A few years back I polled some top school administrators for a resource on their favourite interview questions. Here are the results. Special thanks to Karen O’Connell, John McBryde and Paul Sebastian.
- What interests you about the job and why are you interested in working at (school name).
- Please share with us some of your areas of strength?
- Share with us some areas you wish to develop in yourself?
- If you had to set some goals for yourself what would a couple of goals be?
- How do you develop relationships and trust with your students, parents and team members?
- Talk to us about how you would set up a literacy or math programme in your classroom.
- Can you give some examples of assessment strategies you use with your students?
- Talk about how you have worked with teams to discuss, plan and implement and share learning.
- If I walked into your classroom what would I see that indicates that students are learning.
- Describe what inquiry looks like in your classroom?
- How would you resolve conflict within your team or with a parent?
- What value add could you add to the school outside of the classroom?
- Transition to a big school and new country – what challenges might you face?
- how would students describe you?
- What is your assessment philosophy?
- When students get a grade in your class, how do they know what that means?
- How do you get to know kids beyond the classroom?
- Can all children be leaders?
- How do you develop leadership in your students?
- How do you encourage/ support a collaborative learning community?
- how do you communicate with parents?
- What do parents say about you as a teacher?
This list is by no means complete, however, an honest answer to each question puts you well on your way to being well prepared for your job interview.
