Mentoring role, evidence base & research

Mentor Role and Responsibilities

ITE Partnership Mentors provide high-quality mentoring to our trainees during the professional practice and all mentors must undergo training which focuses on building their knowledge of the ITE curriculum, the relevant research which underpins it and their role in guiding and supporting trainees through that curriculum. Working closely with the Link Tutor, our mentors support and guide our trainees effectively throughout their training process. Our partnership trainers and mentors are consistently skilful at drawing on the taught curriculum during their interactions with trainees, particularly during mentoring sessions and feedback following observations. Secondary and FET trainees are only placed with mentors who are specialists in the subject the trainee is training to teach.

There are three main aspects of the role of the mentor:

1- Inducting the trainees,

2- Monitoring the trainees’ progress and achievement through the curriculum,

3- Supporting the trainee.

Inducting the Trainee

The mentors carry out meetings/induction with the trainees to introduce them into their school’s/setting’s life/day. Mentors should provide the trainees with access to all key documents such as the safeguarding policy, behaviour policy and teachers’ code of conduct. Additionally, mentors should provide access to teaching resources such as the curriculum plans and online materials. The expectations should be made clear at the start and the timetable should be shared with the trainees in a timely manner.

Monitoring the Trainees’ Progress and Achievement

Mentors play a crucial role in developing trainees’ knowledge, understanding and skills to become teachers. They monitor the progress continuously through the weekly lesson observations and WDS meetings, where they provide the necessary support and guidance as to how to consolidate what has been learnt and move onto further progress.

Formative Assessment: Mentors assess the progress of the trainees formatively throughout the introductory, developmental, and consolidation phases. They refer to the key official documents on a weekly basis, when judging if the trainee is making appropriate progress, such as; the EHU ITE Curriculum (which covers the ITT Core Content Framework and more) and The trainee teacher behavioural toolkit: a summary.

In the Primary, Secondary and FET phase, a week-by-week sequential curriculum enables mentors to know what progression looks like on a weekly basis for the subject in which the trainee is training to teach. Trainee progress through the curriculum is captured in the weekly development meeting in which the mentor records progress on the WDS. In addition, the form asks that mentors indicate each week if the trainee has made sufficient progress through the curriculum or if despite additional support progress has not been made. Where the mentor has identified the trainee needs additional support the Link Tutor contacts the mentor to discuss next steps and the necessary support is put in place such as a Progress Support Plan.

Feedback is provided in the form of a weekly lesson observation and a weekly development summary. The lesson observation reflects on the subject specific skills related to the lesson being taught. A feedback form is completed which identifies strengths and areas for development alongside a commentary of subject knowledge and subject specific pedagogy.

Supporting the Trainee: This is a vital part of the mentoring role. It provides effective support for achieving the targets to address the identified development areas. It is important that the trainees receive focused feedback and guidance at their weekly development summary meetings and that these are related to the subject in which the trainee is training to teach.

Using our ITE curriculum mentors;

Provide opportunities to discuss and analyse with expert colleagues how to sequence lessons and identify possible misconceptions

Arrange lessons trainees can observe delivered by expert colleagues and discuss and analyse with expert colleagues how they balance exposition, repetition, practice of critical skills and knowledge.

Provide opportunities to discuss / experience the teaching of learners with EAL and SEND. Provide opportunities to discuss / experience in action about how to incorporate diversity, inclusion, race, equality and discrimination matters into their teaching.

Referring to ‘The trainee teacher behavioural toolkit: a summary’, mentors support trainees in developing effective behaviour management strategies.

Supporting trainee workload and well-being

As a department we are actively working to support trainee workload and we ask our mentors to support us in this endeavour. We ask mentors to:

Model a healthy work-life balance including appropriate timings of emails, communications, and work requests.

Provide a timetable which focuses on opportunities to develop through the curriculum, rather than working to a specific teaching load/number of hours.

Model to trainees how to manage the workload of a teacher. For example, by making use of live marking in Primary or in Secondary a marking timetable to deal with busy periods of marking activity.

Deliver and support with our curriculum in line with where the trainee is at in their ITE journey noting their status as novice teachers and the support they will be offered as an ECT.

Implement the guidance Ofsted by not requiring trainees to produce onerous lesson plans (once a level of competence is reached) and discouraging trainees from artificially creating distinct tasks for different groups of pupils (instead the focus is on adapting their teaching accordingly).

Discuss workload and well-being strategies each week in the mentor meeting and record the discussion on the WDS.

Discuss any concerns about workload and well-being with the trainee and their Link Tutor. This enables the Link Tutor to provide an appropriate support.

Signpost trainees to the support available via the Edge Hill Well-being team https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/departments/support/studentservices/wellbeing/

Lead Mentor Role and Responsibilities

All mentors must undergo training which focuses on building their knowledge of the training curriculum, the relevant research which underpins it and their role in guiding and supporting trainees through that curriculum. Lead Mentors have particular expertise in the evidence base for effective ITE, including programme design and content selection and have a role to play in the Quality Assurance of mentoring and trainee progression through the curriculum. Their role includes oversight, supervision and quality assurance of other mentors, design and delivery of training for other mentors, supporting trainees and mentors during ITaPs, oversight of trainee progress throughout the year and identification of interventions or modifications where required.

Link Tutor Role and Responsibilities

There are three main aspects of the role of the Link Tutor:

1) Developing the mentors

2) Quality assuring the mentoring process and assessment of the trainees

3) Supervising the trainees.

All queries relating to Professional Practice should be directed to the relevant Link Tutor in the instance.

ITE Partnership Link Tutors (LT) have a distinct role of connecting the centre-based training with the schools and settings to ensure the correct procedures are followed as set out in the respective Partnership Agreements. We have rigorous and robust quality assurance systems in our provision and both LTs and Lead Mentors have regard for quality assurance elements when assessing the judgments made at schools and/or settings.

There is an expectation that LTs communicate with the relevant colleagues regularly when carrying out their role. This includes liaising with the personal academic tutors (PATs), partnership development officers (PDOs), year/subject and programme/course leaders. They monitor the trainees’ progress weekly, ensure the trainees are set effective targets and appropriate support is planned to achieve them. And if/when problems arise, they communicate their concern to the relevant Faculty leaders immediately. In all phases, LTs have responsibility for updating the weekly tracking of trainee progression and ensuring appropriate interventions are put in place (and logged) to ensure trainee progression and/or mentor support. This process is overseen by, and quality assured by the Lead Mentors and AHoD.

LTs are required to check all the necessary information regarding the trainee and the placement specifics, and all guidance is available through the Mentor Training Space Link Tutor section.