I am a mentor
Instructional Coaching
Evidence suggests that Instructional Coaching is currently one of the strongest forms of CPD in terms of pupil outcomes and, because of this, it forms the backbone of our Early Career Teachers programme – the course focuses on investing time and energy in the day-to-day support of early career teachers as the most effective way to improve their practice.
Rooted in the principles of developing expertise, arguably the most important factor in the success of Instructional Coaching is the expertise of the coach. So, a core part of the programme is not only developing the early career teachers but also developing the coaching skills and expertise of their mentors.
Mentor testimonies
"I find the program really clear and well structured and, even though the targets are a little prescriptive to a degree, I notice that they are really effective in improving the ECTs practice in manageable steps as this is easily observable in the follow up observation."
"It feels very simple really as I've just followed what was suggested in the Conference. We have set a meeting time each week for feedback (45 minutes) and arrange a weekly 15 minute observation for one lesson a week. In the Observation, I will take my laptop and open StepLab. I will look at what targets we set last week and observe specifically for that in the lesson and then tick off where my ECT has met their objectives. I will then turn my focus to the next target and begin making notes (I usually complete a running commentary of what happens in the lesson in a separate word document to ensure I don't miss anything). I will then meet with my ECT in the meeting and go through what I observed, let her know her targets and arrange the next observation."
Introduction to Steplab
Training materials
A vital part of the support we’re giving to mentors and early career teachers is our online training materials.
For mentors this includes a coaching guide broken down into an easily digestible weekly focus on a specific area of the Early Career Framework. And for early career teachers, the framework has been broken down into modules designed to exemplify and explain, cumulatively build on knowledge and develop in complexity.
