A Step-by-step guide for newly qualified teachers to complete the WCED online Curriculum Vitae.

Kristen Sauls, my niece, who has a Psychology Honours Degree, is currently completing her Post Graduate Diploma in Education.

Why this special post regarding online CVs for newly qualified teachers.

My niece, Kristen, is going through the same CV pains that we, the veteran teachers, experienced YONKS ago. How do you write an impressive Curriculum Vitae for a teaching job when the only experience you have are the years of hard study and simulated teaching practice in the lecture room?

"I don't know how to complete that Experience Set field. Please help, Aunty dearest!" This was the desperate whatsapp text I received from Kristen. And of course, we don't want to see our starry-eyed, novice teachers in dire straits.  We get our act together and SO...

Don't despair, newly-qualified teachers! 

 Firstly, let us welcome you to the most rewarding profession that you will be entering. You are guaranteed to have a never-ending journey and you will grow in leaps and bounds during your first year.  So, let us get you started on the road to crafting your online CV masterpiece.


 I have written a series of posts under the theme, Job Application Smarts. The first step is to read all the blog posts that are aimed to help aspirant school leaders compile their CVs here.

Judging from my gorgeous niece, Kristen's plea for help, you too, may get stuck when you have to populate the Experience Set section on the online CV application form.  This post seeks to help you with exactly that area on the online CV. Let's start, shall we?

Unpacking the Experience Set Name section on the online CV application form.

The screenshot above shows you the various fields that need to be completed under the subsection: Experience Set Name.

The label "Experience Set Name" requires you to list the various categories of experience that you have gained. Since you are a newly-qualified teacher, your experiences may be limited to your practical teaching experience that you gained during your internship at various schools.

The online CV can consist of many Experience Sets as I indicate in the latter part of this post.  This feature on the CV helps the writer to organize his (her) knowledge, skills and competencies in a logical manner.

As part of your teacher training, you will specialize in certain subjects or specific grade phases. This is especially true if you are not training as a Foundation phase teacher.  For example, you may be training to become a Language teacher or a Social Sciences teacher. During your practical teaching stints at the school, you were then allowed to teach these subjects to certain classes at specific grade levels.

I have used an advert for a teaching post at a high school to explain how to complete this section of your online CV.  Let's pretend you are applying for this post.  Even if you are merely loading your CV on the WCED's e-recruitment portal for now, the same principles apply.

You may then decide to label ONE of your Experience sets as follows:

EXPERIENCE AS AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER AND SOCIAL SCIENCE TEACHER.

That title is your heading. Under this experience set or category, you will then list all the knowledge, skills and experiences you have gained.

You will now elaborate what your competencies, skills and responsibilities are in this particular field. Each field below relates to your SET name. That's easy, right?

We will examine each sub-field listed under this set.

Skills

The term 'Skills'  refer to your competencies or abilities that you possess. You need to brainstorm all the skills that you have used or acquired while you were teaching these subjects to the dedicated classes.

There are so many skills that you have to possess when you teach a lesson. These are a few key skills:

• When you teach, you should be able to design effective lessons, be able to research, surf the internet, consult textbooks and other resources to help you plan well. Thorough lesson planning is thus essential.

• You also need to know how to manage your time so that you are able to complete the lesson and reach the objectives of the lesson.

• You should also know how to manage the class and you should be able to create a learner friendly classroom so that the students can learn well and be able to understand the work taught. In other words, your classroom discipline and classroom management must be good.

• While you are teaching, you need to assess whether the learners understand the content. This means your lesson will have to be interactive. You will thus be assessing the learners orally and via writing. Your management of the assessment of learning is another key skill.

Can you see how many skills you have put to good use while you were practise teaching? And, you have probably sharpened those skills during your teacher training internship. Besides these skills, you will have realized that you needed to use your  interpersonal, communication and leadership skills as well.

By now you would have realized you have used these skills during your own studies, in the practical teaching classroom and probably in other situations. You have more than enough to write under the section, "Skills".

All you need to do is find strong verbs to write short, punchy sentences to list these skills. See the post here for some ideas on how to record your skills.

Why are you applying for the post?

I am sure you will be able to answer this question.  Write a brief motivation about what value you will bring to the school in terms of helping learners achieve and helping to develop the school and the community.

Responsibilities

Under this section, you have to list all the responsibilities that you have been given while you were teaching.  Obviously, you will list the teaching responsibilities you had. Mention the subject(s) you taught, the number of classes and the grade levels you were responsible for.

Record all your administrative task experience here as well.  If you were given other duties such as class supervision or pastoral duties, mention those here as well. Think of all the responsibilities and record those under this heading.

 Other fields

See the other fields in the screenshot below. Do the same kind of brainstorming that was required above for each field. 

When you have recorded every important detail, click on the "Add Experience Set". You can review what you have captured and make changes, if necessary. 

Create more Experience Sets that are relevant to your CV for a teaching post.

Now that you know what to do, you can create more "Experience Sets" and give each one a special name based on its focus. Examples of Experience Sets are: Human Relations, Research and Planning, Leadership and Management, Computer Skills and so forth. 

You may even wish to create an "Experience Set" to capture your part-time work or voluntary work that you have done over the years. The knowledge, skills and experience you have gained may be useful to your teaching career so do not leave this out on your CV. Try though, to capture only those aspects that are relevant.

Time to try and populate another Experience Set.

Another Experience Set that you can create for your CV as a newly-qualified teacher, is the Computer Literacy Experience Set Name. Try to develop this set as well.

Wrapping up

Remember, you can write 2000 characters per field under each Experience set. That is roughly 300 words, if we work on an average of seven-letter words. You can list your facts rather than writing in narrative form. When you print out the CV, it will look more professional too.

CV writing takes time. You are crafting your masterpiece, the 'voice' that should strive to impress Interview Selection committees. You do want that specific teaching job at the school of your choice, don't you?

Have fun and let me know whether this post has helped you craft your CV.