Surviving and Thriving in the Secondary School

The NQT's Essential Companion

Susan Capel, Julia Lawrence, Marilyn Leask, Sarah Younie, Susan Capel, Julia Lawrence, Marilyn Leask, Sarah Younie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138489707
• eBook ISBN: 9781351037129
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With an emphasis on developing a reflective, resilient approach that will ensure both effective teaching and teacher well-being, Surviving and Thriving in the Secondary School covers key issues that may be encountered in the day-to-day practice of teaching in the secondary school. With evidence-based practice at the forefront, this volume allows new teachers to avoid common pitfalls of teaching and it will help provide a new-found confidence within the classroom.

Including a wide range of tasks that will help guide and demonstrate successful practice, this book covers topics and concerns such as:

• Building relationships within teaching
• Managing and responding to change
• Becoming an inclusive educator
• Working to improve classroom climate and pupil behaviour
• Assessment, homework and marking
• Inclusion of digital technologies and ICT
• Looking after yourself and your professional development

Surviving and Thriving in the Secondary School can be utilised to help support and provide ideas on specific areas of concern, or it can be read as a continuing professional development (CPD) companion, allowing practice to be developed and refined. Written by world-renown experts in the field, this volume provides support for all newly qualified teachers and is an essential resource for the first year of teaching and beyond.

1	Beyond your initial teacher education

Staying in teaching

Kate Reynolds

Introduction

So, you’re a teacher! Welcome to one of the best professions in the world. You have joined tens of thousands of others who have made a personal and professional commitment to making a difference to children and young people. On behalf of all those children and their families we should like to thank you and to wish you a fulfilling career.

This chapter is focused on your early days as a teacher and how you can build the skills and expertise to support your professional development and your long-term career. These days can be confusing and complicated as you come to terms with your new role and your new career. This chapter has been developed using insights from teachers who were one year into their careers. These newly qualified teachers (NQTs) came together as part of Bath Spa Institute for Education’s annual NQT research day in the summer of 2017. Various sections of the chapter include quotations from these NQTs to provide insights to help you on your journey as you start out on your career and to give you guidance and advice from those who have already taken the path you have embarked on. (Note: the term ‘beginning teacher’ is used in this book to include teachers in their first year of teaching and is used in this chapter except where referring specifically to these NQTs.) The insights are intended to help you as you start out on your career and to give you guidance and advice from those who have already taken the path you have chosen. The various sections include quotations from those newly qualified teachers/beginning teachers and are intended to help you on your journey.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the chapter, you should be able to:

• ■ understand the context in which you work as a beginning teacher;25A0understand the context in which you work as a beginning teacher;
• ■ prepare to start at your new school;
• ■ build relationships and your resilience;
• ■ professionalise your use of social media;
• ■ manage time and stress.

Check how the information in this chapter enables you to meet the requirements for your first year of teaching.

This chapter also looks at professional associations and trade unions and the roles they play in supporting teachers, particularly in the demanding political and social environment that is now so much a part of being a teacher.

Ultimately, we hope this chapter helps you to enjoy improving your teaching, to avoid career stagnation, to remain positive and to remind you why you went into teaching and the profound and lasting impact you can have on the next generation.

The culture and context of your school and learners

Day one: your new job – you’re a teacher! Start at the beginning!

Forgive yourself for being at the start of your teaching career. You’re not supposed to know it all. Be easy on yourself. Try not to be overwhelmed by it all but try one thing at a time.

(NQT 1)

When you start any new job it can be a daunting task to get to know the culture and context of the organisation. This is especially important in teaching where beginning teachers are faced with the dynamic of getting to know new learners, new staff and colleagues and a new working environment. This can be a challenge for the most experienced of us! Task 1.1 is about understanding the school context.

Task 1.1 Understanding
the school context

There is a lot you can do to prepare yourself for the start of your teaching career:

• ■ Get to know the school – each school is different and early research before you join the school is important to help you to understand the culture of the organisation.
• ■ Look at the website.
• ■ Look at inspection reports (on ofsted.gov.uk in England), do your research.
• ■ Take a walk around the community to understand the local context and how people feel about the school. Consider the socio-economic characteristics of the area and consider how they might impact on your role within the school and your teaching? What experiences do your learners bring with them into school?

Be very cautious about what’s written in the local media – this can sometimes be a distortion of what’s really going on.

Record the information in your professional development portfolio (PDP) (or similar) to refer to and add to later as you learn about the school.

Understanding your new class is equally as important. We know from research that learners come to school with their own understanding, knowledge and perceptions of both the role of education and their place within it. So think about the learners in your own classroom. What do they already know? What experiences have they already had that could influence their approach to learning?

Studies such as those by Berrington et al. (2016) in the UK and Smith and Skrbis (2017) in Australia used large longitudinal datasets to examine the relationships between beliefs about academic success, educational aspirations and educational attainment. Building on Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1973), Berrington et al.’s study shows how parental attitudes can have an impact on educational attainment and learners’ own aspirations. So we all, teachers and learners, parents and staff, bring to the classroom preconceived notions of what schooling is, its role in our lives and the difference it could make to our future careers and employment. Task 1.2 is about gathering information about your classes so as to understand learners better.

Task 1.2 Gathering information about your classes

Do your homework before you start your job by gathering the following information:

• How many learners are there in your classes?
• How many learners are there in your classes with special educational needs?
• Do you have learners with English as an additional language – if so what languages do they speak and how can you build this into your teaching?
• Do you have any learners who have caring responsibilities? Can you adapt your style so they feel included in your classroom?
• Do you have any learners on free school meals? How is the school supporting them? What strategies are already being used in your school that you can adapt to support learners in your classroom?
• Are there any instances of bullying or harassment that may have had an impact on your learners?

In the light of this information, what can you do to provide the learners you are responsible for with a supportive inclusive environment that helps them to get the very best from your teaching? See also Chapter 10 for advice on inclusion.

Store the information in your PDP to refer to later as you are planning lessons.

Moreover, in understanding your new classes, it is important to understand the local context in which your learners live and Task 1.1 is designed to help you in this respect. Learners bring these experiences to the classroom and this impacts on your relationships with them. It is useful to understand the local community that your learners come from. What are the demographics of the community? Who are the community leaders? What role do church and faith groups have in supporting your learners’ communities?

Building relationships

The lives the learners bring to the classroom can also be a valuable learning tool for the teacher. One of the top tips from the NQTs tells us:

Building relationships with students is important. Spend some time following students around! You get to know students and then some good strategies and teaching ideas.

(NQT 2)

As well as building strong relationships with your learners, one of the key challenges is to build effective relationships with your headteacher and your colleagues because a school is a community in its own right and a good relationship with your headteacher and other colleagues will support you throughout your teaching career. Headteachers have a daunting task leading schools in complicated social and political environments as well as doing their very best to support their teaching workforce. Get to know your headteacher and understand what motivates them and how you might help them. Leading a school is a complex and very difficult task (witness the numerous books on educational leadership), do what you can to help your headteacher and support them so that they can support you. Make sure you build a strong relationship with your hea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of tasks
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Beyond your initial teacher education: Staying in teaching
• 2 Managing constant change
• 3 Mentoring and being mentored
• 4 Thriving in your subject department
• 5 Working with teaching assistants and other adults in the classroom to support subject teaching
• 6 Role of the form tutor
• 7 Every teacher is a teacher of English
• 8 Every learner counts: Learning mathematics across the curriculum
• 9 Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education
• 10 Becoming an inclusive educator: Developing your practice as a mainstream teacher of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
• 11 Working to improve classroom climate and pupil behaviour
• 12 Understanding learners’ primary experiences and transition
• 13 Learning beyond the classroom
• 14 Improving pupil progress through quality questioning and talk
• 15 Assessment, marking and homework
• 16 Making the curriculum your own
• 17 Digital technologies: Pedagogies and classroom practice
• 18 Leadership and management
• 19 Researching your teaching
• 20 Looking after yourself and your professional development
• Appendix 1: Glossary of terms
• Appendix 2: Subject associations and teaching councils
• Appendix 3: Useful websites
• References
• Author index
• Subject index