Mentor materials
Practice and success
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: Independent practice
Focused development area
- Teacher designs an independent practice task that enables pupils to apply the knowledge and skills that have been taught in the lesson, ensuring pupils are stretched and supported.
- Teacher gives specific, manageable and visible instructions for the independent practice and the conditions in which the practice is to be carried out, checking pupils have understood the instructions before they begin.
- Teacher is purposefully circulating to check whether the pupils are meeting their academic expectations for the independent practice and capturing important information on what pupils are understanding and not understanding.
Example precise target: Teacher designs an independent practice task that enables pupils to apply the knowledge and skills that have been taught in the lesson, ensuring pupils are stretched and supported
- Not doing it at all: Review the key knowledge and skills you will be covering in a lesson and plan an independent practice task that enables pupils to apply these.
- Doing it but needs some improvement: Plan an independent practice task that enables pupils to apply the knowledge and skills from the lesson and plan to deliver a brief explanation of the steps that pupils can take and resources they can use to support them to apply the key knowledge and skills.
- Doing it well and needs some stretch: Review an independent practice task that enables pupils to apply the knowledge and skills from the lesson and plan to ensure pupils will be stretched by the content and nature of the task.
Development area 2: Fluency, success and challenge
Focused development area
- Teacher designs independent practice so that pupils successfully develop fluency and build towards mastering challenging content.
- Teacher identifies pupils who require extra support during the practice task and responds to that need.
- Teacher normalises practising until fluent and shows pupils how to gauge when they are ready for more challenging tasks.
Development area 3: Spacing practice over time
Focused development area
- Teacher plans in opportunities for pupils to practise retrieving key information across lessons.
- Teacher allows sufficient time in between retrieval tasks so that pupils have time to begin forgetting the material they are being asked to retrieve.
- Teacher gradually reduces the amount of scaffolding that pupils receive with each repeated practice, enabling pupils to apply more effort.
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:
- Balance exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills,
- Plan regular review and practice of key ideas and concepts over time.
- Design practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide just enough support so that pupils experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work.
- Use retrieval and spaced practice to build automatic recall of key knowledge.
- Break tasks down into constituent components when first setting up independent practice.
- Plan activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.
Next, meet with your teacher to work through the ‘feedback’ stage of instructional coaching.