The Julian Teaching School Hub values the importance of those of you who are mentors by supporting your own CPD to develop good mentoring practice.

Instructional coaching has been embedded in the Early Career Teacher programme by using the expertise from mentors to help ECTs develop their practice using:

Regular feedback: this ensures growth is constant, and ECTs are supported by having observations and developmental meetings.

Manageable action steps: bite-size action steps should be explicit, observable and able to be accomplished to embed the practice in their own mental model.

Modelling, practise and re-practise: Expert teachers model techniques and pedagogy to their ECTs, often within a classroom setting to adopt new behaviours to improve practice.

It is no surprise then, that instructional coaching should be encouraged when mentoring Initial Teacher Trainees. Developing automatic routines is an essential step for novice teachers if they are to overcome the high levels of cognitive load that can be imposed by working in a classroom (Feldon, 2007).

Suffolk and Norfolk SCITT have two mentor events in May:

Primary Mentor Event: Instructional coaching CPD for Mentors, 3 May, 1.30 – 4.00 pm

Secondary Mentor Event: Active ingredients of instructional coaching, 11 May online 4.00pm – 5.30 pm

You can book on to one of these events here. 

Ambition Institute have also just published An Expert Edit on Instructional Coaching by Genevieve Field.

Download a copy here.

If you would like to find out more about mentor training, or you have colleagues who would like to develop their instructional coaching, please contact me: Sarah Bird, ITT Lead. sbird@ndhs.org.uk