Within the pages of every teenage girls’ magazine you'll find a flow chart quiz which, if taken, will allow you to work out what your ideal pet/ band/ TV Soap character/ boyfriend would be. As a younger teenage girl who had laid her hands on a contraband 'Just 17', I would avidly pour over the … Continue reading Finding your way with Questioning: A practical approach for getting better at questioning
Photo by Vojtech Okenka on Pexels.com I love baking and all things cake. So, having recently written about what mentors might learn from Strictly, I now turn my attention to what beginning/ early career teachers and their mentors might learn from Bake Off and the nature of the three baking challenges included in each episode. … Continue reading Showstopper Lessons: What Beginning Teachers and their Mentors can learn from GBBO.
Photo by Marko Zirdum on Pexels.com Watching Strictly Come Dancing this past weekend I was struck by the way the judges gave feedback to the contestants in week 1 of the competition. Unsurprisingly my mind turned to the beginning teachers just starting out on their own journey from novice to competent over the course of … Continue reading Strictly Come Teaching: Giving feedback to novices
Photo by Ekrulila on Pexels.com If the pandemic period has convinced me of anything it is that developing professionals with agency is vital for society. The ability to imagine an alternative to what is already known and practised, and to find a way of enacting that imagining, has been part of our daily experience over … Continue reading Turning on the head of a pin: Why developing agency in beginning teachers matters
Not that long ago, to my shame, I found that 15 minutes had passed as I scoured the web for the ‘perfect’ picture of an iceberg to illustrate a point about bilingualism in the classroom. Why did I do this? Did I imagine that my adult audience would struggle with the concept of an iceberg? … Continue reading Perfectionism and the honourable art of being good enough
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com Low level disruption (shouting out/ whispered conversations/ persistent clicking of pen lids/ ignoring instructions) in the classroom is the scourge of teaching and learning. It eats up time and energy and takes away learning opportunities from the wider class. There is nothing really 'low level' about disruption - it impedes learning. … Continue reading ‘I predict a riot!’ Supporting your mentee to notice and deal with low level disruption*
Photo by Max Fischer on Pexels.com As we stand on the precipice of returning to full classroom teaching after the most recent lockdown I’ve begun wondering how our beginning and early career teachers might be feeling. It seems I’m not alone in this thought. Indeed, shortly after having conversation with one of my own PGCE … Continue reading I don’t like Mondays: Advice for beginning teachers on making a positive return to post-lockdown teaching
It is a tricky job writing a reference for a beginning teacher who may then be compared with more experienced colleagues, but where to begin in the middle of a Pandemic when their initial teacher education year has been so disrupted and unusual? I first wrote a blog about writing references for trainee teachers in … Continue reading Writing job references for beginning teachers: Recommending Rahul, the Pandemic Edit
Helping early career teachers and training teachers to move their lessons into a virtual space Photo by Yan on Pexels.com This week I was contacted by a former tutee who is an early career teacher. They asked if I could talk with them about the challenges they are facing moving to a live online classroom. … Continue reading Finding your feet with remote (and online) teaching
During the SHP Virtual Conference in July, I got into a Twitter conversation with a beginning teacher who, following Christine Counsell’s presentation on ‘The what, why and how of broadening historical content at KS3’, commented that he felt like a teaching toddler: This feeling of not having done enough or learnt enough or not … Continue reading Discovering Lego: Growing as an early career teacher
I remember the moment I was first asked to be a NQT mentor. The news was delivered as a fait accompli, and my heart sank. It wasn't that I didn't want to do it, I did, but I had just gained my first middle leader promotion and was in the middle of a MA. I … Continue reading Why bother mentoring a beginning teacher? What’s in it for me?
Around this time last year I wrote about how beginning teachers could make the most of their final weeks as PGCE students in the classroom. This year, they do not have classrooms, they only have the virtual PGCE programme to prepare them for NQT in the absence of critical practical experience. I asserted previously that … Continue reading Supporting your new NQT colleague to THRIVE amidst a global pandemic
Photo by Ingo Joseph on Pexels.com Before I begin this blog it is important to establish that I am utterly convinced of the importance of partnership in Initial Teacher Education. Training teachers ‘outside’ the classroom environment in a purely theoretical realm is just not possible; theoretical knowledge cannot be easily interpreted by teachers into effective … Continue reading Embracing the space: A journey into training to be a teacher virtually
Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.com The last month has brought changes to our world that none of us could have envisaged when we set off in September on the endeavour of training beginning teachers. Our minds were preoccupied with the usual concerns – how do we move students through the plateau, how do … Continue reading Becoming a teacher, virtually
Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com It is at around this point in the ITT year when many training teachers begin to get into their stride. They are no longer complete novices; they have built a familiarity with their placement setting and its rules and procedures, they are understanding how to fit into the departmental … Continue reading Moving beyond delivery: The thorny issue of competency
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com In part 1 of this blog, I provided some of the context to why it is important for beginning teachers (those engaged in ITE programmes, NQTs and RQTs), engage in the lesson planning process. In this second part I will unpack the ways in which we try to take a … Continue reading The Many Faces of Lesson Planning: Part 2 of 2
We're approaching that time in the ITE year when our students prepare to move to a new school setting for their second teaching practice. Having just settled into their placement school, having just found their feet as beginning teachers, we uproot them and transplant them into a brand new context, with different children, staff team, … Continue reading A shape-sorter understanding: Why mentees find changing teaching placements so hard
Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com Wanda had started to struggle. It was small things at first, a partially completed lesson plan with the promise that the full version would follow and a set of books she’d taken home for marking accidently left in her kitchen on the day they were due to be returned. Finally, … Continue reading Worrying about Wanda: Supporting your mentee’s well-being and workload
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Edward was a quiet, some might say timid, chap. When he started his teacher training it was hard to imagine him standing in front of a hardened year 8 class, let alone 'managing' them during a wet and windy Friday period 5. Edward was great when working with pupils one … Continue reading Creation not Emulation: Developing teacher persona
Photo by Nikolay Draganov on Pexels.com "Come on then, what makes someone a good PGCE student?", I was asked by a friend during the summer break. The faces of those successful beginning teachers I've supported over the past few years flashed through my mind. How do you answer that question? All of those people successful, … Continue reading Optimistic, Observant and Open: What makes a successful PGCE/ ITE student?
As we pop into school in the next two weeks for results days, it's worth giving a thought to how we can support new colleagues (whether NQTs or more experienced teachers) joining our departments and schools in the new academic year. How can effective mentoring and induction support them and benefit your department?
Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com At the start of the PGCE I use a recurring image with my students of a house under construction. I set out that our aim during the ITE year is to dig and lay the foundations upon which their teaching career (the ‘house’) will be built. This process will … Continue reading Building your house: Teaching in the Long Term
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Quinton is a good questioner. On one level he is able to present the pupils with a task and draw out the salient historical facts through his questioning feedback, ensuring the pupils ‘get it’. He feels confident in his ability to do this, and yet his mentor and university tutor … Continue reading Quinton’s Questioning: Unleashing historical discussion in your mentee’s lessons
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com Fernando is a new mentor. He is enthusiastic and keen to be supportive and to work with the university based tutor. He is also realistic, and has taken time to understand his mentee and their needs and to become the ‘critical friend’ discussed previously in another post: Matey Mentor . … Continue reading A Tale of Two Mentors: Mentoring with perspective
Considering how we approach reference writing for those at the beginning of their teaching career
Becoming a History Teacher 