"Tell Me About Yourself" — What to Say in Your Childcare Interview — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01Hello everyone and welcome to story  time with Kate! My name is Kate
2. 0:05and today I'm going to cover interview questions  part two this time I'm going to answer questions
3. 0:13as if someone is asking me questions. Our first question was about tell me about
4. 0:20yourself you can review the previous video and  have a look at all the questions in a way they
5. 0:27are asked I'm going to incorporate them again  in this video. So tell me about yourself, Kate.
6. 0:36Well, my name is Kate and I'm an  early childhood teacher so I finished
7. 0:43certificate 3 many years ago in 2007 through  Cengage education and I started to work in the
8. 0:51industry as developmental consultant a tutor  private tutor teaching young children ages
9. 1:004 sometimes 3 up to 12. I also decided to go for a diploma
10. 1:07but first I realized that I can do my Bachelor so  this is how I ended up an early childhood teacher.
11. 1:14I got my degree through Monash I'm very passionate  about early childhood education and care
12. 1:20and I would like to continue  developing as a professional
13. 1:25in this industry. Working with children makes  me reflect a lot about what learning is and
14. 1:32spend a lot of wonderful moments, but also it  is quite a demanding yet very interesting job.
15. 1:41Second question: "Why do you want  to be an educator in our center?"
16. 1:48Working with children directly makes me feel  very connected to current practice I would
17. 1:53like to maintain this currency. I also enjoy  playing with children spending time with them
18. 1:59and encouraging them to think but  most importantly to help them learn.
19. 2:06I found that your center is very interesting  and full of exciting advanced ideas for example
20. 2:12I've seen that you are inspired by Montessori  approach or you can say Reggio Emilia approach.
21. 2:19I looked on your website and found a lot  of very interesting beautiful learning
22. 2:24environments. Your philosophy  resonates with me a lot.
23. 2:29Question 3 "Please tell me  about your current role?"
24. 2:34My current role is a role of a relief early  childhood teacher. I work for the agency
25. 2:39and I've been called to different centres so  I arrived early. I do programming and planning
26. 2:46or sometimes just run the program for a day  or two. It could be a block placement. I work
27. 2:52with children ages three to five but quite often  I cover breaks and work with younger children too.
28. 3:00Question four: can you describe a day in your life  as an early childhood educator teacher or a room
29. 3:07leader so here you will need to talk about your  day so here is how I would answer this question
30. 3:14so when I'm working as a relief teacher my  day starts with arriving early I usually
31. 3:19arrive 20 minutes earlier I need to prepare  for the shift i need to have a little bit of
32. 3:26unwinding and focusing before I start my  shift I need to wash my hands check where
33. 3:32the exits are and go through the orientation so  usually half an hour 20 minutes is enough to get
34. 3:38um oriented by the staff usually it is  a manager or second in charge or whoever
35. 3:44was assigned to do their orientation then i  enter the room and usually greet children i
36. 3:50want to connect with children I looked at their  routines uh if it's available on the wall in
37. 3:57terms of programming and planning and i start to  transition children to the activity or experience
38. 4:04they are supposed to be participating in if it's  a free play I keep walking around the room and
39. 4:10extend on their learning making friends and trying  to introduce myself as a teacher for the day
40. 4:19when all the transitions are done I  try to organise a group time where
41. 4:25I would have intentional teaching so then after  intentional teaching which includes storytelling
42. 4:31music or reading a book or physical exercise. I will put sunscreen on if we are going outside,
43. 4:40remind children to put their hats on and this  way we are continuing with the routine of the
44. 4:46day as they used to have so going through the  day I interact with children set up place spaces
45. 4:52environment solve conflicts help to wash hands or  wipe the noses model a lot of good practices and
46. 5:01of course facilitate friendships and  teach explicitly through intentional
47. 5:08teaching or play-based learning question five  how would you describe your current supervisor
48. 5:15at the moment I do not have current supervisor  because I work for the agency. However when I used
49. 5:21to work permanently my supervisor was a wonderful  wonderful director who was very experienced and I
50. 5:30learned so much from my manager how to set up play  spaces sometimes how to do the rest time that is
51. 5:38not a sleep time for pre-schoolers this might be  a little bit challenging my manager had a lot of
52. 5:44strengths and wonderful qualities that I learned  from her for example how to be kind approachable
53. 5:50how to smile more because sometimes I smile on the  inside, but people see my serious face like now
54. 5:58so I've found this very helpful I also learned a  lot about programming and planning from my current
55. 6:04supervisor and this was very useful because it was  during the introduction of the EYLF and national
56. 6:12quality framework so it was very helpful question  six why do you want to leave your current role
57. 6:21there might be many reasons you can use for this  question number one might be grow professionally
58. 6:29you might say move closer to home you might also  say that this role attracts you yes so there are
59. 6:36many many um um many reasons to leave the current  role better to focus on positives for example I
60. 6:43can say that i want to leave my current role as a  relief educator because I find that working in one
61. 6:50room with one group of children permanently is  much more effective i can know the children can
62. 6:57build partnerships with families and i also can  extend on their learning and promote deep learning
63. 7:04so these connections will form circle  of security and children's strife
64. 7:09on the security so they need a permanent  educator question seven at this point what are
65. 7:16your greatest strengths so maybe write them down  before the interview but I find it easy to talk
66. 7:23about my strengths in terms of early childhood  education care usually they involve relationships
67. 7:30with children so I find myself very approachable  I like working with children i like listening to
68. 7:36children I like watching them play I like their  discussions I like to watch babies exploring
69. 7:42the world I connect with every age group. I also find that one of my strengths is to promote
70. 7:50learning through conversation or  sustain shared thinking I'm really
71. 7:56good at planning and programming so  I can coach other educators as well.
72. 8:02Another strength is to be creative. I can create  experiences and I have a wide range of experiences
73. 8:08in the past that I already created so you can call  it teaching portfolio i also am quite experienced
74. 8:14at using teaching strategies so in brief these  are my strengths what are your weaknesses so
75. 8:23this question is usually difficult for  people to answer during the interview.
76. 8:27I will say that my weaknesses are the following  based on what I observed I have a little bit of
77. 8:34attention deficit problem and when I was growing  I didn't really know it wasn't such a thing
78. 8:41and I just was talkative chatty student, but when  I was focusing I was engaged in deep learning uh
79. 8:50the most important concern for me as an educator  and it remains so is to stay focused so with so
80. 9:00many stimuli so many events during uh the day or  the term I might get distracted and I need to keep
81. 9:10an eye on time and my time management is usually  very good, but I might get lost in experience with
82. 9:17children so I consider this to be my weakness. My second weakness is probably to be a little
83. 9:24bit too passionate sometimes enthusiastic to  the point that I have high expectations from
84. 9:31other people as well for example if I work  with other educators or mentor students i
85. 9:37might expect them to work as hard as I am and  not everyone is at the same level or at the same
86. 9:43level of commitment or at the same stage of their  career so I also consider this to be my weakness
87. 9:51question nine how would you describe your own  pedagogy so this question is very important to
88. 9:59get the job especially if you are being  interviewed for a position of a room
89. 10:04leader or educational leader or someone  who is teaching directly pedagogy is
90. 10:11about art of teaching or your teaching strategies  but it also includes philosophy to some extent so
91. 10:18it might be worse investing in writing your  philosophy at least drafting it and what you
92. 10:24can start with is looking at code of ethics and  the EYLF highlighting statements that resonate
93. 10:31with you and this will form your philosophy so  philosophy and pedagogy usually are interrelated
94. 10:37so for example my pedagogy and I'm gonna describe  it to you is based on the ideas of neuroscience
95. 10:45so I believe that a child's brain develops really  fast in the first five years especially for three
96. 10:51years so all the experiences that we offer to  children are very significant and important
97. 10:58children need very interesting stimulating yet  safe and secure environments so that's why I put
98. 11:04a lot of effort in building relationships with  children supporting families and carers to look
99. 11:11after children in the best possible way to ensure  the sense of security but at the same time I want
100. 11:17to provide environments that are exciting wondrous  promotes stimulation to this growing brain it's
101. 11:26very important to feed children well and provide  them with physical activity especially now times
102. 11:32when children quite often are not exercising  enough or not eating healthily or in lockdowns
103. 11:39which also might limit their activity in terms of  theories I'm inspired by the theory of Vygotsky,
104. 11:47Barbara Rogoff which is social cultural  theory so I believe that learning is
105. 11:53social in terms of practice this means that as  a teacher I make sure that children learn from
106. 11:58each other uh learn in small groups learn from  me learn from other people I also welcome parents
107. 12:05experience because they are also co teachers  of these children and i invite their expertise
108. 12:13children can teach each other a lot  that's why I make sure that they do
109. 12:17have a lot of time to play together because I  believe that play is a vehicle of learning it's
110. 12:23a context for learning according to the EYLF.  I'm also quite inspired by many other theories
111. 12:31and approaches for example Reggio Emilia approach  which views children as very competent and capable
112. 12:38and incorporates 100 languages of children so  children do produce a lot of wonderful ideas
113. 12:47and I'm as a teacher also trying to support their  thinking that's why documentation of children's
114. 12:54learning is important and it was inspired by  Reggio Emilia so that's in brief my pedagogy.
115. 13:01Last question for this part: "In your own  words describe the National Quality Framework?"
116. 13:10The National Quality Framework is very important  for us as educators I can describe it as a
117. 13:16document I use but also as a framework that I  refer to when I'm thinking about my practice. The
118. 13:22National Quality Framework was introduced when I  was teaching as an early childhood teacher full
119. 13:28time, so I was able to really immerse myself into  this document. Over the years I try to connect and
120. 13:35upgrade my knowledge and keep current so I think  NQF is very very important framework for all of us
121. 13:43because it provides us with benchmark  of best practice what is expected
122. 13:48we also can use reflective questions that are  incorporated in the EYLF we can use outcomes
123. 13:55principles and practices of the EYLF or early  years learning framework which is part of NQF
124. 14:02to provide children with best possible pedagogy  and learning and environments. I also think that
125. 14:09national quality standard is a must to know  for all early childhood teachers room leaders
126. 14:16and actually all educators as well, because it  guides your practice and the seven quality areas
127. 14:21that it outlines are very very important  to check back with so centres who are
128. 14:29consistently using the guide to national  quality framework subscribe to a newsletter
129. 14:34they show exceeding qualities especially  if they put these ideas to practice.
130. 14:40This is my understanding of the National  quality framework this is the end of part
131. 14:46two of the interview questions. In the next part  will be focusing on other remaining questions.
132. 14:54Thank you for watching if you enjoyed this  video please click like and subscribe.