Mentor materials
Understanding that pupils are different and catering for their needs
Intended outcomes
The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:
Learn that:
- Pupils are likely to learn at different rates and to require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed.
- Seeking to understand pupils’ differences, including their different levels of prior knowledge and potential barriers to learning, is an essential part of teaching.
Learn how to develop an understanding of different pupil needs, by:
- Identifying pupils who need new content further broken down.
Learn how to provide opportunity for all pupils to experience success, by:
- Adapting lessons, whilst maintaining high expectations for all, so that all pupils have the opportunity to meet expectations.
Activities
Recognising that pupils are different (15 minutes)
Guidance for mentors
- In the self-directed study materials, ECTs will have completed Activity 4.3: Learning about adaptive teaching. It would be worthwhile for the mentor to read this material in advance of the topic.
- There were some questions for them to consider. The mentor should spend some time in this first part of the topic checking the ECT’s understanding of what they have read.
- Issues around pupil differences can be sensitive. When looking at class data and information, it is important to remind ECTs that this information should not be taken out of the school or left lying around (it’s easy to forget things at the photocopier!)
- It is also important that while gathering information about pupils from other colleagues can be helpful, especially if they give you effective strategies, it is vital that the ECT does not build up preconceived ideas about a pupil’s behaviour/talent/ability etc.
Suggested dialogue for mentors: You will have completed Activity 4.3: Learning about adaptive teaching as part of the self-directed study materials. There were some key questions for you to consider. Let’s have a look at those now.-
Why is it important to spend time learning about your pupils’ differences?
- So you can plan more effectively for them
- So you can teach more effective lessons.
What kind of differences can exist between pupils?
- Prior knowledge
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Familial social-economic status
- Personality characteristics
- Cognitive functioning
- Special educational needs.
Why is it important to consider how you will adapt for your pupils’ differences?
- Pupils learn at different rates and speeds
- Pupils will have different levels of prior experience, which influences their learning
- You want all pupils to succeed, and have high expectations of them all, so you need to take into consideration how you can best support all pupils
Considering barriers to learning:
Suggested dialogue for mentors: Sometimes our pupils present certain behaviours, which inhibit their ability to learn. It is important that we get ‘under the skin’ of such behaviours to understand why they are happening. For each of the following, what might be the impact?
- Pupil X has not had breakfast before coming to school.
- Pupil X does not have a desk at home to complete homework.
- Pupil X lives in crowded conditions.
- Pupil X’s parents work shift patterns.
- Pupil X has low-self-esteem.
- Pupil X was badly bullied at primary school.
- Pupil X struggles to see the board when sat at the back of class but is too embarrassed to say anything.
- Pupil X had a poor relationship with their class teacher the year before.
- Pupil X broke his leg last term and was off school for several weeks.
Pose the question: What can we do as teachers to mitigate the impacts?
Some prompts:
- Know our pupils as individuals
- Plan for it (if you know a pupil doesn’t have access to internet, print out the homework for them)
- Deliver high quality lessons, with appropriate scaffolding and support when needed
- Remove the scaffolding and support as pupils become more expert
- Provide thorough expositions, including making links to prior knowledge
- Start each new topic by finding out what pupils already know and where there are gaps
- Provide opportunities for some pupils to catch up in small groups.
Reflecting on your class’s needs (20 minutes)
Read together the following information found within the self-directed study materials:
- Your school will hold information on all its pupils. There is much useful information that can be gathered to inform your approach for each pupil. There will be data on previous performance, attendance, punctuality and so on. This can help you build a picture of your pupils but be aware of its limitations as the data does not tell you why.
- Whilst this information is useful, it is very important to not build preconceived ideas of what a pupil will be like. It is important to retain high-expectations of all pupils.
- There will be colleagues in the school who know these pupils very well and understand what their barriers to learning might be. These colleagues can be a useful place to find information. In primary, talking to the teacher who taught your class the previous year will be an important part of the handover process, but you should feel that you can continue to ask more experienced colleagues for advice throughout the year. In secondary, it is likely that your school has a ‘tutor’ system. Often the tutor or head of year/phase will know a lot about a pupil.
- Understanding levels of prior knowledge can be sought through speaking to pupils’ previous teachers and looking at their test scores from the previous year. You will also have a role to play lesson by lesson in understanding levels of prior knowledge by using formative assessment. You will learn more about this in module 5: Questioning, Assessment and Feedback.
Ask the ECT to think about their class or a specific class if they teach multiple groups.
- What kind of information do you have on your pupils?
- In what ways are they different?
- Are there other pupil differences you know about that you don’t obviously get from this class list?
- Think of two or three specific pupils. What are they like? Are there any barriers to learning?
- Have you spoken to any colleagues to find out more about each pupil? If yes, what did you learn? If no, who could you ask?
- Have you spoken to pupils’ parents? What has that revealed?
Adapting lessons ‘in the moment’ (20 minutes)
Watch the video together from the self-directed study materials on ‘Assertive Monitoring’
Planning for action
In the next topic, ECTs will need to bring a lesson or a sequence of lessons. This should be:
- Being taught soon, ideally in the week that follows the next mentor topic.
- Have lesson outcomes and activities planned.
Discuss together which lesson or sequence the ECT might choose. It could be something that the ECT is struggling to plan.
Spend time finding and setting aside the material for the topic.