Week 4 is a ‘normal week’ as there are no themes to focus on and no set targets.
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. 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 beginning teacher is progressing, they should contact the relevant tutor.
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 5, 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 5 will be developed).
We suggest that the Tracker is reviewed this week, as we are now four 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.
Review Statement 1
The template for Review Statement 1 is now available to download from this page. Please could mentors complete it during Week 5 (week beginning 15 Dec.) to ensure the statement reflects the fully placement experience up to the Christmas break (week 5). They should then share its contents with their beginning teacher. Thank you.
Mentor Training
If mentors haven’t seen them yet, 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. Please do let us know if you encounter any difficulties in accessing these.
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 this post for more details.
- Reading Buddy & Maths Mate: Intervention work should start this week if not already. 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.
- 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.