This academic year, the Julian TSH welcomed a new Acting Deputy Director, Emma Newby, to the team, and we were delighted to have a fresh pair of eyes scrutinising our work. We've been a teaching school hub for four years now, and it's obvious that what worked for us in the wild-west days of 2021, when the ECF and NPQs were brand new and nobody really knew what to expect from them, is no longer the optimal way of delivering established programmes.

As ECF Lead – and a former mentor on the Ambition programme – Emma knows that what really makes a difference to an ECT’s practice is regular, sustained engagement with the induction programme. And as a former delegate on Norfolk Research School’s CPD course on memory and metacognition (not to mention self-described research nerd), Emma also knows what makes for effective training sessions. With an eye on both of these aspects of the programme, Emma took a good look at ways we could improve our offer and support ECTs and mentors to get the most out of the programme.

Engagement

As part four of this article notes,

“To reduce cognitive load and improve efficiency, teachers can automate some processes and create routines. By breaking down complex tasks into manageable chunks, working to automate these, and then combining the chunks into an automated process, teachers can free up working memory. The primary tool that we have for automating behaviour is through rehearsal outside of the classroom and repeated practice in the classroom.”

This is a great description of how the instructional coaching part of the ECT programme works: mentors observe their ECT in a lesson, pick out one specific part of their practice, and then get them to rehearse it in their follow-up meeting, creating a “step” for them to master. Completing this mentoring process every week in year 1 of induction (fortnightly in year 2), combined with the ECT’s self-study, is an evidenced way of improving an ECT’s practice.

Knowing this, Emma created a new engagement and communications strategy to ensure that ECTs are receiving their full entitlement of the programme. Regular, supportive check-ins with participants helped our team to identify issues quickly and provide support to schools at pinch points when mentor meetings and/or self-study tailed off. Not only this, but Emma also felt that ECTs and mentors who were fully engaging with the programme should be identified and celebrated. The team now send emails half-termly to those participants who deserve to be recognised for their commitment to their own CPD and/or that of their ECT.

Training

As a delivery partner for Ambition Institute, we at the Julian TSH accept that a lot of the time we will be delivering content that has been provided to us. We can adapt and contextualise to fit our specific audience, but we aren't actually producing the course materials ourselves. As a team of experienced educators and school leaders, this can feel counter-intuitive to our accustomed ways of working. This tension is particularly noticeable when it comes to delivering full-day conferences for the ECT programme. We know that a full day of content is draining, both for facilitators and for the participants, with a drop in concentration during the afternoon session.

Emma took the non-negotiable content of mentor conference 2 and rearranged it so that it would fit into one morning session. Reading that would usually be done during the conference was sent out as pre-reading and, for those who didn’t have time to complete it before the day of the conference, we opened the conference room early as a quiet space for delegates to read it prior to the start of the session.

With the afternoon freed up, Emma created a drop-in style session where mentors could choose their own content from a selection of resources: there was networking by phase or context; an “ask your AB” table; support for difficult conversations; and a StepLab troubleshooting hub.

Ambition granted permission to run a pilot, and feedback from our wonderful mentor guinea pigs was incredibly positive – they noted the reduction in cognitive overload and appreciated the opportunity to choose the most useful content for them in the afternoon. As a result, we hope to adapt other ECT programme conferences in a similar way.

Moving forward

As a team, we are rarely content to rest on our laurels. We have already made updates to how we deliver induction tutor training, and we hope to be able to continue improving the participant experience for conferences and clinics. We really do listen to your feedback, so if you have comments or suggestions, do please get in touch.

We are also fortunate that the team that supports us at Ambition is open and receptive to our feedback, whether that be on materials, programme structure, or systems; they are as committed as we are to #KeepGettingBetter.