Mentoring in Schools

How to become an expert colleague - aligned with the Early Career Framework

Haili Hughes

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781785835230
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785835452
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Forewords by Professor Rachel Lofthouse and Reuben Moore.

With low early career teacher retention rates and the introduction of the Department for Education's new Early Career Framework, the role of mentor has never been so important in helping to keep teachers secure and happy in the classroom.

Haili Hughes, a former senior leader with years of school mentoring experience, was involved in the consultation phase of the framework's design - and in this book she imparts her wisdom on the subject in an accessible way.

Haili offers busy teachers a practical interpretation of how to work with the Early Career Framework, sharing practical guidance to help them in the vital role of supporting new teachers. She also shares insights from recent trainee teachers, as well as more established voices in education, to provide tried-and-tested transferable tips that can be used straight away.

7

Chapter 1

Set high expectations

High Expectations (Standard 1 – Set high expectations)
Learn that …	Learn how to …
Teachers have the ability to affect and improve the wellbeing, motivation and behaviour of their pupils. Teachers are key role models who can influence the attitudes, values and behaviours of their pupils. Teacher expectations can affect pupil outcomes; setting goals that challenge and stretch pupils is essential. Setting clear expectations can help to communicate shared values that improve classroom and school culture. A culture of mutual trust and respect supports effective relationships. High quality teaching has a long-term positive effect on pupils’ life chances, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. High quality teaching has a long-term positive effect on pupils’ life chances, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.	Communicate a belief in the academic potential of all pupils, by: Using intentional and consistent language that promotes challenge and aspiration. Setting tasks that stretch pupils, but which are achievable, within a challenging curriculum. Creating a positive environment where making mistakes and learning from them and the need for effort and perseverance are part of the daily routine. Seeking opportunities to engage parents and carers in the education of their children (e.g. proactively highlighting successes). 8 Demonstrate consistently high behavioural expectations, by: Creating a culture of respect and trust in the classroom that supports all pupils to succeed (e.g. by modelling the types of courteous behaviour expected of pupils). Teaching and rigorously maintaining clear behavioural expectations (e.g. for contributions, volume level and concentration). Applying rules, sanctions and rewards in line with school policy, escalating behaviour incidents as appropriate. Acknowledging and praising pupil effort and emphasising progress being made.
Notes Learn that … statements are informed by the best available educational research. Learn how to … statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

9Why is this standard important? What does the research say?

The research area of teacher perceptions and the effect they could have on pupils is an important area to study as it could have far-reaching effects on individuals and have a substantial impact on pupils’ future lives. (Hamilton, 2006: 208)

Teachers’ expectations about their students and the potential of what they can achieve – or, indeed, the way they are capable of behaving – can have a substantial impact on their learning, progress and emotional wellbeing. Often, teacher expectations are formed from our own constructs of belief, which can be difficult to quantify as they are sometimes implied and rarely made explicit. They are made up of teachers’ cultural, biographical and professional identities, which all inform their perceptions of their students’ abilities (Rushton, 2011). These perceptions can have far-reaching consequences in the classroom, as they can impact on teaching and learning decisions (McNair, 1979; Pajares, 1992; Bullough and Baughman, 1997). This could suggest that some teachers may not teach more challenging concepts to those they perceive to be less able or may have lower expectations for their behaviour.

Previous research has also revealed that these perceptions are constructed in a casual way, with decisions being made about students’ potential with little real guidance or evidence (Hoge and Cudmore, 1986). These concepts of who is intelligent and who isn’t exist powerfully in teacher perceptions and are evident in their actions. They can be seen as a ‘folk pedagogy’ (Torff, 1999: 196) and can create a cascade effect, which can have substantial effects not only in the classroom but can also impact on further education choices and career choices in later life (Sternberg, 1990). For instance, I have vivid memories of my careers advisor at school laughing at me when I told him about my ambitions to go to university and work as a national newspaper journalist. He clearly didn’t think that my working class, council estate background could stretch that far.

But it isn’t as simple as just class or socio-economic status. The stereotypes that form teacher perceptions can come from a range of different experiences, including student characteristics and how these are perceived by staff. These preconceptions of potential can be reinforced by a school’s performance levels and then become self-fulfilling (Bradbury, 2011). Recent initiatives in schools, such as focusing on students with minority ethnic backgrounds, on low incomes or in receipt of the pupil 10premium, may contribute to teacher perceptions that these students have less potential and are less capable, meaning educators may lower their expectations (Campbell, 2015). In addition to teachers’ personal experiences, stories in the media about particular groups of students may influence teachers’ perceptions of their characteristics, attributes and abilities. Earp (2010) studied stereotype activation and the way that teachers may behave as a consequence of this. He concluded that teachers who are unaware of these intrinsic biases may see them as stemming from their students’ performances rather than from their own stereotypes.

Research has also demonstrated that the kinds of language used in both direct and indirect exchanges with students in the classroom can have a profound effect on their motivation and aspiration. Weinstein (2002) identified that some teachers in their study differentiated in their interactions with high and low expectation students. These teachers clearly moderated their language when giving instructions to those they perceived to be high or low ability students. They communicated performance goals differently and, due to this, some students felt that their teachers had lower expectations of them than their higher ability peers.

Although this research could make rather grim reading, there is a ray of hope: it is fundamentally clear that teachers and the expectations they have of their students, and their potential to achieve, can make a huge difference. Therefore, it is vital that expectations are always high and that they see the academic potential in all students. Teacher quality is so important, and quality first teaching is what makes the biggest difference to pupil outcomes (EEF, 2018d).

Behaviour in the classroom could also be a significant factor when improving teaching quality. Disruptive behaviour is a major factor in why new teachers leave the profession (McInerney, 2018), and 43% of participants in the Education Support Partnership’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018 said they had suffered from mental health problems, which they attributed to dealing with constant behaviour problems at school. Building strategies for instilling positive behaviour for learning is an essential part of training to teach. Obviously, habits and routines which instil positive behaviour traits enable students to engage in learning, which ensure they can make good academic progress: instead of spending time tackling constant low level disruption, teachers are freed up to concentrate on providing better teaching. It also models to students how they can sustain good relationships with both adults and their peers through behaving in an acceptable way. Establishing these kinds of behaviour habits will not only help students to learn better in school, but will also give them smoother transitions into college, employment and adult life, as they will understand how society works. 11

Focus group findings

Some may argue that teachers should naturally have a belief in the academic potential of all students, and of course most do. Yet, with the approach of setting by ability being prevalent in most schools and some exams still being tiered, this belief can sometimes be hard for teachers to communicate successfully to students. The early career teachers questioned felt that their mentors were mostly supportive when it came to behaviour: instead of focusing on the negative interactions when it came to disrupted learning, they helped to guide solid behaviour management strategies which were underpinned by the school’s behaviour policy and academic theory.

One participant spoke about how their mentor had reframed the behaviour struggles to take out the emotional element of dealing with them and reminded them that it wasn’t personal – it was about maximising learning. They said: ‘I worked in a school catering to an area with students from diverse backgrounds, abilities and personal contexts. The focus in discussions was always about how best to support the student(s) with their learning. The professionally framed approach to all scenarios highlighted that the focus should always be on the progress of the student(s) and that this should remain the core of every choice in and outside of the classroom.’ The participant spoke warmly about this experience, as in a previous school they had witnessed other mentors being quite prejudiced about certain groups or classes, which came through in their suggestions about how to manage their behaviour and made the trainee teacher feel even more anxious.

Some in the group felt that their mentor had struggled with how best to support them with behaviour; other than coming into their lessons and ‘taking over’, they felt that there hadn’t been any really fundamental support. One teacher spoke about a difficult Year 10 class where they had students who refused to sit down and kept leaving the classroom whenever they wanted, and when they were in the classroom they shouted out and threw things across the room. As their mentor was on their planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time when the teacher taught this class, they often popped in to see how things were going, but they did this so often that the students started to make jokes about it, which made the situation worse. Although the mentor was trying to be supportive, the new teacher felt that this just emphasised the point that they were unable to cope with the class and the students also saw it as a weakness. It seemed that the mentor was out of their depth, as they had only been teaching for a year, so the early career teacher wished they had a more experienced mentor. 12

However, another teacher at a challenging school in special measures could not speak highly enough of the support they had received when a Year 11 student pushed them in the corridor: ‘The head teacher came down on the pupil like a ton of bricks and I got an apology. I felt truly supported and valued, while also feeling confident that the student would not do it again.’

Less time was spent on guiding the early career teachers in how to communicate their belief in the academic potential of all students; it was just expected that they would intrinsically know how to do it, and some participants questioned felt that they would have benefited from succinct instruction. One teacher spoke of how they had found themselves teaching two classes in the same year group, where one was higher ability than the other. They detailed how they had found themselves ‘dumbing down’ the content for one class, because before meeting the class, their mentor had described them as ‘weak’, which coloured their perceptions about what the students were capable of doing. This resulted in the teacher experiencing some disruptive behaviour in the class, as the students were bored and felt uninspired and unchallenged. When they discussed it with their mentor, they were told, ‘That’s just the way they are!’ Another teacher told a more positive story about how their mentor had modelled positive language in the classroom and had observed how they ‘taught to the top’ in their lessons and then scaffolded down for those who needed it. Being able to see a more experienced teacher doing this had helped the trainee to do this in their own lessons, and subsequently they felt that embedding challenge for all levels and abilities was one of their strengths. 13

How can I help my mentee meet this standard?

One of the key words to instil in your mentees is consistency. As we know, young people are surprising creatures of habit: they like to walk into a classroom and know that things are going to be the same as they were yesterday and the day before. They don’t want to feel disarmed. Hence the use of whole school behaviour policies; a classroom where teachers just do what they like and allow students to ‘get away’ with low-level disruption, just to keep the peace, makes it much more difficult for them and other colleagues to teach. It can result in chaos. But how can NQTs create an environment that is built on uniform responses to behaviour choices, so that students are able to understand expectations and make positive choices?

To start, it is important that the new teacher fully understands the school’s behaviour policy – it is about much more than just reading it. Even the clearest and most straightforward of policies have their nuances and can be interpreted differently by staff. Recently, I was in a continuing professional development (CPD) session where we focused on what the school’s behaviour policy meant in practice. The staff were given scenarios by the assistant head in charge of behaviour and, after hearing them, had to go and stand next to the sign which displayed the consequence they would have given the child. There was not a single scenario where all staff agreed on a consequence. In the quest for consistency this poses a huge problem. It is important that there are no shades of grey and that policies are followed to the letter. Obviously, teachers need to use their em...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Professor Rachel Lofthouse
• Foreword by Reuben Moore
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Set high expectations
• Chapter 2: Promote good progress
• Chapter 3: Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge
• Chapter 4: Plan and teach well-structured lessons
• Chapter 5: Adapt teaching
• Chapter 6: Make accurate and productive use of assessment
• Chapter 7: Manage behaviour effectively
• Chapter 8: Fulfil wider professional responsibilities
• Bibliography
• About the author
• Copyright