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
We are entering that often tricky period in the ITE year when most students know if they have done enough to meet the teacher standards and are very much in the final furlong with the finish line in view. They now face a decision - do they gallop to the finish line, driving forward, attacking … Continue reading Galloping into the final furlong: Supporting your mentee to make the most of their final weeks as a training teacher
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
Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com What are the conditions required for a beginning teacher to thrive in their training year? Since writing my blog on ‘Bewildered Beryl’, I have been pondering upon the idea that ‘the student teacher needs to develop quickly a feeling of friendship with, and trust in, the mentor’, the key assertion … Continue reading Matey Mentor? Creating the right environment for our beginning teachers
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com For Priya, whilst it didn’t feel like it at the time, Teaching Practice 1 was a time of steady progress and success. Teaching Practice 2 started well; it’s been a long term and she’s tired, but she is also grateful that her classes are cooperative and seem to enjoy … Continue reading Pulling Priya through the plateau: supporting your mentee to continued progress
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com Beryl came to the PGCE feeling confident. Due to various experiences working with children in her past, she felt she understood what she was getting herself into and how schools worked. Surely teaching was just a matter of telling pupils the historical stories she herself had loved as a … Continue reading Bewildered Beryl: Helping your mentee find the end of the rope
The first of a series looking at the different 'types' of teacher training students we may encounter, and how teacher educators can seek to support them in their development
A cup of tea and a listening ear Standing outside my son’s primary classroom this week, I observed his teacher deep in conversation over a cup of tea with a new member of staff. When the door to the classroom opened just a few minutes later, this young woman stood (with the class teacher hovering … Continue reading Helping a new PGCE Mentee to start well
On the eve of a new adventure a strange sort of calm often descends; a calm punctuated by the butterflies of excitement, of seas yet to be sailed and lands yet to be explored. As we await the arrival of our new cohort of beginning History teachers for 2018/19 I too feel that sense … Continue reading The Calm Before the Storm
Becoming a History Teacher 