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Personal statement

This is your chance to tell training providers why they should want you as a trainee teacher.

A good personal statement is important - it could influence a training provider's decision to offer you an interview.

You should consider carefully what information to include and the best way to present it effectively. Remember, you must be truthful and accurate in what you write.

Key points

Explain why you want to teach your chosen subject and provide evidence that you have the necessary skills and qualities to make a good teacher. If you mention your personal interests and hobbies, try to link them to the skills and experience required for working in schools.

The personal statement could be used as the basis for an interview, so be prepared to answer questions on it.

This may be your only written work that the training provider sees before making a decision: make sure it is organised and literate. Get the grammar, spelling and punctuation right. A statement filled with errors will give a negative impression of your skills and the effort you have put in to being accepted. You must normally write your personal statement in English, but if you are applying only to training providers in Wales, you may write your personal statement in Welsh.

Writing about yourself is probably not something you do very often, so you might need to practise writing in this particular style. It is a good idea to list your hobbies and achievements, and then you can decide which ones are relevant to teaching.

Go to the what to include section for more detailed advice>>

Write what comes naturally

Which of the following examples would you write?

  1. Objective consideration of concrete evidence compelled me to realise the phenomenon was not unprecedented.
  2. I realised this often happened.

This is not a serious example; but it shows that good writing is often concise, which is very helpful when you have a limited word-count.

In your personal statement you need to put your meaning across directly and simply. You can do this by keeping your sentences to an average of 12-20 words, and using English in a way that is natural to you. Avoid sounding either over-familiar or over-formal and write to get yourself and your message across clearly. Check that each sentence adds something new, otherwise it is just adding to the word count rather than adding value.

The quality of your writing reflects the quality of your thinking. Show that you know your strengths and can outline your ideas clearly. Use words you know will be understood by the person reading your statement; you might find it easier if you imagine you are talking to them across their desk. In fact, you can sometimes spot where your statement doesn't work well by reading it aloud.

Dos and don'ts

Dos and don'ts when writing your personal statement

Do create a list of your ideas before attempting to write the real thing.

Do expect to produce several drafts before being totally happy.

Do ask people you trust for their feedback.

Do check training providers' prospectuses, websites and Entry Profiles, as they usually tell you the criteria and qualities that they want their trainee teachers to demonstrate.

Do use your best English and don't let spelling and grammatical errors spoil your statement.

Do be enthusiastic - if you show your enthusiasm for teaching, it may help you get a place.

Don't feel that you need to use elaborate language. If you try too hard to impress with long words that you are not confident using, the focus of your writing may be lost.

Don't say too much about things that are not relevant - if you think that you are starting to do this, take a break and come back to your statement when you feel more focused.

Don't exaggerate - if you exaggerate you may get caught out at interview when asked to elaborate on an interesting achievement.

Don't rely on a spellchecker as it will not pick up everything - proof read your personal statement as many times as possible.

Don't leave it to the last minute - your statement will seem rushed and important information could be left out.

Don't expect to be able to write your personal statement whilst watching TV or surfing the internet - this is your future, so make the most of the opportunity to succeed.

Work experience

We ask you to provide details of any previous work experience with dates and information about your current job, if you have one. If you have taken part in the Teaching Agency's School Experience Programme (SEP) or Primary Experience Programme (PEP), you should provide details that analyse your experience, refer to any documentation arising from your placement and show how it has contributed to your understanding of teaching as a profession.

If you are applying to teach modern languages, you should include information about any time you have spent in the countries whose languages you wish to teach.

If you do not live in the UK, also try to answer these questions.

  • Why do you want to study in the UK?
  • What evidence do you have to show that you can complete a teacher training course that is taught in English? Please say if some of your studies have been assessed in English.
  • Have you had a position of authority or used your communication skills in any activity?

If you want to send more information, perhaps a CV, to your chosen training providers, you should wait until you receive your Welcome letter. This letter will tell you which training provider is considering your application. You should send your additional information to this provider only. Whenever we tell you that we have sent your application to a different training provider, you should send your additional information to this provider. You should ensure that all documents you send to training providers contain both your full name and Personal ID. Please do not send any additional electronic or paper documents to the GTTR.

To help you draft your personal statement, you may want to use the application form assistant in the Teaching Agency's section of the Department for Education's website. This system identifies the kind of questions you need to ask yourself. It might help you to tailor your personal statement to best describe your strengths and experience in support of your application. If you use the application form assistant, you can then copy and paste your personal statement into your GTTR application, but please remember that there is a limit of 47 lines.

How to provide your personal statement

You can enter up to 47 lines of text (including blank lines) with a maximum of 80 characters (including spaces) in each line. You do not have to use all the space provided. When you save text, the system will tell you how many lines are still available.

You will not be able to change the presentation of your personal statement by using features such as bold, italic or underlined text. If you use these types of formatting, they will be removed from the text when you paste it onto your application and save it.

If you use European characters (such as á, ë, õ) in your personal statement, a message will appear on the screen in GTTR Apply to explain what you need to do.

We recommend that you prepare your personal statement offline using a word-processing package and copy and paste it into the Apply system. This is because Apply will time-out after 30 minutes of inactivity. If you enter your personal statement directly into Apply, you must save it every few minutes to prevent your work being lost.

Make sure that your personal statement is your own work

We will, along with other verification checks for identity and academic qualifications, carry out checks to verify that your personal statement is all your own work. If your application appears to be similar to another source, we will inform the training providers to which you have applied. They will then take the action they consider appropriate. We will also contact you by email. Find out more about how we test applications to detect similarities.


What to include
Guidance on what to include in your personal statement.

Size and presentation
How to provide your personal statement.

Similarity detection
The Similarity Detection Service.