Stunning art teacher CV examples for this year

A professional art teacher works in a school, privately or in an art centre and may be an expert in various areas, including ceramics, oil painting, watercolour, photography and much more. In addition to the art forms they may work in, art teachers must also be able to keep class attendance records, facilitate discussions and advocate for the arts.

As such, an art teacher will need a perfect CV to showcase this varied skill set. If you are applying for an art teacher role, your CV should describe your art teacher skills, knowledge of art history, art education experience and teaching skills.

In this article, you’ll learn how to showcase these qualities to increase your chances of securing a new art teacher role.

The structure of your art teacher CV will depend on the CV format you choose. There are three main CV formats: 

• Chronological: The chronological CV format focuses on employment history. So if you have been in the art world for many years and have an extensive work history, this may be your best choice.
• Functional: The functional CV format focuses on skills. If you have little to no experience as an art teacher, the functional CV format can help you highlight your skills and education.
• Combination: The combination CV format focuses on both skills and experience. This format is best for those job seekers with employment gaps or are making a career transition.

Once you select the CV format you want to use, you can start adding your information to the following CV sections:

Header

A CV header contains your contact information. This is an important section and ensures hiring managers and recruiters can contact you to schedule an interview. Include your name, email address and phone number. If you have professional portfolio links, be sure to include them in this section.

Professional summary or career objective

A professional summary is a short two-to-three-sentence paragraph that summarises your skills and experience. You should include important skills gained through work experience and your most notable achievements. The professional summary is designed to catch the recruiter’s attention and encourage them to continue reading. 

If you don’t have much experience, you can use a career objective. This is similar in length to a professional summary but instead, it focuses on your career goals. You can explain how the role aligns with your career development plan and why your skills and knowledge compensate for a lack of experience. 

Skills

If you’re a recent graduate or choose a functional CV format, your skills section may be the most important section of your CV. Your CV skills section should contain a mixture of hard and soft skills.

Hard skills are those you’ve attended school to learn or gained through work experiences, such as classroom management and curriculum development. Soft skills are transferable to any job you work in, such as interpersonal and communication skills.

Consider this bullet point list of common hard and soft skills for an art teacher that you may include on your CV: 

Hard Skills:

• Visual arts knowledge 
• Adobe Creative Suite and Photoshop 
• Managing classroom environments 
• Facilitating positive classroom learning environments 
• Planning art lessons
• Graphic design 
• Special education delivery 
• Student progress monitoring 
• Printmaking 
• Art appreciation and critiquing 
• Designing lesson plans 
• Organising art shows
• Elementary school or middle school instruction
• Art programme development

Soft skills:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Empathy 
• Compassion 
• Critical thinking

Work history

If you have lots of experience as an art teacher and choose a chronological CV format, your work history section might be the most important part of your CV. You should list your experience in reverse-chronological order, starting from your most recent job. This ensures you provide the most up-to-date information about your teaching skills. 

You should also provide brief bullet points that summarise your key duties while teaching art classes. Include brief examples that show the skills you listed in your skills section in action (e.g., “Developed art education programme for elementary school students”). 

Education

You may require a degree (SCQF Level 9-10) in art and design, as well as a Professional Graduate Diploma (SCQF 11) in Education. You may also need additional training and certification to become a certified teacher in your school district. This ensures you have the core competencies to manage classrooms, teach art history and more.

When listing your degrees and certifications, be sure to include the name of the institution that granted the degree and the name of the credential and certification.

Here are some do’s and don’ts for an art teacher CV: 

 Do:

• Use an art teacher CV template and CV builder. This can help you write your CV more quickly and easily. 
• Review the job description to find keywords related to skills and other requirements, and use them in your CV where appropriate. This can help you navigate applicant tracking systems (ATS) that employers use to scan CVs for keywords. 
• Use an art teacher CV sample. By reviewing examples of CVs written by successful art teachers, you will gain inspiration for your content. 

Don’t:

• Use long sentences. You want to make your CV as easily read as possible for busy recruiters, so go with bullet points and short phrases. 
• Forget to proofread your CV before you submit it. Improper spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors will reflect poorly on you. 
• Include information about your high school grades. Since you probably have a college degree, listing your high school information is irrelevant.