How to Become a Teaching Assistant Without Previous Experience

Wondering how to become a Teaching Assistant? Worried about your lack of experience of working in a school? Don’t be. We can help.

Lots of people start their teaching career as a Teaching Assistant. And most without prior experience in a school. All you need is a strong CV that shows your passion to teach and evidence of transferable skills.

Our experts take you through a simple step by step guide for applying to become a Teaching Assistant without previous experience.

Let your passion and enthusiasm shine

When looking to become a Teaching Assistant without previous experience, it’s vital that your passion and enthusiasm for a career in teaching shine through. But this can be quite difficult in a written application. Despite schools now reopening across the UK, face to face interviews are still a little way off. Your CV is your first chance to make an impression. Even when applying to an education recruiter you still need to be able to stand out from the crowd.

Don’t just think of your CV as a history of your career to date. When it comes to applying for a job as a Teaching Assistant, your enthusiasm and passion needs to make up for your lack of experience.

Prove your ability to learn

Whenever you start a new career, there’s always a fairly steep learning curve. But this shouldn’t put you, or a school off. Can you show where you have learnt a new skill previously? Maybe you learnt something new during one of the many lockdowns over the last 12 months? Or maybe you’ve been homeschooling? These are all fantastic learning experiences. If you can show that you have the capacity and the desire to learn, this will help you stand out. It’s always better to try and give examples to back up your passion.

Transferable skills that can help you to become a Teaching Assistant

When we think about all the skills that a Teaching Assistant needs, it’s likely that you already have a lot of them. They will have just been in a different environment. One of the requirements of becoming a Teaching Assistant will always be a good standard of literacy and numeracy. Can you show that you have these skills? Did you have responsibility for writing professional emails, or even social media content? Or maybe you have held responsibility for producing reports in a previous role. Anything that shows your attention to detail is ideal.

Deadlines are something that a Teaching Assistant will experience too. Are you able to give examples of deadlines you have worked towards? Anything that shows your organisation, administration or creative skills will be really helpful when it comes to securing an interview.

Working with children

It doesn’t have to be in a formal capacity, but if you have ever worked with children, be sure to include this on your CV. Even if it’s something as simple as babysitting. Although, if you have been involved in any out of school clubs like summer camp, guides or scouts then these are fantastic examples to include in your previous experience.

A career in teaching really is a wonderful experience and you can help shape the future of today’s school children. There’s lots of different routes into teaching, but if you are looking to become a teaching assistant our friendly team may be able to help. Take a look at our most recent jobs today or get in touch. Start your career in teaching today!