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  • Support for early career teachers
  • UCL
  • Year 1: First half-term: enabling pupil learning
    • Autumn week 4

    Mentor materials

    Supporting the most vulnerable pupils

    Learning intentions

    Your ECT will learn that:

    • High-quality teaching has a long-term positive effect on pupils’ life chances, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
    • A predictable and secure environment benefits all pupils but is particularly valuable for pupils with special educational needs.
    • Pupils’ investment in learning is also driven by their prior experiences and perceptions of success and failure.

    Your ECT will learn how to:

    Communicate a belief in the academic potential of all pupils by:

    • Using intentional and consistent language that promotes challenge and aspiration.
    • Setting tasks that stretch pupils but which are achievable within a challenging curriculum.
    • Creating a positive environment where making mistakes and learning from them and the need for effort and perseverance are part of the daily routine.
    • Seeking opportunities to engage parents and carers in the education of their children (e.g. proactively highlighting successes).

    Develop a positive, predictable and safe environment for pupils by:

    • Establishing a supportive and inclusive environment with a predictable system of reward and sanction in the classroom.
    • Working alongside colleagues as part of a wider system of behaviour management (e.g. recognising responsibilities and understanding the right to assistance and training from senior colleagues).

    Build trusting relationships by:

    • Liaising with parents, carers and colleagues to better understand pupils’ individual circumstances and how they can be supported to meet high academic and behavioural expectations.

    Topic introduction

    There is no ECT self-study session this week. In your ECT mentor meeting, you will work with your mentee to help them to explore strategies for liaising productively with parents, carers and colleagues to better understand pupils’ individual circumstances and how they can be supported to meet high academic and behavioural expectations.

    Research and practice summary

    There is no written research and practice summary this week; the video inputs to the ECT training session address this week’s content of the Early Career Framework. You may wish to engage with the training material for the ECT training session in this week, in preparation for this ECT mentor meeting. In particular, you may wish to read the briefing notes for facilitators of the ECT training session.