So You Have a Beginning Teacher in Your Department

SO YOU HAVE A BEGINNING TEACHER IN YOUR DEPARTMENT…

“New teachers have one basic goal in mind – survival.”

(A GUIDE FOR HODs: 3 February 2009 PART ONE OF FIVE)

Dear

B

eginning teachers are teachers who are in their 1st or 2nd year in teaching; they are just embarking on their careers in the teaching profession. Teaching is widely recognised as a demanding career choice - even for experienced teachers - so it should come as no surprise that beginning teachers are entitled to specific staffing allowances (timetabled as .8 FTTE) and that the school accepts responsibility for up-skilling beginning teachers through a two year ‘support and guidance programme’ to the point where they meet the requirements for full registration.

Beginning teachers therefore have a right to expect that our school will provide a supportive environment in which they can grow and develop professionally. We as a school can expect beginning teachers to fulfil a range of tasks commensurate with their experience (see attached sheets entitled ‘Your Rights and Responsibilities’ taken from the NZ Teachers Council manual, Towards Full Registration). The NZ Teachers Council classifies beginning teachers as ‘provisionally registered teachers’ and sees the two years of support and guidance we provide in-house as an integral part of the teacher training programme; it is NOT an ‘optional extra’. Because schools have a statutory obligation to provide two years of support the NZ Teachers Council randomly audits 1 in 10 applications for full registration by requesting from the applicant ‘evidence’ that we have provided the support to which beginning teachers are entitled.

As the co-ordinator of the beginning teacher’s support programme I see HODs, allocated buddy teachers, the whole staff and myself working in partnership to achieve the desired goal of full registration. My philosophy is that it takes the whole MHS ‘village’ to up-skill a beginning teacher to a standard of teaching that we can all be proud of (one which significantly exceeds the official full registration requirements).

The whole process comes under XYZ’s Personnel Management/Staff Support/Professional Development responsibilities but I have the co-ordination responsibility and specifically I have the role of supporting all beginning teachers throughout the first two years. Broadly speaking, this involves initial induction into the school, on-going professional support mainly through regular classroom observations (in 2007 I observed over 420 full lessons for 46 beginning teachers), after school meetings (12) on specific topics such as who is who in the school, school ‘systems’, discipline procedures, RTP, appraisal, restorative justice procedures, team building and so on, issued 15 editions of JUNK MAIL per year (a publication I edit that covers timely events like report writing, parents nights and 1001 other issues as they surface during the year) and of course beginning teachers know that my door (yes, my office is the ‘Closet’ inside the back of Prefab 9 where the Anawhata Deans hang out) is always open to them and what transpires there stays within the four walls. I also get through several boxes of tissues a year…

As HOD you are responsible for settling the beginning teachers into your department. This involves things like…

ü  Checking that the classes are appropriate (beginning teachers should NOT be allocated known ‘challenging’ or dysfunctional classes!). Beginning teachers should be allowed to learn
and practise their craft without the extra burden and pressures of a problematic class. The priority for beginning teachers is for them to practice teaching rather than getting bogged down in discipline! Now is not too late to check!

ü  Seeing that beginning teachers have all the necessary resources for teaching in your department.

ü  Allocating a ‘buddy teacher’ from within your department who has volunteered to keep a daily eye on the beginning teacher(s). This is a pivotal support role! A Y2 or Y3 teacher is fine for this role.

ü  Doing full lesson observations. The expectation is TWO full lesson observations per term. This involves making an appointment for the observation, prior discussion as to what you will be looking for (the beginning teachers may ask you to concentrate on some aspect of their teaching) and then allocating some time soon after the observation to discuss your written observation of the lesson (you need to give the beginning teachers a signed copy of the lesson observation and follow up any recommendations that you offer). I have attached some helpful notes on lesson observations, active listening and using the GROW model to provide feedback. Good professional development!

ü  Spending regular quality time with the beginning teacher on a ‘no agenda’ basis, preferably somewhere private.

ü  Being 110% supportive. Be proactive!

ü  Keeping records of your classroom visits and appraisals. This is a requirement for full registration and the school has been asked to show its ‘evidence’ of support for beginning teachers quite recently.

ü  Providing a shoulder to cry on, and some tissues.

ü  In the second year, completing the paper work and recommending the beginning teachers for full registration. Detailed information about ‘the paper work’ will follow in due course; you don’t have to worry about this!

Most HODs tell me that they find this work very rewarding and hassle free. However looking after beginning teachers does take time and often gets buried amongst the zillions of other things that HODs are expected to do all of which are important in their own right, hence the polite reminders you will receive throughout the year, especially to carry out lesson observations! By the way, the most important aspect of a lesson observation is your feedback, which all beginning teachers want to hear.

You will also receive timely guidance on the whole process of working with beginning teachers a regular basis throughout the two years leading up to full registration.

My observation is that beginning teachers are ‘high risk’ members of our staff who face exactly the same challenges in the classroom that you do but with little in the way of experience and few if any strategies to cope with the challenges. Beginning teachers have huge (unrealistic!) expectations, a burning desire to ‘make an educational difference’ and because they care with a passion they are easily hurt (partly because they are still thin skinned and partly because caring with a passion leaves them exposed and vulnerable when things go ‘wrong’). And even though we all tell them that part of being a beginning teacher is that you make mistakes and things go wrong, that there is no need to blame yourself, that good teachers take time to develop… they still go away feeling they have let the whole team down at the first ‘mistake’. Making matters worse are such things as struggling financially with student loans, failing relationships or partners who simply do not understand the stresses of being a beginning teacher, backlogged marking, excessive tiredness to the point of exhaustion (beginning teachers hibernate in the ‘holidays’) and the dawning ‘realities’ of the job.

Welcome to teaching, the profession that many claim eats its young!

To prevent our beginning teachers from being ‘eaten’ (crashing professionally, emotionally, physically or mentally) spend QUALITY TIME with your beginning teacher over coffee and a muffin, somewhere away from the general gaze of all your staff, and just talk on a ‘no agenda’ basis. And while you are having a little korero make sure that you affirm that your beginning teacher is doing a good job (find the necessary evidence first), provide any support as required.

Focus on the ‘P’ word; that is P as in ‘Progress’, not P as in ‘Perfection’. Perfection is for the gods.

While you are doing your bit, I will be methodically building up the beginning teachers’ classroom lesson management skills, classroom relationships, discipline options and procedures and all those other skills necessary to become an effective teacher which was learnt as theory whilst at Training College and now have to be translated to the real world. It all takes time. And even by their second year beginning teachers are only coming to grips with the art of being an effective teacher. They have taken a few steps forward but while the change from Y1 to Y2 is huge, second year teachers are nowhere near the height of their powers. While ERO (2004) believes second year teachers should be near perfect; we aim at that P word, ‘Progress’.

As noted earlier, I will provide you with timely reminders of administrative tasks as required and feedback to you on how your beginning teacher is getting along from my point of view. Please feel free to reciprocate. I will alert you immediately if I have any concerns that may need special intervention, or if I am aware of any information or circumstances that we all need to be aware of.

If you have any questions or issues please collar me and we can sort out a solution. A note in my pigeonhole or email works fine for me.

You may want to file these information sheets along with photocopies of your lesson observations in a box or filing cabinet for future reference.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers.

HENRY KANIUK

STAFF SUPPORT

Ph 8310500 Ext 650

MASSEY HIGH SCHOOL

3/2/09

A LIST OF beginning teachers IN YOUR DEPARTMENT.

Beginning Teachers in your department…

Have I missed anyone? It happens! If I have missed someone, please let me know ASAP.

Thanks.

NOTE:

Where a beginning teacher is in a large department where there are several HODs covering particular subjects within that department (eg Science and Social Studies to name just two) then there is no reason why those subject HODs, rather than the overall HOD, shouldn’t be involved in lesson observations etc for the BT. The important thing to remember is that someone needs to fulfil the school’s responsibilities to the BT and whoever is carrying out that responsibility must keep some records (probably the overall HOD) of what they have done, what guidance they have provided and so on to support our recommendation for full registration.