Upon my appointment to the ECT induction tutor role at my school, a medium-sized comprehensive school with a culturally diverse cohort and a high proportion of disadvantaged students, I asked myself: “Where do I start?”
Overseeing 13 early career teachers (ECTs) with varying degrees of capabilities and expertise across seven faculty areas, I was challenged to ensure they all progress across the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011) to become fully qualified and competent, permanent teachers at my school.
I was drawn to the role because of the positive impact I felt I could have on the development of inexperienced teachers, which in turn (hopefully) benefits the students and their outcomes – attainment and wellbeing.
As a teacher in my 11th year, I feel I have a good idea of what students at my school need to thrive. I started by embarking on an NPQ in Leading Teacher Development (NPQLTD) to enrich my knowledge of leadership and evidence-based practice. While this is incredibly valuable, it didn’t tell me what our ECTs needed, and a larger part of my development has been through observations, shared reflection, and coaching.
In this article, I would like to explain the steps I have taken so far this academic year to ensure that the ECTs under my guidance are progressing in their practice, including through developing their mental models and building strong habit formation to allow them to thrive at the chalkface.
Identifying patterns
First, meet the ECTs. I sat down with them all individually and with each trainee we scrutinised strengths and weaknesses across the Teachers’ Standards using evidence from their initial teacher training. For those colleagues in their second ECT year, we also drew on evidence and their experiences during year 1.
Then, most importantly, I undertook to observe with neutrality all of my ECTs. Open-minded observations yielded incredibly useful insights and I was able to note down good practice and areas for improvement across the Teachers’ Standards.
As a teacher who has only previously been involved in coaching in my own subject area (sport and health) rather than observing as a middle leader, I enjoyed watching a variety of teaching styles and immediately began to pick out trends, strengths, and weaknesses – helped of course by my previous discussions with the ECTs.
It is important that the identification of weaknesses is a collegiate process in feedback sessions and one-to-one discussions, with ECTs having a say in their targeted areas for improvement.
Once done, I cross-referenced the areas for improvement identified across the cohort and created a clear picture of where the CPD programme could usefully begin to have the most impact.
In my case, as most of my ECT cohort were in their second year and have year 11 qualification classes, assessment and progression proved to be high on the priority list.
And so we opened with a CPD session delivered by our data guru on how to effectively read and use data. We also made all mentors aware in order to allow in-faculty discussions focusing on this area.
Checking for understanding proved to be another area where most ECTs wanted further support, particularly as this is a whole school focus this year.
So I led a session based on Tom Sherrington’s 2019 book Rosenshine’s Principles in Action (based on Rosenshine’s 2012 Principles of Instruction), incorporating the effective use of open, deeper questioning to tackle misconceptions and ensure a secure understanding is made before moving on.
This helped build a solid knowledge base allowing our ECTs to practise some of these methods in their classrooms prior to the whole school CPD that was later delivered in this area.
The on-going identification of strengths and most importantly weaknesses has proved to be effective and popular with the ECTs.
The trends that have emerged from this work has also fed into the senior leadership team’s work to identify whole-school areas of need when it comes to CPD.
Short, sharp CPD sessions
Teacher learning is the same as student learning. As we know, students learn and remember content best when working memory is not overloaded.
As such, when delivering CPD sessions, I have ensured they are short, snappy, but high-quality sessions. The sessions are based on a flipped learning approach of pre-reading slides and then drilling down in-session, responding to questions and ensuring understanding.
Alongside these sessions, I provide the ECTs with more personal CPD in the shape of recommended reading and research which include ideas and insights related to their individual development targets.
For example, with a maths ECT who wanted to improve their practice with SEN students, I signposted them to an article dissecting proven methods in this area.
Providing links to extra reading is an efficient way of empowering ECTs to take a degree of ownership in their own development.
Coaching approaches
Instructional coaching is widely used across schools and is deemed by many as one of the most effective forms of CPD in education. This involves agreeing on an area for improvement, observing what this looks like in current practice, and then providing high-quality, explorative feedback with a goal for the coachee to identify their own next steps. This cycle will then repeat, becoming more fine-tuned as the process goes on.
Its low-stakes and personal approach have made it ideal for my second-year ECTs, who require less direct recommendations and benefit from more diagnostic discovery of their own self-identified areas of weakness.
The approach also helps prepare them for life after their ECT years, as coaching is an effective approach for all teachers. The instructional coaching sessions can be used to complement and support the priority areas for CPD, too.
Looking ahead, I plan to implement a new approach whereby the second-year ECTs can coach one another. I envisage this becoming a valuable tool and ECTs can use their 5% extra time in their timetables to see colleagues teaching. We will also upskill the ECTs so they can feedback to one another effectively and have professional development conversations themselves.
Using research
I have been careful when pointing out areas of research and study for my ECT cohort.
Research underpins everything schools do but it can be an onerous undertaking and so our expectations must be managed so as not to overload teachers.
I have been mindful to allow time in CPD sessions to engage in practical exercises for ECTs to practise applying new theories to their teaching. For example, when delivering a session on checking for understanding, the ECTs were given time to look at their classes and plan more in-depth questions during the CPD session itself.
This ensured that new theory was embedded and used, not lost under an ever-growing pile of marking.
External providers of articles in online magazines are also useful, with some, including the Bristol Network of the Chartered College of Teaching and of course SecEd, offering free webinars in which ECTs can engage with easily. These are, again, time-freeing in my role and ensure that information is delivered by experts in the field.
Responding to ECT needs and workload
ECTs will begin their journey with a variety of different experiences inside and outside of education. Some are fresh from university with minimal professional working experience, while others may have changed careers and already have lots of life and work experiences.
This can influence how ECTs approach their practice in terms of pro-activity, adaptability and resilience. Taking this into account, I have ensured that ECT mentors check in with their mentees with regards to their wellbeing in each of their meetings, with any difficulties or worries being managed appropriately through extra support, time, or guidance.
I have used my allocated off-timetable time flexibly for this, spending more time supporting any ECT who needs my help as a priority, rather than being rigid in my approach.
I have found that while second-year ECTs are a year more experienced and have settled into school, they are more likely to have more responsibilities and potentially teaching and learning responsibilities across the school. They are also probably teaching a year 11 examination class, all while having less extra time – down to 5% from the first year’s 10%.
As such, my main advice for them has been to prioritise time and maintain the important routines that have hopefully been set in their first year. Workload can become challenging so I believe strong routines and schemas to fall back on are essential for all ECTs and the first year is the time when these habits should be formed.
Final thoughts
Ensuring ECT progression is a challenge, especially as people learn and develop at different rates. More time spent with one ECT inevitably results in less for another.
The most important lessons I have learned so far in the role are trying to stay one step ahead of the game and balancing the importance of sticking to a plan with being flexible when responding to an ECT’s immediate needs.
It is important to have a vision and long-term plan for the implementation of the ECT programme in a school’s context, but it needs to be responsive to individual needs when development areas emerge and develop.
- Tom Fisher is in his 11th year of teaching and is currently working as a teacher of PE at Orchard School Bristol. He has taken on the role of ECT induction tutor this year and is currently completing an NPQLTD.
Further information & resources
- DfE: Teachers’ Standards, 2011: gov.uk/government/publications/teachers-standards
- Rosenshine: Principles of Instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know, American Educator, Spring 2012: aft.org/sites/default/files/Rosenshine.pdf
- Sherrington: Rosenshine's Principles in Action, John Catt Educational, 2019.