We hope all is going well in school, and please feel free to contact the professional tutor if you have any questions.
Please remember that we have produced guidance to help mentors facilitate the weekly review discussion, including how to review the beginning teacher’s teaching moments and their written reflections. We’ve also provided guidance for beginning teachers to support their reflection on teaching moments and to help them write the three sections of their reflection: Explain, Assess, and Modify.
This Week
Further details of this week’s activities and responsibilities can be found in the Weekly Expectation grid on p32 of the School Placement 1 Handbook. Please note, we have updated this to address some anomalies and made it available to download from the handbook page. This is provided as 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 trainee is progressing, they should contact the tutor.
Placement Theme
Over the placement, there are three themes to focus on in supporting the trainees’ learning. Each one lasts a week and they are designed to integrate theory and practice by building upon the trainees’ learning from the LATiS days. Full details cam be found on the themes page.
This week is Theme 2, Questioning and Modelling, and involves some activities that trainees must complete. Full details can be found on the Theme 2 page.
Targets for this week have been pre-set in ePortfolio and beginning teachers will have identified their current questioning and modelling practice through reviewing last week’s Teaching Moment 2.The activities for this week’s theme are designed to broadly support trainees in meeting the pre-set targets.
The Weekly Review
The agenda from this week on will follow that which is set out on p.8 of the placement handbook. However, in short, the agenda is as follows:
- Review pupil progress
- Discussion the reflection on the targets beginning teachers have been working on
- Review teaching moments 1 and 2
- Set three targets, and their action plans, for next week
- Discuss any findings from the PDAs completed during the week
- Plan which lessons will be taught next week and discuss any other logistics for the week ahead
As there is no theme for week 4, there is no specific focus for the teaching moments identified by the mentor during the formal lesson observation. Beginning teachers and mentors can therefore focus on any aspect of practice when identifying Teaching Moment 1 and Teaching Moment 2 (from which the FIA for week 4 will be developed).
We suggest that the Tracker is reviewed this week, as we are now three weeks into the placement. A good starting point, if beginning teachers and mentors have not looked at it yet are the Promoting Positive Learning Behaviours section (p.4) and the Modelling and Questioning section (p.5).
For convenience, page 8 of the placement handbook can also be found on the Weekly Reviews page.
Reading Buddy and Maths Mate
The Weekly Expectations grid on p32 of the handbook suggests that trainees should commence their daily intervention work with their Reading Buddy and Maths Mate this week. However, this is only guidance and the interventions can begin next week if more preparation time is needed. More information can be found on this page.
Reminders
Previous updates will contain further information about these reminders:
- 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 last week’s post for more details.
- 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.
- Planning: Please could mentors continue to model the planning process to their beginning teachers.
- Please could all mentors and beginning teachers ensure they have read and are familiar with the contents of the Primary Entitlement Document. Thank you.