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When pursuing teaching jobs, you’ll usually be required to submit a cover letter. Cover letters are just as important as CVs, possibly even more important, as they provide your first chance to stand out.
In order to make a positive impact and succeed with your applications, you'll need to equip yourself with an effective, professional cover letter that illustrates your value as a teacher.
In this guide, we cover all aspects of cover letter writing for teachers. This extends to:
- How to format and structure your teacher cover letter
- The most important skills for teachers and how to show them in your cover letter
- The most effective way of showcasing your achievements and experiences
- How to write a cover letter for teachers with no experience
- This guide also includes three teacher cover letter samples
Following an established structure when preparing your cover letter will help ensure you’ve followed all the necessary steps and included all the relevant details.
Follow our six-step process to create an optimised teaching cover letter ticks all the boxes.
Just as you would when meeting someone in person, you should introduce yourself at the beginning of your cover letter.
Explain who you are and why you are applying for the role.
After introducing yourself, provide a concise overview of your knowledge and expertise. This brief paragraph lets the reader know that you’re a good fit for teaching jobs.
Ensure your cover letter draws attention to your key selling points.
For example, do you have a track record of generating high grades? Have you been presented with awards for teaching? These are key selling points that make you stand out.
Do your research and spend time to tailor your cover letter to the school or university that you’re applying to.
By conducting research, you will be able to show how you are well-matched with the school’s values and culture.
Highlight a small number of your key skills that are relevant to teaching. Consider providing examples of times you have used the skills to achieve positive outcomes.
View our comprehensive guide to teacher skills and how to demonstrate them.
Bring your cover letter to a close by thanking the reader for their time and stating that you look forward to hearing from them.
When preparing your cover letter, it’s important to ensure your key skills come across. Here we detail the five most important skills for teachers and how to show them on your cover letter.
Demonstrating these skills on your cover letter will give you a stronger chance of landing job interviews.
View 20 of the most common job interview questions for teachers.
What are the most important skills for teachers?
As teaching is basically about expressing ideas to students, communication is one of the most important skills for teachers.
Teachers communicate with groups of students on a daily basis, so it usually goes without saying that they’re good communicators.
However, a great way of reinforcing your communication skills on your cover letter is to ensure the letter conveys your message in a concise, professional manner. After all, your cover letter is a form of communication between yourself and the reader.
Take a look at the teacher cover letter samples in this guide. Note how they communicate with the reader clearly and professionally.
When preparing your own cover letter, ensure to use professional writing to demonstrate your communication skills.
Teachers who are enthusiastic often get better results in the classroom. This is largely because teaching with enthusiasm inspires students to embrace education.
So how do you show your enthusiasm on your cover letter?
To show your enthusiasm on your cover letter, simply ensure your passion for your profession comes across. Touch on what attracted you to the job, why you enjoy teaching and why you’re passionate about what you do.
Teachers are leaders. They’re responsible for providing effective leadership to groups of students and fostering positive cultures in which they can flourish.
If you can demonstrate strong leadership qualities on your cover letter, you’ll enhance your chances of success with your applications.
How do you show leadership skills on your cover letter?
The ultimate goal of leaders is to generate results. So demonstrate the successes you achieved while leading in the classroom. Such achievements may range from improving students’ exam performance to reducing cases of absenteeism.
In order to effectively manage classrooms and maintain teaching standards, teachers should have sound organisation skills.
How do you show your organisation skills on your cover letter?
Touch on your experiences completing tasks within timescales and managing multiple tasks simultaneously. You may want to provide examples of times you optimised efficiency via organisation.
Another way of drawing attention to your organisation skills is to highlight new systems you implemented to help you manage more effectively, such as new software systems.
All teachers understand the importance of patience in the classroom. Disruptive students and a lack of respect are the type of issues that may test the patience of teachers.
A simple way to illustrate your patience is to touch on your conflict management capabilities and your ability to maintain your composure under pressure.
If you’ve got no experience in teaching, focus on your education, training and transferable skills.
When touching on your education details, consider expanding to showcase your expertise and skills. For example, you may want to draw attention key projects or modules you undertook.
Furthermore, draw attention to any paid or non-paid work that is related to teaching, such as work as a nanny, librarian, tutor etc. Writing about such work will enable you to demonstrate key transferable skills.
Take a look at the teacher cover letter sample below to see how we presented the individual as an ideal candidate for the job, despite having no experience in teaching.
When it comes to writing your cover letter, professionalism is key. A poorly formatted and designed cover letter often indicates unprofessional applicants. So follow our tips to ensure you come across as a professional candidate.
Adding spacing between paragraphs will make your cover letter easier to read and professional in appearance. Cover letters with no spacing tend to look like one huge block of text, which makes for a poor reading experience.
So it’s important to utilise your word processor’s spacing function to maintain the attention of the reader.
To add spacing to your document in Microsoft Word, highlight the text and click the ‘Layout’ tab. Then alter the ‘After’ tab to your chosen number of spacing (between 6 pt. and 8 pt. is our recommendation).
Use standard, professional fonts when writing your cover letter, such as Arial, Times New Roman and Calibri. Don't use overly creative fonts. These can be difficult to read and may look juvenile.
The optimum size for most fonts is between 10 and 11.5. Fonts that are too big often look unprofessional and fonts that are too small are usually difficult to read.
It goes without saying that you’re cover letter should be checked for spelling and grammatical errors. Writing errors may indicate an unprofessional character and can have a negative impact on your job applications.
Proofread your cover letter more than once or ask a friend to check it for you to make sure it is void of costly mistakes.
As we touched on in step four of the cover letter structure, it’s important to conduct research into the school/university you’re applying to.
This will enable you to tailor your cover letter to the job and show how you’re aligned with the employer’s values and culture.
By showing recruiters that you’ve done your research, you’ll also convince them that you’re genuinely interested in the position and not bulk applying for jobs.
For applications in Britain, begin your cover letter with ‘Dear [Name]’ or 'Dear Recruitment Team' and bring your cover letter to a close with ‘Yours sincerely’. If you decide to begin your cover letter with ‘Dear Sir/Madam', bring the letter to a close with ‘Yours faithfully’.
Remember to only use ‘Yours sincerely’ if you have addressed the letter to a specific person or team.
In the United States, begin your cover letter with ‘Dear [Name]’ or ‘Dear Sir/Madam’. Bring the letter to a close with ‘Yours truly’ or ‘Yours faithfully’.
If you’re submitting your cover letter along with your CV, state that your CV is enclosed. To do this, simply include ‘Enc.: CV’ at the end of your cover letter.
Here is an example:
Learn more about how to prepare a teacher CV.
If you haven’t had a response to your application within two weeks, it’s a good idea to send a follow up email or letter.
The goal of application follow up letters is to give recruiters a gentle nudge and reiterate what makes you the ideal candidate for the job.
When preparing your job application follow up letter, try to avoid coming across as pushy, and keep it short and to-the-point.
We hope you’ve found this guide helpful in preparing an interview-generating cover letter for teaching jobs.
Ensure to accompany your cover letter with a powerful CV. Take a look at our comprehensive guide to preparing the perfect teacher CV, which includes three teacher CV examples.
More teacher resources:
