Review Statement 1

Review Statement 1 (RS1) were due for in on 19 Dec. If this is still outstanding, the template can be downloaded from this page and it should be submitted to partnership@soton.ac.uk as soon as possible and no later than 09 Jan because the information is required by tutors in advance of their visits which start on 12 Jan.

Trainees are asked to embed a copy of their RS1 into the relevant page in their ePortfolio as soon as it has been submitted. Thank you.

A Reminder About Teaching Moments

Please may we remind mentors and beginning teachers about the guidance on teaching moments that can be found in the Week 6 update. Thank you.

This Week

Once again, beginning teachers will be in school Monday to Thursday. The percentages in the Weekly Expectation grid, on p32 of the School Placement 1 Handbook, should therefore be of four days. Further details of this week’s activities and responsibilities can also be found in this grid. Please remember, the information provided in the grid is guidance and need not be adhered to if it is not in the interest of the beginning teacher’s learning to teach. If mentors have any concerns regarding the pace at which their beginning teacher is progressing, they should contact the relevant tutor.

The Weekly Review

Next week (Week 8, 19-22 Jan.) is a placement theme week focusing on adaptive teaching. Targets for this week have already been set in ePortfolio so there is no need to set others.

This week’s Teaching Moment 1 can focus on any area of practice that is considered to be a strength, whilst Teaching Moment 2 should focus on an aspect of adaptive teaching in preparation for next week’s theme (see below).

The agenda for this week will therefore differ slightly from the usual one which is set out on p.8 of the placement handbook. It will be as follows:

1. Review pupil progress
2. Discussion the reflection on the targets beginning teachers have been working on
3. Review teaching moments 1 and 2 (Teaching moment 2 should relate to adaptive teaching)
4. Discuss any findings from the PDAs completed during the week
5. Plan which lessons will be taught next week and discuss any other logistics for the week ahead

Once again, we suggest that the Tracker is reviewed this week but focusing areas that haven’t been looked at, especially if they relate to the beginning teacher’s targets.

For convenience, page 8 of the placement handbook can also be found on the Weekly Reviews page.

Tutor Visits

These begin this week. Further details of what to expect and how to prepare can be found on this page. Beginning teachers must ensure their ePortfolios are up-to-date, shared their OneDrive teaching file and have completed the January Preparedness to Teach Survey (link available on Bb) prior to the day of the visit.

Our quality assurance processes aim to support placement schools in creating opportunities for beginning teachers to develop their practice in line with the Primary Entitlement Document. Mentors and beginning teachers may therefore find it helpful to revisit this document so that any concerns or issues related to the current provision can be raised and discussed with the tutor during the visit.

On the visit, tutors may need to view recorded lessons. Trainees and mentors are reminded to keep as many recordings as possible to assist with this.

Next Week

Looking ahead to Week 8 (19-22 Jan), as mentioned above, the placement theme for the week is adaptive teaching. Further details of what the beginning teachers will do can be found on the Theme 3 page.

Mentor Development Activity 2

This month’s development activity for mentors is now available on this page.

It involves co-planning with their beginning teachers. The plan produced should be flagged by the inclusion of “(Co-planned)” on the relevant lesson plan after the beginning teacher’s name.

Mentors are reminder that these activities form part of the anual refresher training and when completed, should be recorded on the Primary Mentor Development Log so that funding can be claimed by schools directly from the DfE at the end of the year.

Early Reading including SSP (PDA12)

This is a reminder for all trainees in a KS1 environment that PDA12 (Early Reading including Systematic Synthetic Phonics), in the Professional Development Journal, needs to be completed by the end of the placement. If trainees and mentors have any questions about completing this PDA (Professional Development Activity) please could they be emailed to Tiffany copying in the trainee’s Professional Tutor.

Reminders

Previous updates will contain further information about these reminders:

• Planning: Please could mentors continue to model the planning process to their beginning teachers (see this post).
• Mentor Training: Annotated slides from the briefing meeting are available on the Mentor Briefing Meeting page and the mentor log can be downloaded from the Level 1 and Level 2 Training page.
• Update Notifications: Please remember to check your junk or spam folders if you are not receiving email notifications about these updates in your inbox. See the Reminder: Updates and Notifications in this post for more details.
• Reading Buddy & Maths Mate: Intervention work should be underway. More information can be found here.
• Lesson observations: Forms can be downloaded here, and guidance on recording the formal lessons can be found here.
• Target setting: All 3 targets set should be achievable in a week, including the FIA.
• Professional Development Activities: Completion of relevant PDAs should continue this week.
• Please could all mentors and beginning teachers ensure they have read and are familiar with the contents of the Primary Entitlement Document. Thank you.