The beginning teachers will not be in School on Friday this week as they will be visiting a special school.

Week 6 is a ‘normal week’ like weeks 4 and 5. There are no themes to focus on in terms of target setting and teaching moment reflection.

Review Statement 1

The template for the Review Statement 1 (RS1) can be downloaded from this page. The statement should be completed by the mentor and its contents shared with the trainee before it is submitted by 19 Dec. to partnership@soton.ac.uk.

A Reminder About Teaching Moments

We are aware that some mentors prefer not to share the completed lesson observation form with their beginning teacher immediately after the observation. This is because they do not want the written comments to influence the beginning teacher’s own evaluation of the lesson or pre-empt the feedback discussion during the Weekly Review. This approach is absolutely fine; however, it does mean the beginning teacher will not know which two teaching moments they are expected to reflect on, as these are noted at the end of the form.

If mentors choose to delay handing over the full observation form until the Weekly Review, please can they ensure the beginning teacher is still given the two teaching moments informally, for example on a post-it note or a sheet of notepaper.

To ensure beginning teachers have sufficient time to reflect on the identified teaching moments, please can mentors ensure they are given them promptly after the observation, and no later than the same day.

Equally, mentors can still give the beginning teacher the completed form at the end of the lesson if they prefer and in most cases we recommend this as the preferred approach.

Further details of teaching moments can be found on this page and on p.14 of the handbook.

A Reminder About Planning

Planning needs to be considered a process, rather than a product. It is complex with many layers and is inherently invisible. It needs to be thought about carefully in ways that are not always easy for beginning teachers, especially at this stage in their learning to teach. This is why we ask mentors to plan with them so that they can share their thinking and help reveal this process.

During university sessions, our beginning teachers have started to develop an understanding of how and why the various facets of a lesson should be incorporated into a plan. Based on inclusion, these have included such things as questioning, modelling, explaining and adaptive teaching.

Where beginning teachers are working from detailed school planning, that have much of the content and learning activities provided, they will need support in translating this into a lesson plan using the university template. Trainees may be unable to read these detailed plans in the same way as an experienced teacher, so mentors are asked to ensure that their beginning teacher knows, for example, the intention behind each IWB slide or each planned activity so they are able to comprehend the learning journey that the children need to take.

Where trainees are working from school plans that are less detailed, they may need support in learning how to create or identify appropriate learning objectives and activities before they can complete the lesson plan using the university template.

Either way, beginning teachers should not be planning by themselves. Mentors should plan with them, sharing their thinking as they help reveal the complex, and invisible, process that is planning. Spending time to do this together is therefore recommended. The amount of time spent together should reduce as the beginning teacher becomes more proficient.

This Week

Trainees 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 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:

1. Review pupil progress
2. Discussion the reflection on the targets beginning teachers have been working on
3. Review teaching moments 1 and 2
4. Set three targets, and their action plans, for next week
5. Discuss any findings from the PDAs completed during the week
6. Plan which lessons will be taught next week and discuss any other logistics for the week ahead

As there is no theme for week 7 (12-15 Jan.), 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 7 will be developed).

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.

Reminders

Previous updates will contain further information about these reminders:

• 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.
• Planning: Please could mentors continue to model the planning process to their beginning teachers (see above).
• Please could all mentors and beginning teachers ensure they have read and are familiar with the contents of the Primary Entitlement Document. Thank you.

And finally …