School Direct Paper Work Transcript

In this section we will look at the paperwork you will be using this year with your trainee.

Here is a list of the forms that are available on the partner’s intranet with a link available below.

The weekly mentor-trainee meeting record is completed by trainees and shared with you and the professional mentor and records your weekly meeting, which should be aligned on your timetable as opposed to lunch times or after school. Moderation tutors from University will check that trainees are uploading weekly forms to their PDPs.

Weekly reflective questions will be set as a result of University sessions and trainee reflections, for discussion in your meeting.

A review of weekly targets needs to include how each one has been met. What evidence has been collected in informal observations that demonstrate the meeting of the targets. Does something need tweaking or is the trainee comfortable to move on?

There is an opportunity to discuss critical incidents, which often lead to targets. These will also be discussed at University. Trainees should have considered this question in advance. You may also have seen incidents or things clicking into place, worthy of discussion.

It is important for a trainee to have the opportunity to discuss what they think they are doing well and questioning is important here. It is vital that a trainee understands what is actually happening in their own classroom as well as what you observe. If the two don’t match, then questioning to re-examine their current reality, needs to take place.

Areas of development come from discussing the current reality and critical incidents. For example, if a trainee thinks they are having issues with low-level disruption which is interrupting learning, what does this look like? How often is it happening in a typical lesson? Does it depend on the year group or position of lesson in the day? This becomes the focus for collecting evidence across the week by class teachers in the trainee’s reflective journal to establish the current reality. Once this has been understood by the trainee through evidence, teaching strategies can be discussed and a pedagogical target set for the following week and looked at in the formal observation.

A key role for the subject mentor is to guide the development of subject and curriculum knowledge and how this breaks down across the key stages.

Weekly discussions on subject topics are key and discussing how a trainee can develop subject knowledge so that they have a range of go to resources, should be an aspect of the weekly mentor meeting. Trainees complete a subject knowledge audit across the year and this should be a ‘live’ document with continuing updates.

The final target can link to other Teachers’ Standards and include learning from other teachers, tracking a pupil, or researching a pedagogical technique for instance.

Remember, this form is completed by the trainee and shared with you and the professional mentor.

The lesson observation form should be completed once a week in the weekly formal observation when trainees are teaching full lessons.

The trainee should prepare the form with the weekly targets set, aligned to the Teachers’ Standards so you know what standards you are examining.

The weekly formal lesson observation gives a broad overview of what is going on in a trainee’s classroom and should inform the assessment profiles.

The Warwick Assessment Descriptors should be used here to make sure you are positioning a trainee in the correct columns. Remember you only need to complete sections that link to the targets.

The Warwick Assessment Descriptors or WADs break down each sub-criteria of the Teachers’ Standards and describe how a trainee should be performing for each sub-criteria across four performance levels; Not yet met, requires improvement, good, outstanding. The lesson observation form uses productive language, but as you can see, matches across the four categories, as shown here.

The WADs must be used to inform the completion of the weekly formal observation and when completing the assessment profiles. The WADs ensure we are consistently assessing our trainees across the whole partnership as the language is very specific.

Here we have TS1 and sub-criteria one, establishing a safe and stimulating environment: Not yet met or beginning uses the word developing the ability; requires improvement or developing states that a trainee can create a safe stimulating environment, but this might not be the case across all classes; good uses the word generally and outstanding states that a trainee must be consistent in their practice. This language goes across all the standards and the WADs need to be used and followed authentically to ensure parity across all schools.

The final document is the Assessment Profile document. I will share an on-line tutorial in the mentoring matters bulletin to further discuss how this is completed and share good and not so good ones as examples.

There are five assessment profiles across the year with the deadline for submission to Warwick shown here. As a school direct partner you may be required to submit your assessment profiles to your Lead Alliance ahead of this deadline.

Assessment Profile (AP) one and three are shorter overviews of the TSs as they fall at the beginning of trainee placements. Part two of the TSs may well be outstanding from the word go, as a trainee has the potential to be professional from the off.

There is an option to suggest areas where trainees need more focused attention, with further professional training sessions taking place at University across the year.

AP two, four and five are more detailed and require you to assess each sub-criteria of each standard and give an overview.

AP five is the summative assessment profile and requires an overall final grade that is agreed upon by you, the trainee and the professional mentor.

It is important that you maintain a record of the paperwork listed here, and that this is then passed onto the complementary placement school securely and then returned to you upon the trainee’s return to the base school. With a school direct trainee, stage one interventions are organised by the Lead Alliance. The University only gets involved if further intervention is required. All parties need to be fully informed at all stages of intervention.

If you have any further questions, do contact me on the email address here and remember to sign up to the mentoring matters bulletin or the monthly clinic.