Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Placement guidance for mentors
Before the placement starts
We aim to send information to you with regards to the student/s who will be placed at your school 2-3 weeks before the start of the placement, if not earlier.
Once students know where they will be placed, they should make contact with your school, and email you as their Mentor to introduce themselves. If time and distance allow, they may ask to arrange a visit to the school before the placement starts. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure they understand when and where to attend on their first day and research the journey details, so they are clear about how to get to their placement.
During the placement
During the placement, your student/s should:
- Establish when to arrive and leave school each day, explain any personal circumstances that might be relevant to their attendance. This may include sharing a PREP plan if they are re-sitting a placement and/or a Reasonable Adjustment Plan (RAP) should they have one.
- Attend staff meetings and CPD where possible. These are an important part of their training in becoming a teacher and attending will help them to feel part of the team in your setting.
- Discuss the use of PebblePad with you and make sure you are connected to them on the system. You will need to add your contributions on a regular basis.
- Agree a regular time for a one-hour weekly meeting with you and start working with you on a timetable for the placement; what they will be teaching and when, and what they will be doing when they are not teaching.
- Review and refine their subject knowledge in collaboration with you.
- Talk regularly with you about the children in your class.
- Understand about any children with SEND and EAL needs, talk about barriers to learning and how these may be overcome.
The weekly meeting must be recorded on PebblePad, and together with the student you should:
- Review new implementation and progress
- Reflect on observations of others and observations of the student
- Consider what to implement in the following week and set targets for the following week.
- Add a mentor comment.
You will formally observe your student once a week and this formal observation is recorded in PebblePad.
The university Link Tutor will make an in-person visit to discuss your student’s progress review with you and your student. You and the Link Tutor will briefly observe your student teaching a lesson during this visit as well as discuss progress with them.
In the final week of your student’s placement, you will complete the final review in PebblePad which will record the progress your student has made. The Link Tutor will arrange a virtual meeting with your student and you to discuss this final review.
Schedules
Below is a weekly schedule guide of what is expected of Mentors while students are on placement.
| Time period of student placement | Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| From weeks 1-2 |
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| Assist student (often with just time) to complete their Holistic tasks. | |||
| Introduce student to the class and involve them as a TA. | Introduce student to the class and involve them as a TA. Depending on your perception of the readiness of the student, suggest some small group teaching. | Introduce student to the class and involve them as a TA. Depending on your perception of the readiness of the student, suggest some small group or whole class teaching. | |
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| From weeks 3-4 |
Continue to allow your student to observe you and others teach and work as a classroom assistant. | ||
| Start to build your student’s timetable towards the target of 50% leading teaching (10% PPA, 20% supporting as a TA and 20% observing). (For Primary, focus mainly on the core subjects and for EYFS, the seven Areas of Learning). |
Build your student’s timetable towards the target of 60% leading teaching (10% PPA, 15% supporting as a TA and 15% observing). (For Primary, focus mainly on the core subjects but including some foundation subjects). |
Build your student’s timetable towards the target of 80% leading teaching (10% PPA, 5% supporting as a TA and 5% observing). (For Primary, focus on core and foundation subjects and for EYFS, the seven Areas of Learning). |
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| Support the student in reviewing pupil progress data. Help the student to refine their use of Assessment for Learning (AfL). | Encourage the student to develop their use of AfL. For example, through improving their questioning. When opportunity arises, help student to engage with summative assessment. | Encourage the student to develop their use of AfL. For example, through improving their questioning. Where appropriate, student should expect to be regularly marking and giving feedback. When opportunity arises, help student to engage with summative assessment. | |
| Help student to start preparing lessons and share the school’s planning. | Student should be planning their teaching with support. | Increasingly student should be planning independently and where appropriate contributing to the planning of others. | |
| Share any thoughts/concerns with the University’s Link Tutor. | |||
| Roughly halfway through the placement | The Progress Review is the gateway to the second half of the placement. You, your student and the university Link Tutor will review the student’s progress towards expected progress for each phase. If there is any concern at the Progress Review that the student will not have made the expected progress or meet the Teachers’ Standards by the end of the placement, then an intervention must be put in place. The Progress Review is the last opportunity to do so. By the Progress Review, if all the Core Areas are stated as ‘Made expected progress’ or ‘Making expected progress’ it is assumed that, if they stay on the expected trajectory, the student will pass the placement or meet the Teachers’ Standards. |
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| Rest of placement | Continue to help student to start preparing lessons and share the school’s planning. Where appropriate, help student to start planning teaching sequences on their own. | Student should be planning their teaching with support, expanding their repertoire of subjects. | Student should be largely planning independently and contributing to the planning of others. |
| Student should be leading teaching 50% of the time (and for Primary, mostly core but where possible including some foundation subjects and for EYFS, the seven Areas of Learning). | Student should be leading teaching 60% of the time (and for Primary, mostly core but including some foundation subjects). | Student should be leading teaching 80% of the time. | |
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| Final Review | The Final Review provides a summative statement of the student’s achievement against our expected progress statements (phases 1 and 2) or the Teachers’ Standards (phase 3). | ||
| After the placement is completed | Complete the Mentor placement survey sent out by the placements team. | ||
Below is a weekly schedule guide of what is expected of Mentors while students are on placement.
| Time period of student placement | Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|---|
| From weeks 1-2 |
|
|
| Assist student (often with just time) to complete their Holistic tasks. | ||
| Introduce student to the class and involve them as a TA. | Introduce student to the class and involve them as a TA. Depending on your perception of the readiness of the student, suggest some small group teaching. | |
|
||
| From weeks 3-4 |
Continue to allow your student to observe you and others teach and work as a classroom assistant. | |
| Build your student’s timetable towards the target of 60% leading teaching (10% PPA, 15% supporting as a TA and 15% observing). (For Primary, focus mainly on the core subjects but including some foundation subjects). |
Build your student’s timetable towards the target of 80% leading teaching (10% PPA, 5% supporting as a TA and 5% observing). (For Primary, focus on core and foundation subjects and for EYFS, the seven Areas of Learning). |
|
|
||
| Support the student in reviewing pupil progress data. Help the student to refine their use of Assessment for Learning (AfL). | Encourage the student to develop their use of AfL. For example, through improving their questioning. Where appropriate, student should expect to be regularly marking and giving feedback. When opportunity arises, help student to engage with summative assessment. | |
| Help student to start preparing lessons and share the school’s planning. | Increasingly student should be planning independently and where appropriate contributing to the planning of others. | |
| Share any thoughts/concerns with the University’s Link Tutor. | ||
| Roughly halfway through the placement | The Progress Review is the gateway to the second half of the placement. You, your student and the university Link Tutor will review the student’s progress towards expected progress for each phase. If there is any concern at the Progress Review that the student will not have made the expected progress or meet the Teachers’ Standards by the end of the placement, then an intervention must be put in place. The Progress Review is the last opportunity to do so. By the Progress Review, if all the Core Areas are stated as ‘Made expected progress’ or ‘Making expected progress’ it is assumed that, if they stay on the expected trajectory, the student will pass the placement or meet the Teachers’ Standards. |
|
| Rest of placement | Continue to help student to start preparing lessons and share the school’s planning. Where appropriate, help student to start planning teaching sequences on their own. | Student should be largely planning independently and contributing to the planning of others. |
| Student should be leading teaching 60% of the time (and for Primary, mostly core but where possible including some foundation subjects and for EYFS, the seven Areas of Learning). | Student should be leading teaching 80% of the time. | |
|
||
| Final Review | The Final Review provides a summative statement of the student’s achievement against our expected progress statements (phases 1 and 2) or the Teachers’ Standards (phase 3). | |
| After the placement is completed | Complete the Mentor placement survey sent out by the placements team. | |
The Progress Review is important as, should it be required, this will be the last opportunity for an intervention to be put in place for a student. This is an in-person visit and should follow this format:
| Timeline | Activity | |
|---|---|---|
| Before the visit |
On PebblePad:
|
|
| During the visit | 5 minutes | Meet the Link Tutor at reception and take them to the classroom. |
| 20 minutes | Observe the student teaching with the Link Tutor. | |
| 15 minutes | Move somewhere quiet to meet with the Link Tutor alone. You should:
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| 15 minutes | Meet with the Link Tutor and student.
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| 5 minutes | The student will escort the Link Tutor back to reception. | |
The Final Review meeting is an important quality assurance check and Link Tutors will have to be sure from what they see and hear that you have achieved the requirements to progress to the next phase or to meet the QTS Teachers’ Standards. This is a 30-minute meeting in which the main focus is Final Review which your Mentor should have completed prior to the meeting (even though they might not necessarily have shared this with you before the meeting).
This is a Microsoft Teams meeting and should follow this format:
| Timeline | Activity | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Before the visit | On PebblePad: | ||
For UG phases 1 and 2 or PG phase 1:
|
For UG phase 3 or PG phase 2:
|
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| During the meeting | 5 minutes | The student will discuss their placement, progress and contribution. | |
| 20 minutes |
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| 5 minutes |
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Division of timetable
Students benefit from a balance of classroom activity including:
- teaching themselves either the whole class or small groups,
- helping you by acting as a teaching assistant (TA)
- observing experienced teachers.
We suggest the following division of activity for each phase:
Undergraduate
| Placement type | Phase 1 (Single placement) |
Phase 1 (Paired placement) |
Phase 2 (Single placement) |
Phase 3 (Single placement) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teaching | 50% | 30% | 60% | 80% |
| Helping in the role of a Teaching Assistant | 20% | 40% | 15% | 5% |
| Observing expert colleagues teaching | 20% | 20% | 15% | 5% |
| Marking and preparation | 10% | 10% | 10% | 10% |
Postgraduate
| Phase | Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching | 60% | 80% |
| Helping in the role of a Teaching Assistant | 15% | 5% |
| Observing expert colleagues teaching | 15% | 5% |
| Marking and preparation | 10% | 10% |
