Planning

As we continue the 80% teaching timetable for beginning teachers, as indicated on p36 of the handbook, detailed planning for every lesson taught becomes unmanageable. Therefore, tutors will provide individual guidance to beginning teachers and mentors as to how planning should be completed and this should be prioritised over the following guidance.

Generally, if the planning is already detailed then the beginning teacher just needs to add annotations. For example, this may be a phonics lesson plan or a maths lesson plan from a published scheme of work. Annotations must include the same content as the university planning template and be evaluated in terms of the children’s learning (see below). These annotated plans must be uploaded to the beginning teacher’s OneDrive Teaching File. If the planning available is less detailed, then the beginning teacher should complete a university lesson planning template. Please remember, detailed planning will always include how the lesson will be taught.

All formal lesson observations must be planned using the university template and uploaded to ePortfolio as normal.

Lesson Evaluations

Regardless of how lessons are planned, all of them should be evaluated with a focus on the children’s learning rather than the beginning teacher’s practice. Evaluations may be written on the lesson plan or collated in a file saved to OneDrive, as discussed with beginning teachers in the group tutorial last Friday.

Reminders

• Job Interviews: Beginning teachers are entitled to up to three days’ absence for interviews and time to visit schools should be taken carefully. Further guidance can be found in this update.
• University Tutor Visits: These continue this week. Further guidance can be found here.
• Lesson Observations: We continue to encourage mentors to note the time of each teaching moment during the lesson observation on the form. See this update for more guidance.
• Formal lesson observations: must be video recorded on the university iPads. Further details can be found on this page.
• Delayed Debrief: A reminder for mentors that there is no longer a formal approach. Further details are in this post.
• PDAs: Beginning teachers should continue with these activities found in the PDJ.
• 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).