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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Education Development Trust
  • Year 2: First half-term: embedding a positive climate for learning
    • Autumn week 1

    Mentor materials

    Welcome back

    Intended outcomes

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

    Learn how to develop as a professional by:

    • engaging in a professional development focused on developing an area of practice with clear intentions for impact on pupil outcomes, sustained over time with build in opportunities for practice
    • reflecting on progress made, recognising strengths and weaknesses and identifying next steps for further improvement.

    Activities

    Reflecting on year 1 (10 minutes)

    Guidance to mentors: Welcome the ECT back. If you are a new mentor, this is an opportunity to get to know the ECT and find out how the last year went and set goals for the year ahead.

    If you are the same mentor, this is an opportunity to reflect together on the last year and to set goals for the year ahead.

    Ask the ECT:

    • What was their greatest success from last year?
    • What was the biggest challenge?
    • Did they find anything more difficult than they anticipated?

    Planning how you will work together (10 minutes)

    Mentor guidance: This is an opportunity to set out how you will work together and establish or further your professional relationship. Together, decide on 2 or more key expectations that will help you work together. These might include:

    • making sure the ECT and the mentor come to the topic prepared
    • deciding where and when you will meet
    • the ECT will come to the mentor with any concerns
    • how you will raise any issues with each other.

    Setting goals for the year ahead (10 minutes)

    Explain that in this second year the ECT will be building on the learning from year 1. They will cover:

    • Embedding a positive culture for learning
    • How pupils learn – making it stick
    • Enhancing classroom practice – grouping and tailoring
    • Revisiting the importance of subject and curriculum knowledge
    • Deepening assessment, feedback and questioning
    • Continuing your professional development

    Together, pick two or more of these areas and decide on particular things that the ECT would like to work on. E.g. How pupils learn ‘I want to explore working memory in more detail so that I know how to avoid overloading my pupils and increase the chance that they will remember what I teach them’.