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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Education Development Trust
  • Year 1: Second half-term: a people profession
    • Summer week 3

    Mentor materials

    Effective relationships with specialist colleagues

    Intended outcomes

    The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:

    Learn that:

    • Pupils with special educational needs or disabilities are likely to require additional or adapted support; working closely with colleagues, families and pupils to understand barriers and identify effective strategies is essential
    • SENCOs, pastoral leaders, careers advisors and other specialist colleagues also have valuable expertise and can ensure that appropriate support is in place for pupils

    Learn how to develop an understanding of different pupil needs, by:

    • Working closely with the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) and special education professionals and the Designated Safeguarding Lead

    Learn how to build effective working relationships, by:

    • Working closely with the SENCO and other professionals supporting pupils with additional needs, making explicit links between interventions delivered outside of lessons with classroom teaching

    Activities

    Reflecting on learning (10 minutes)

    Start the topic by asking the ECT for feedback on the pupil voice activity from the last topic:

    • What have they learned about how pupils characterise effective relationships with teachers?
    • How does this relate to the conversations in the last topic?

    The mentor should use these findings to reinforce the importance of trust, respect and consistency, reminding the ECT that pupils value a predictable, safe and positive learning environment in which they are supported to achieve success. In the rest of this topic the ECT will reflect on how drawing on the expertise of specialist colleagues can help teachers to identify approaches to support pupils.

    The findings of the pupil voice activity might be useful for Training topic 6.2.

    Working with the SENCO (20 minutes)

    Direct the ECT’s attention to self-directed study materials Activity 6.4: Working with the SENCO. Ask the ECT to identify what they have learned from their visit to discuss the pupils they teach with their SENCO. In particular, discuss:

    • The most common potential barriers to learning of the pupils they teach
    • Specific approaches suggested by the SENCO that can be used to overcome these barriers for their pupils, including ideas for specific tasks and flexible grouping approaches
    • The interventions delivered outside the classroom to pupils
    • How the ECT can make explicit links to these to support their pupils<
    • Any approaches they have used to date, and the impact they have had for the pupils, and on their practice.

    Working with the careers advisor and/or pastoral leader (20 minutes)

    A careers advisor and/or pastoral lead from school could be invited to come along to this part of the topic. In advance, mentors should:

    • Inform them of the subject/phase the ECT works in
    • Inform them of the class the ECT has in mind
    • Provide them with the questions in advance
    • Ask them to bring resources or ideas of approaches and strategies they can share with the ECT.

    The focus of the topic is to broaden the ECT’s awareness of the support available to pupils in school and the expertise these individuals offer for pupils and for the ECT. It may be useful to focus on a particular group of pupils taught by the ECT and for the colleague to have been informed of these in advance.

    Questions to ask include:

    • What is your role?
    • How did you learn this role?
    • What expertise can you share with the ECT?
    • When should teachers approach you for support or guidance?
    • How do you work effectively with this group of pupils and what knowledge do you have of them that would be useful for the ECT?

    If time permits, agree a time for a follow-up conversation after the ECT has been able to apply learning to their teaching.

    Planning for action

    Before the next topic, the ECT should observe a teacher and teaching assistant or other support staff discussing a lesson (taught by a colleague or the mentor). They should aim to see the discussion and if possible, the first 10 minutes of the lesson. The time for this lesson should be agreed now with the mentor. The focus of this observation is to gain an overview of how teaching assistants and teachers work effectively together. The ECT should use the lesson observation handout to record their notes.