Whilst this was not in ITAP, this article explores factors impacting teacher development and growth and discusses how to make this meaningful for teachers in school. It might be useful to reflect on your own experience of CPD as a teacher and what cycles of development you have gone through over time – where are you currently in your own development and what, if anything, from the article, could you explore further?

It may also be worth reflecting on how you use research, frameworks (e.g. ITTECF) observation and reflection to shape BT’s development? Is it clear how these inputs should influence practice?

How can reflection be structured so it goes beyond description? Is there scope to revisit previous reflections to show progress over time?

Do you share examples of how your own teaching has developed over time? Can you demonstrate that teaching expertise is continually developed? Do meetings create coherent cycles of improvement, as opposed to isolated feedback?

Adaptive Teaching

After considering some of the key ideas from the adaptive teaching materials, it may be useful to reflect on the following to enhance your development as expert colleagues:

How often do I explain to BTs why I use scaffolding instead of simplifying or when I address misconceptions?

At what points do I make my thinking explicit with BTs: is this most often before, during, or after lessons? What are the advantages/disadvantages of these times? Which ideas might be best modelled during the lesson?

• Am I revealing the thinking behind my teaching, rather than focussing on my actions?

What opportunities are there to deconstruct my own thinking during a lesson with my Beginning Teacher? Is there value in filming my own lesson or part of a lesson in order to focus on a key moment and explain my thought processes or deconstruct my actions?

SEND

The link to the digital stories article draws on the work of researchers from the University who have used digital stories with pupils in schools. A key theme recurring from the SEND day and the following ITAP was on the significance of building relationships with pupils. It might be useful to reflect on how we model this to Beginning Teachers.

How do we demonstrate to trainees what effective TA–pupil interaction looks like?

What opportunities are there to highlight strategies such as:

Encouraging pupil talk

Prompting rather than telling

Questioning to deepen thinking

Even if there is not a consistent TA in a BT’s classes, Mentors could act as one, particularly after the early stages of the course. It would be useful experience for BTs to learn good practice when planning and coordinating with TAs and interacting with Mentors to do this could give valuable insight.

Assessment for Learning

https://www.dylanwiliam.org/Dylan_Wiliams_website/Welcome.html

During the ITAP several ideas were shared from Teaching WalkThrus and Dylan Wiliam’s Embedded Formative Assessment. In order to keep reading manageable, the links above take you to Dylan Wiliam’s webpage rather than the whole book.

It might be useful to consider how visible you make assessment strategies when modelling to BTs. Some of these will be obvious – mini whiteboards, for example. However, things like which pupil you checked on first or why you stood near a particular table, for example, may not be as obvious to BTs. This is difficult to articulate in the moment but one solution could be for BTs to observe their Mentors and to plot their movement during the lesson on the seating plan, this could then be used as a basis for discussion as to which pupils were visited the most during lessons and at what point.

In addition to discussing pupils’ progress Mentors are also crucial in helping BTs to understand where they are currently up to and what they need to do to improve. How can you articulate the different criteria from the Progress Tracker to your BTs? How do we frame clear discussions as to where BTs should be and break down exactly what actions would be needed to get into the next band?

This website https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/lre/article/id/166/print/ contains case studies of teachers who developed their own action research projects. Is there any scope for developing a mini project as part of you usual classroom practice together with your BT? This will help prepare them for their later assignment which requires them to do exactly this but it might also be a useful way to explore the effectiveness of different assessment strategies on particular classes.

Behaviour for Learning

Much of the reading explored links between routines and predictability in the classroom and how this can reduce cognitive load for pupils. The work of Daniel Willingham and his model of memory was focussed on through his book Why Don’t Students Like School? (2009).

When reflecting on your own practice it might be useful to consider how you developed your routines over time. It can sometimes be difficult for BTs to unpick how routines were put in place when they arrive a little into the term. Whilst not completely authentic, it might be useful for them to watch you with a class you are unfamiliar with or perhaps on a cover lesson with an unfamiliar group so that they can see how you embed routines with a class who are not known to you.