What are some questions I can expect in an interview for Elementary Teaching position?

I'm a recently retired elem teacher. I've been thru personal interviews since 1975, and since and have been on several teacher interviewing boards to choose new teacher for our school. If the principal is on this board that is interviewing, pay close attention to the principals reaction because I think,if it is still the same, he has veto power and makes the final choice. Give a lot of thought to the grade level and teaching partners. They will often seek someone who is strong in an area where the same grade level teachers are weak or if they will get along with them or if you like to team teach of independent. It would behoove you to do some detective work if you can, find someone on the inside, and see if you can find out anything about your teaching partners etc. some ideas, every situation is different.

Most likely discipline and discipline techniques including handling bullying, Something also on teamwork. How do you contribute to a team?

Communication skills and dealing with parents, children, the general public and other teachers and staff.

Organization and time management skills.

Plan your answers with the following headings in mind.

1. Situation and Task (offer a specific situation and task for consideration to make it more concrete.) If a new teacher try to relate to student teaching or some transferable experience related to theme eg. The role you played in a class project involving a team task while at university. If no experience then having some theoretical situations in mind

2. Action ( what have you done in a situation or if not experienced what you would do.)

3. Result (What did you learn? What did the student learn? How did the class benefit? etc...

Do you like children well enough to teach them?

What would you with a disruptive student?

How would you deal with short attention spans?

What would you do to integrate certain educational material?

Where do you see yourself in X number of years?

Why do you like teaching?

How do you deal with frustration?

Could you give me a sample of how you would teach students to learn a given lesson?

Good luck with the interview and if you don't make it, it doesn't mean your unqualified, what they are looking for is confidence and the ability to communicate with young kids.You may get through the preliminary interview but then there could be a follow-up to see if your methodology follows the philospophy of the school. Then get ready for questions on how to teach certain material.

The school will also ask you how you see yourself in participating in extra-curricular activities because today education is not just in the classroom but also in supervising after school, activites where students pick up social skills.

Some things they might ask you are:

*What is your philosophy on teaching?

*What would you do if this happened in your class...?

*How would you deal with disruptive behavior in class?

*Where do you see yourself in X years?

Good luck in your interview.