use that as something that would make you a good teacher if you have a good knowledge of the subject, if you don't have it. Having a good knowledge of the subject is perhaps a big problem for you to solve, so if you have an excellent track record in your subject and really strong academic qualifications, that is something that can contribute to becoming a great teacher, it is not enough if you have four PhDs but you can't control behavior, you will be a terrible teacher, but if you have incredible knowledge of the subject that will make a big difference, your passion for the subject will make a big difference.

Good teachers are good teachers too. patients, they don't get nervous easily and they see the long-term picture. The other thing that contributes enormously to teachers being really effective is what we call CPD, so continuous professional development good teachers are always improving, they are learning more and getting better and better. over time, so mention as many of these as you can in your interview, link them to your background and your personality, or if they ask you what makes a great teacher, just talk about all of these and you'll have a great answer ready. . Go ahead and look at the next question, which is: what are the problems that teachers are facing right now?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of issues facing the profession right now and teacher training providers want to see that you are aware of this and they are really wanting to see that you have some awareness of what teachers are really facing and what you are getting yourself into. be honest and fundamentally there are four main things that I would say the teaching profession faces. There are more than these, but these are them. four key points that are easy to talk about in an interview, so first there is workload, then there is behaviour, recruitment and funding, the workload in education is very high, you will work in the holidays if you think that you're going to leave at 3 o'clock and never workon holidays, that is not what is going to happen, you will have to work on holidays and you will have to work long hours to be effective, there will be a lot of responsibility, there will be a lot of leadership in a school, that is verifying that you are qualifying enough and that you are teaching good quality lessons and there will be a lot of activities around this where there will be people who will control you quite a bit and that can be quite high pressure, there is not enough ppa ppa is the time that teachers have outside the schedule to plan and prepare their lessons and in some schools that can be as little as two to two and a half hours a week, which is very, very low.

You could be expected to teach 22 hours and only be given three hours to plan, which is not enough time to plan all those lessons. Some schools have ridiculous grading policies where you have to correct so many things that it is completely unattainable if they give you say three hours a week to correct the policy, it can actually end up taking six hours to do it, so you have used all your time off from school and you've done half of your grading behavior can be a big problem. if you have ineffective behavior policies, weak senior leadership that does not address behavior effectively and managing challenging behavior is exhausting, recruitment is currently a huge problem in schools, in certain subjects there are not enough people so some jobs have practically no applicants. certain subjects some teachers don't even post ads for physics teachers anymore they say science teacher and they just wait and hope that someone in physics applies sometimes occasionally math teacher jobs get no applicants or the only applicant is someone who has been banned from the teaching profession and their ban has recently expired, you can have those situations, recruitment in certain areas in certain schools is a huge problem and fundamentally there is not enough funding in education at the time when there have been cuts, there is lack of sources.

Situations in many schools where schools really can't afford books for students to write on and therefore may ask them to use their books from last year and not get a new science book, for example, until they have actually finished last year's, so these are some big issues that schools are facing, so in your interview talk about workloads, talk about behavior, talk about recruitment and talk about funding, especially if you're applying for a shortage issue, talk about recruiting makes sense, let's move on. Go ahead and look at question five, which is: what experience do you have working with youth?

You may be asked about working in schools. You may be asked about job education but fundamentally you need to have something to talk about and I've put it in a pyramid where at the bottom are the weakest examples but it's better than nothing and at the top is the best example , so think about whether you have run any clubs and been involved in any sport, for example cadets volunteering in something involving young people or mentoring is also teaching. experience which is the basics, if you have any of those experiences, talk about them, so school visits, you should really visit schools before you get serious about applying for PGCE places, so you really want to get some school experience, more solid experience than just a A minority of people, perhaps teaching assistants who are coming into teaching, will actually have worked in a school that is the best, but that is not expected, but it is a very good help fundamentally if you do not have experience working with young people or in education.

I need to figure that out now, it will have a huge negative effect on your application, so unless you are applying in a really strong topic or a really thin topic, that will really count against you, so really think about acquiring some experience so try and go as high as you can on that pyramid and be prepared for this question so prepare what you're going to say and really get that experience and go as high as you can on the pyramid so let's move on to two additional things you could talk about and you could be asked, then the first one is about safeguarding questions, so they could ask some questions in your interview related to safeguarding and there is a simple procedure you can follow to actually answer any safeguarding question, so, first of all, anything to do. with protection, you take it very seriously, it becomes your number one priority.

Any questions about protection, where do you have to classify, what would you do? You always put safeguarding above all else, the safety and well-being of the students comes before anything else, for example, if you are not going to make all the corrections because of a safeguarding issue, that's fine, do the right thing. protection, you can also talk about knowing the policy, so you should know what the policies are at the school and there is a person called dsl who is the designated protection. The leader says in his interview that he will know who that person is and that any concerns will be reported to him immediately.

That all protection is treated confidentially. That he does not discuss protection issues with teachers other than those designated to discuss them. Never talk about safeguarding issues with students or people outside of school. You also cannot promise a student that a safeguarding matter will be kept secret if a student tells you something and tells you not to tell anyone. you can't do that you have to pass it on to the safeguarding team if a student says they don't want you tell anyone you never promise that safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and you can talk about it in your interview if you are visiting a school and you see a safeguarding issue, it is your responsibility to take the correct course of action, you do not investigate and resolve it, you have to pass it on to the appropriate people as a

pgce

student, you are part of the extended safeguarding team. you are not paid to be a deputy headteacher involved in safeguarding but you are a member of school staff and you are an adult in a school that you are responsible for safeguarding, make sure you are clear about that and the other advice is if in doubt, report it if You see something that is very small and you think it's a problem, don't keep thinking if it's not just record it, just report it, it may be small, but maybe for that particular vulnerable person that 23 little things have been detected this week and of course In fact, when you see a list of 23 little worries in a week, there is actually a big problem that has now been revealed, so when you get a question about protection, think about these things and talk about them. and you will finally succeed as a bonus.

I have prepared some questions that you can ask at the end of your interview, so take some time to review these questions at the end of this video, choose the ones you like and write them down. below and use them in your interview, so I hope this video was really helpful for you. If this video has helped you please subscribe and like this video so other people can watch it and I will make more content on this topic and finally best of luck in your

pgce

interview and thank you very much for watching