This should be tied in with a concise summary of what you think you professional and interpersonal skills are and something about yourself and what sort of disposition-always say diligent- and personality you have.
For your concluding paragraph you should state that you feel that you now have the appropriate experience, insights, and professional and interpersonal skills that you feel equips you to approach the challenge of being the – say – Deputy Head of XYZ school with confidence. Always try to put the actual name of the school as it helps the school to understand that you really imagine yourself in the role.
Apart from the obvious, like spelling mistakes and wine stains, they don’t want:
When it comes to putting this all on paper, write the headings first – this will ensure you have a robust structure. The whole thing should run to no more than a side-and-a-half of A4, ideally, and certainly no more than two sides.
It’s unlikely that you’ll just be applying for a single post, so there are a few extra things you should bear in mind if you are looking to apply to anumber of different schools.
Don’t just send the same standard letter with each application. The job of the application is to prove to a school that you meet their criteria – they should have given you a strong steer on this in the advert. Use that information to craft your letter to show your best sides to the selection panel and the information they will want to see.
Go beyond the advert as well to look for information that will help you. Likelihood is you will already have glanced over their Ofsted reports and performance data before you apply. If they have issues address them in your application, without mentioning them directly. The school’s problems will surely be on the panel’s minds – they don’t need reminding of them.
Yes – all this extra work will take longer, but it could be the best and most lucrative half an hour you ever spent.
Ultimately you need to get the balance between:
This is not easy!
But then it was never meant to be, since it’s designed to discriminate between the candidates and throw up applications of quality, distinguishing them from their mediocre and prosaic counterparts (as the interview process will do for the shortlisted, if it is conducted properly!)
This blog post was adapted from our course Preparing for Deputy Headship. It’s been very popular and has helped lots of aspiring leaders develop the skills and knowledge they needed to bag their ideal post. If you’d like to find out more take a look at how it could help you apply for deputy headship.