Intensive Training and Practice (ITaP) is a focused component of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) designed to deepen beginning teachers’ understanding of evidence-based teaching principles and their application in professional practice. It involves beginning teachers observing, applying and analysing practice in school, as well as studying the underpinning theory and research in the university. In doing so they will be able to link theory and practice and begin to foster effective approaches to enhance their teaching that they can adapt to a variety of contexts.
The PGCE (Primary) Programme has five ITaP themes:
- Promoting positive learning behaviours
- Effective modelling
- Questioning for learning
- Early Reading (including SSP)
- Adaptive Teaching
Each theme lasts for four days and beginning teachers spend this time split between university and a school. One day of the Adaptive Teaching ITaP theme takes place in School Placement 1. On this day the beginning teachers should complete the following activities.
Activity 1: Observation
Beginning teachers should observe a lesson and write down all the adaptive teaching strategies they notice. They should make a note of the purposes of the adaptive teaching strategies and how effective they were.
Activity 2: Shadowing a child
With the guidance of the mentor, the beginning teacher should choose a child to shadow for the remaining lessons of the day. They should observe:
- who the child works with
- the scaffolds that are put in place to support learning
- any interventions carried out
- seating arrangements
- other adult involvement
Activity 3: Interviewing a TA or LSA
Beginning teachers should interview a TA or LSA, where there is one. They should explore their role, who they work with and how they communicate with the class teacher.
Please note: The activities above must occupy the beginning teacher for the entire day. They are therefore not expected to undertake any thing else.
Activity 4: The Weekly Review
At the end of the week, during the Weekly Review an extra agenda item should be added.
- This involves a discussion of the beginning teacher’s observation notes and the adaptive strategies they observed in Activity 1. Together the beginning teacher and mentor discuss some of these strategies and what makes them successful.
- They should also discuss some of the observations the beginning teacher made in completing Activity 2 so that the beginning teacher can gain a better understanding of why the approaches observed were adopted and what makes these effective.
- The mentor should highlight anything they feel the beginning teacher has missed in their observations and discuss its importance to adaptive teaching.