A teacher resume should make your teaching context, qualification status and relevant classroom experience easy to understand. Show the year levels, subjects or curriculum areas you have worked with and explain your contribution to planning, teaching and assessment. A graduate can use supervised placement evidence; an experienced teacher can lead with relevant employment.
See the placement example · Adapt it for experience · Check your application
Watch the teacher resume walkthrough
Follow Riley's example to explain supervised placement and how evidence informed a teaching decision. Fictional example — use your own experience.
Watch on YouTube with captions and chapters · 3 minutes
What to include in an Australian teacher resume
- Contact details and a short profile: connect your teaching background to the advertised role.
- Qualifications and registration status: name the qualification, institution and completion or expected completion date. Describe your actual registration or application status accurately.
- Teaching employment or professional experience placements: school, position or placement type, dates, year levels and relevant subjects.
- Evidence of practice: explain what you planned, taught, assessed or adapted, and how you know what happened.
- Relevant skills and development: include current training, systems and capabilities you have used, without treating every possible teaching duty as your own experience.
- Referees and requested documents: follow the application pack and ask referees for permission.
Read the vacancy and the relevant employer or registration authority's instructions. Requirements vary by role and jurisdiction; there is no universal two-year teaching-experience requirement for every vacancy. A resume also does not replace a separately requested cover letter, selection-criteria response or teaching portfolio.
Graduate teacher resume: an annotated placement example
Fictional teaching example: Riley is a final-year primary education student preparing an application for a graduate teaching role. The school, dates, lesson and feedback below are invented to demonstrate structure, not a real applicant or client result. Replace them with your own placement evidence.
Riley Morgan
[Your phone] · [Your email] · [City, state]
Profile
Final-year Bachelor of Education (Primary) student with supervised Year 4 placement experience. Planned and delivered history activities, reviewed exit-ticket responses with a supervising teacher and revised explanations in response to feedback. Interested in a graduate role with opportunities to contribute to collaborative planning.
Education and registration
Bachelor of Education (Primary) — Example University
2023–expected November 2026
Registration: [Insert your actual status, authority and any identifier specifically requested by the employer.]
Professional experience placement
Preservice teacher, Year 4 — Example Primary School
Four-week supervised placement, May 2026
- Co-planned a history lesson with the supervising teacher, selecting two sources for pupils to compare and preparing questions about their similarities and differences.
- Delivered the agreed activity under supervision and used a short exit ticket to check pupils' explanations.
- Reviewed responses with the supervisor, identified confusion between observation and inference, and revised the prompts for the next lesson.
- Used mentor feedback on instruction length to prepare a shorter sequence of directions, then discussed the subsequent lesson observation with the mentor.
Relevant skills
- Lesson planning: linking a learning purpose to activities and checking questions.
- Assessment: using exit-ticket responses to inform a supervised teaching decision.
- Professional reflection: explaining how mentor feedback changed a subsequent lesson.
What the example makes clear
- Context: the year level, school and placement dates help a reader understand the setting.
- Responsibility: “preservice” and “supervised” distinguish placement from employed classroom-teacher responsibility.
- Contribution: the bullets name specific decisions and actions.
- Evidence: exit tickets and mentor observation explain the basis for the change. No unsupported attainment percentage is claimed.
Add other relevant placements, employment and development to your own document. Keep pupil names, identifying details, confidential reports and unapproved work samples out of the application. Describe evidence at an appropriate level without publishing student records.
Turn a teaching duty into a supported example
Broad duty: “Responsible for lesson planning and assessment.”
Evidence prompt: “Planned [learning sequence] for [year level/subject], used [assessment method] to identify [learning need], and adjusted [teaching approach]. [Supported observation or result].”
Fill this in from a real example. State what you did personally, who supervised or collaborated with you and what the evidence can actually establish. You can describe a useful teaching decision without claiming a measured improvement that you cannot substantiate.
How to adapt the resume for an experienced teacher
Lead with your recent relevant teaching employment. Identify the school, role, dates, year levels, subjects and any genuinely held additional responsibility. Choose examples that fit the vacancy, such as a teaching sequence, an assessment decision or collaboration with colleagues. Earlier placements can become shorter as relevant employment grows.
Illustrative wording to adapt: “Reviewed [assessment evidence] with the [year-level or subject] team, identified [specific need] and revised [part of the teaching sequence]. Checked the effect using [appropriate follow-up evidence].”
Use this only if it describes your work. A classroom-teacher example should not imply that you led a whole-school initiative; a team result should identify your contribution. Career changers can include relevant earlier work, with teaching evidence given appropriate prominence.
Registration, referees and application format
Keep your qualification and registration status current. For Queensland state-school applications, Teach Queensland's resume guidance asks for the QCT applicant or registration number and placement details. Check the current instructions for your own employer and jurisdiction rather than copying another state's identifiers.
James Cook University's education resume example shows how placements and later experience can be organised. Select referees who can discuss relevant work or placement, ask their permission and provide the details requested by the employer.
Use straightforward headings and readable text. Follow the specified page limit and file format; casual, contract and permanent applications can ask for different documents. Check the exported file before uploading it. Tailoring improves relevance, but it cannot guarantee an ATS pass, shortlisting or an interview.
Teacher application checklist
- Confirm the school, role, reference number and submission requirements.
- Check all qualification, registration, training and employment dates.
- Distinguish observation, supervised practice and independent responsibility.
- Link important claims to examples you can explain without disclosing pupil information.
- Remove placeholders and confirm referee permission.
- Provide separate criteria responses or other documents when requested.
Want help with your teacher resume?
Prepare your evidence and a target advertisement, then request a free resume review or explore our teacher resume writing service. Check the selected service's actual inclusions and use your own verified classroom and placement experience.