Personal Statement for PGCE application

[lizziec]

I'd really appreciate it if you could all read over http://carina.org.uk/gttrstatement.html and see if you can suggest any changes, grammar and spelling corrections or additions I should make.

The guidelines on the application state that:

Describe briefly your reasons for wanting to teach giving the relevance of your previous education and experience, including teaching, visits to schools and other work with young people.

Do you think I've done this? How do you think I could do it better?

All help much appreciated :)

Comments

[ingridgirl.livejournal.com]

I think thats a good personal statement. Do u have any advice on getting involved with local schools and stuff? i was originally contemplating going on to do a primary school pgce after my classics and archaeology degree if they would accept me but you need experience working with kids and all i have really is the 2 or 3 weeks of work experience in a primary school in year 10.

[lizziec]

My advice is to write to a whole load of schools in the area - explain you're trying to get experience to support an application to do teacher training and would like to work as a classroom assistant for x number of weeks. Ask if it would be possible for them to help you in this area.

For your application you will need very recent experience, and for primary teaching the deadline is December (demand is a lot higher for primary pgce's than secondary)

Good luck!

[amy-f.livejournal.com]

Hi :) randomly reading through peoples journals, i found yours n thought id offer a few amendments. hope they sound ok, should do, i recently rewrote my personal statement for uni 7 times because my from tutor is an english teacher, hence perfection was needed! "Throughout the years my family and my teachers have given me a passion for history…..that I feel for this fascinating subject…..I feel that an enjoyment…knowledge….and supervising them after school…(full stop) My high school work experience….and I helped (at the summer school) for two consecutive summers..."

[barakta]

When I was younger I was given a fondness for history by my family and my teachers
End that sentance there...

and I want to be able to communicate that same love and appreciation I felt for the subject to the next generation.
Kill the 'and', make it a new sentance. Also change 'felt' to 'feel', your feelings about history are current and it keeps the tense in the statement consistent.

By knowing our past it is possible to avoid the mistakes that were made then and to plan for a different future.
End the sentance there, and change 'knowing' to 'appreciate' or similar because you have a lot of 'know*' and 'understand*' in your statement so far. All good things, but shows imaginative use of language.

and it is for this reason that I believe passionately that my subject is highly relevant to life today, despite being about events in the past.
I would rewrite this entirely, as a new sentance it could be more strongly phrased, for example I have a passionate belief that history is relevant today despite being about events in the past. My phrasing stank there, but you get my gist?

I found it rewarding, and still do, but I feel that I will be better able to communicate with and teach an older age group, which is why I would like to teach secondary school history.

End the first sentance at 'still do', then rephrase the second sentance to explain that your detailed understanding of history, the biases, interpretations and managing evidence is more sutied to the teaching styles of history at secondary school where students are old enough to be balancing evidence and debating the effects of things [english has died, but you get my gist..].

I think that's all the comments I can think of now. Take as you wish, and good luck.

Natalya

[lizziec]

Ok.

I've rewritten it:

Opinion?

When I was younger I was given a fondness for history by my family and my teachers. I want to be able to communicate that same love and appreciation I feel for the subject to the next generation. I feel that such an enjoyment and knowlege of history is vitally important for people to understand where they come from and why the world around them is as it is. By having knowledge of our past it is possible to avoid the mistakes that were made then and to plan for a different future. I passionately believe that the capacity of history to teach us about ourselves and the world around us makes it highly relevant to life today, despite being about events in the past.

I work on a regular basis with primary age children, walking them to and from school and supervising them once they get home and my high school work experience was with this age group. I found it rewarding, and still do. This experience has, however, left me with the feeling that I will be better able to teach an older age group, to whom I can communicate some of the different views of history that I have learnt about while at University. I want to be able to stimulate questioning and debate about history among the pupils and help them to find their own strengths through the study of this subject. This is an approach I feel is more suited to secondary school.

I have some experience helping to teach children making the transition from primary to secondary education from my time at high school. My school ran a summer school to help bring some children's literacy and numeracy up to standard and I helped there for two summers in a row and thoroughly enjoyed my involvement with this project. It was this experience that influenced me towards secondary school teaching.

I have secured from Community College Whitstable an opportunity to help regularly with history in the school and from the week commencing the 21st February 2005 I will be attending twice a week to provide assistance both within the classroom and outside it. I am really looking forward to this as I expect it to be both challenging and enlightening.

[bethanthepurple.livejournal.com]

I likey.
Sorry I've not commented already.
Sorry for non-constructive comments.
Arg.