Beginning teachers who are going to Kenya will not be in school this week.
Reminders
Updates and Notifications
When an update is posted on the partnership website, an email containing a link to it is sent to all beginning teachers and mentors. If these emails are not being received, they may have landed in the junk or spam folder, so do please check. Beginning teachers should check with their mentors that they are receiving these email notifications.
If the link in the email fails, all posts can be viewed directly on the updates page and the most recent are always listed in the footer of every page. Considering recent issues, it may be worth checking this page if you have not received a post notification by Thursday.
Induction
All beginning teachers should have received their induction to the school. If not, it must be completed this week. As part of this process, they need to familiarise themselves with the content of the policies listed on pages 6 and 7 of the Professional Development Journal and follow the guidance on page 5. This is in addition to the school’s own induction processes.
Planning
Please may we remind everyone that beginning teachers should start to become familiar with any planning from which they will be creating lesson plans if they haven’t done so already. Please could mentors take time during this week to model the planning process to their beginning teachers.
Starting this week, all beginning teachers will be expected to produce detailed planning, and evaluations, for all teaching, whole class and small groups.
Further guidance and planning examples can be found on the lesson planning template page and the importance of detailed lesson planning page.
This Week (Week 2)
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 trainee is progressing, they should contact the tutor having first ticked the ‘no’ box at the bottom of the weekly review page in beginning teacher’s ePortfolio or asked the beginning teacher to do so:
The Weekly Review
The agenda for this week will follow that which is set out on p.8 of the placement handbook. In short, the agenda is as follows. Please note, there is no need to set three targets for next week (Week 3) because these have set already:
- 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(This is not needed as targets have already been set – see Week 3 in ePortfolio)- 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
Further details can also be found on the Weekly Reviews page.
Mentors will find further guidance on how to support the Weekly Review discussion on this page.
Lesson Observations
Formal lesson observations of the trainee teaching should continue and be recorded on the university iPads that all trainees have been issued with. The Guidance for Recording and Reviewing Lessons page has more details about this. The lesson observation form is available for download on the Lesson Observation Forms page. Further details can be found on p19 of the handbook.
Teaching Moment 2 that mentors identify from the formal lesson observation should focus on questioning and modelling, which is next week’s theme. Targets have already been set for this (see ePortfolio Week 3) so mentors should work backwards from the FIA target in identifying teaching moment 2 to fit with it.
This week’s Teaching Moment 1, can focus on any aspect of practice.
Target Setting
As mentioned in the Lesson Observation section, above, next week’s FIA target (week 3) has been set, so there is no need to set any more. However, as a result of reviewing teaching moment 2, the targets may be amended slightly to tailor to the needs of the beginning teacher more.
Professional Development Activities
Beginning teachers should begin completing the appropriate Professional Development Activities (PDAs) this week (w/b 24 Nov.). For mentors’ reference, an electronic copy of the Professional Development Journal (PDJ) is available here. For continuity, the page also has a copy of the booklet containing the PDAs that beginning teachers completed during their LATiS experience so mentors can become familiar with them.
The Delayed Debrief
Mentors are reminded that there is no longer a formal approach to the delayed debrief. However, we still use the term because beginning teachers still receive a delay in receiving their mentor’s feedback following the formal lesson observation.
With the use of the video recording to reflect on the lesson, beginning teachers do not need to receive feedback immediately following the formal lesson observation and it need not be given within the usual 24-hour period.
Reminders
Last week’s update is available to read here and the things to remember from it are:
- Please could all mentors and beginning teachers ensure they have read and are familiar with the contents of the Primary Entitlement Document. Thank you.
- Beginning teachers should begin completing the appropriate Professional Development Activities (PDAs) found in the Professional Development Journal (PDJ).