Mentor materials
Identifying learning content
Select a development area
Consider the development areas for this topic (below). Then make a note of the area you plan to zoom in on and when you plan to visit so you can observe your teacher in this area. Familiarise yourself with the focused development areas. You will select one later when you observe your teacher.
Development area 1: Identify learning content
Focused development area
- Teacher, with the support of a colleague, identifies the key knowledge and skills that they want pupils to understand and think hard about within the lesson, and ensures tasks cause pupils to do so.
- Teacher, with the support of a colleague, identifies which knowledge and skills need to be taught or referred back to in the lesson depending on whether it is new or prior knowledge.
Example precise target:Teacher, with the support of a colleague, identifies the key knowledge and skills that they want pupils to understand and think hard about within the lesson, and ensures tasks cause pupils to do so
- Not doing it at all: With the support of a colleague, review lesson resources to identify the key knowledge and skills that pupils will need to acquire in order to achieve the learning goals and ensure these are covered in the lesson.
- Doing it but needs some improvement: With the support of a colleague, review lesson resources and ensure each of the tasks in the lesson is focused on the knowledge and skills needed to achieve the learning goals
- Doing it well and needs some stretch: With the support of a colleague, review lesson resources and adapt tasks so they better align with the knowledge and skills in the learning goals, causing pupils to think hard about them.
Development area 2: Making learning manageable
Focused development area
- Teacher, with the support of a colleague, decides on the knowledge and skills to cover or introduce in a lesson and ensures they are manageable for pupils.
- Teacher, with the support of a colleague, plans to ensure knowledge and skills build in order to ensure the content is manageable and deepens pupils’ understanding over time.
- Teacher breaks down key knowledge and skills needed for a task into steps to make learning manageable.
Development area 3: Exit tasks
Focused development area
- Teacher carefully frames to pupils what exit tasks are and what their purpose is so that pupils know they are low stakes and support their learning.
- Teacher plans the content of the exit task so that it efficiently checks pupils’ understanding of the key knowledge and skills from the lesson, specifically assessing for misconceptions and gaps in understanding.
- Teacher plans how to address information from the exit tasks in the following lesson.
Observe
Consider the following questions based on a short (approximately 15 minute) observation of your teacher.
What was your teacher’s previous target? Are they meeting it? How do you know?
Thinking about the development area you have selected for this topic, what is your teacher already doing well in this area? Which focused development area best aligns with what your teacher needs to get better at? What one precise target (bite-sized action) might you work with them on during your mentor meeting?
Reminder: You can choose to stick with this previous target if they have not made enough progress. When moving on to a new precise target, you can select one from the table above or, if this doesn’t fit your teacher’s needs, you can write your own.
How will you model the target to your teacher to show them what good looks like? What questions will you ask to check your teacher understands the model? For example, ‘How it is different from your current practice?’ and ‘What impact might it have on your practice and pupils?’
Reminder: Your model should help your teacher develop their ability in some of the following:
- Identify essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject and provide opportunity for all pupils to learn and master these critical components.
- Plan formative assessment tasks linked to lesson objectives and thinking ahead about what would indicate understanding.
- Structure tasks and questions to enable the identification of knowledge gaps and misconceptions.
Next, meet with your teacher to work through the ‘feedback’ stage of instructional coaching.