ECT & MENTOR BLOGS
Name: Heather Ripper
School: Cottingham High School and Sixth Form College
ECT Year: 2
Subject/Phase: Secondary Science (Chemistry)
What inspired you to train to teach your subject/phase?
I have always been interested in science for its ability to explain why things happen so had originally decided to follow a career in drug design, However, I did some teaching as part of my postgraduate study and quickly realised this was something I wanted to pursue. After spending some time in a secondary school watching other teachers, I saw how a good teacher can shape how a young person sees their education and wanted to be the person who could make this difference.
What have been the highlights of your start to the academic year?
Getting to know a new cohort of students every year is always a highlight, particularly watching year 7 students enter a laboratory for the first time as their excitement is contagious!
Tell us a little about your experience with the full induction programme and your mentoring
The induction programme has been extremely valuable in helping me to further improve my pedagogy during my ECT years. It has given me new ideas to apply in my classroom and mixing with ECTs from other subject specialisms has been very useful to examine concepts from other perspectives. Meetings with the brilliant mentors have helped me immensely; from acting as a sounding board for new ideas and sharing their wisdom, to providing support after a tough week, they have been a vital part of my ECT.
What motivates you to continue shaping positive futures for our learners?
Learners have endless curiosity about the world around them, and science can provide them with answers to some of their big questions. I am hugely motivated to show our learners all of the exciting paths which science can take them down, as well as where it can be used in their everyday lives. Coming away from a lesson feeling like you have made a difference, even to just one young person, makes it all worth it!
What advice would you give to a potential candidate for initial teacher training?
You will learn more from bad days than good ones! Take on board the feedback from colleagues wherever you can but don’t be afraid to try new things, now is the time to experiment and find what works for you.
Round up
It is hugely rewarding to work with young people every day, and I am thoroughly enjoying my second year as an ECT. I am also very excited to have been invited to join the YWTT mentor training next year so that I can become a mentor for future Cottingham science trainees, and hope to pass on some of the wisdom gained from my amazing mentors!
Name: Lauren Jessney
School: Croxby Primary
ECT Mentor
Tell us a little about your level of experience as a mentor. Are you new to mentoring or do you have prior experience?
I have been an NQT/ECT mentor for four years now and have enjoyed seeing the transition from the NQT route to the Early Careers Framework. The best part about being a mentor is seeing a new teacher’s confidence grow as the plates, which were so hard to keep spinning together at the start, finally find their balance!
I also think that mentoring always helps you reflect on your own practice; I advise any new mentors not to take their well-practised skills for granted.
What are the top pieces of advice you would share with ECTs?
I’d recommend to ECTs to seek plenty of opportunities to observe the practice of others and explain that there is no such thing as a silly question!
What have been the highlights of your time as a mentor?
My highlights have been seeing the teachers I have mentored progress and become subject leaders and/or mentors themselves! My experience as a mentor has guided me to work as Lead Facilitator and expand connections to other ECTs and schools. This has developed my knowledge of the ECT framework and guided my mentoring and coaching questions in one-to-one sessions.
Name: Liam Price
School: Holderness Academy & Sixth Form College
ECT Year: 2
Subject/Phase: Maths
How have you found the transition from being a Year 1 to a Year 2 ECT?
I have found the transition to ECT2 smooth. The admin time you receive along with support from your mentor and ITT co-ordinator facilitate this.
What excites you about teaching your subject/phase?
I enjoy trying to make Maths fun rather than the stereotype. Having students say they enjoy Maths is motivation in itself!
What has been the highlight of your year so far and why?
Enjoying seeing the general development in my teaching and classroom practice. Specific highlights have been the successes I have enjoyed developing my rapport with students and addressing their misconceptions. The continuous drive to improve keeps me focused.
What areas of your practice have you most enjoyed developing this academic year, and how did you approach this?
Subject knowledge and behaviour management are two key areas where I have focused my development cycles to drive improvement. I find that asking colleagues for advice proves extremely useful.
What area of practice are you hoping to develop over the coming weeks, and what do you hope the outcomes will be?
Continuing to develop my classroom management practices to secure continual improvements in pupil attitudes to learning, outcomes and progress.
Name: Melissa Hutchinson
School: Holderness Academy & Sixth Form College
ECT Mentor
Tell us a little about your level of experience as a mentor. Are you new to mentoring or do you have prior experience?
I have only worked as an ECT mentor since joining Holderness Academy in January 2023. However, before joining Holderness Academy, I worked with the GUTP (Grand union Teaching Partnership) in Northamptonshire. I worked closely with PGCE students within my department, as well as working as a PGCE mentor. I also ran training sessions for MFL PGCE students.
What do you enjoy about being a mentor?
I enjoy working as a mentor as it allows me to develop my own teaching. Often, we can get stuck in our ways and working with another member of staff allows us to explore new ideas within our own classrooms and to see things from a different perspective.
If you were to give a piece of advice to a new mentor, what would this be and why?
Find a mentor buddy! It's a great way to discuss ideas and feel confident in what you are doing.
What are the top pieces of advice you would share with ECTs?
An outstanding teacher is a good teacher every day. Doing the small things right everyday makes the biggest difference.
What have been the highlights of your time as a mentor?
I always enjoy seeing the confidence and passion for teaching develop over time.
Do you find that being a mentor helps to promote development of your own practice? If so, how?
Absolutely! You have the opportunity to work regularly with another member of staff and discuss new ideas, that you might have never considered before!
Name: Richard Sellers
School: Hessle High School & Sixth Form College
ECT Mentor
Tell us a little about your level of experience as a mentor. Are you new to mentoring or do you have prior experience?
This year was my first experience as an ECT mentor following the ECF. I had mentored before in my previous career, so it was nice to be given a further opportunity to use those skills and learn some new ones.
What do you enjoy about being a mentor?
Being a mentor is particularly rewarding when you see your mentee rise to the challenge and begin to cope with the daily rigours of teaching. One of the most rewarding aspects of mentoring is getting an opportunity to reflect on your own practice whilst providing the coaching experience for your own mentee.
If you were to give a piece of advice to a new mentor, what would this be and why?
Remember you were an NQT (ECT) once, and you were probably not the teacher you are today, be willing to share your wisdom, and skills and allow your mentee to grow, give them time to develop and allow them to fail, we learn from our mistakes.
What are the top pieces of advice you would share with ECTs?
Always take the opportunity to reflect on your own practice and be willing and able to act on feedback.
What have been the highlights of your time as a mentor?
The opportunity to develop your own classroom technique and learn new ideas, some ECT's have so many fresh ideas that are well worth considering.
Do you find that being a mentor helps to promote development of your own practice? If so, how?
Yes, it reminds you of the importance of reflection and teamwork, patience and compassion. Following the ECF allows you to reassess what you think is the right way to do something and perhaps try something new. You also get an opportunity to delve into some research papers and further reading which you may not otherwise do.
Name: Laura Carolan
School: Howden School
ECT Year: 2
Subject/Phase: MFL
How have you found the transition from being a Year 1 to a Year 2 ECT?
Already knowing a lot of my pupils and having the pleasure of seeing them grow into even more confident linguists really helped the transition from ECT Year 1 to Year 2.
What excites you about teaching your subject/phase?
The thought that my lessons are setting pupils up for a multitude of pathways and opportunities in the future is really exciting. When I was a school pupil, the thought of living and working abroad felt like a distant possibility. If it wasn’t for the passion I developed in school, encouraged by my teachers, I might never have gone on to live in France for a couple of years. Inspiring pupils to explore the world and all that it has to offer is one of my biggest motivations.
What has been the highlight of your year and why?
Working with the Year 7 nurture group and SEND students has been so rewarding. Seeing them experience success in a foreign language, when sometimes navigating their native language can be tricky (we take for granted how difficult English is!), is so rewarding.
What areas of your practice have you most enjoyed developing this academic year, and how did you approach this?
This year I have had the opportunity to teach across the curriculum. Using my background in Fine Art, I have delivered projects in Art, Design and Technology to KS3. Teaching creative and practical skills is a lot different to teaching MFL but being able to see pupils’ strengths in other departments has been really interesting. It’s great being able to speak to pupils about the things they’re doing across the school too.
What area of practice are you hoping to develop over the coming weeks, and what do you hope the outcomes will be?
I’m continuing to develop classroom management, specifically on entry and exit to lessons. We are aiming to engage learners right from the moment they step into the room, and ensure they are engrossed in learning right until the end!
Name: Fiona Taylor
School: Cottingham High School and Sixth Form College
ECT Year: 2
Subject/Phase: English
How have you found the transition from being a Year 1 to a Year 2 ECT?
The transition into ECT Year Two has been seamless – the programme is designed in a way that means that the work myself, my mentor and induction tutor did in the first year established the foundations for me to progress into Year 2 smoothly.
This year has provided greater autonomy in terms of my professional development; the broader scope of focus each half-term has meant that I have been able to become even more reflective of my own practice, identify more specific areas to improve and refine, and therefore feel that the adaptations I have made to my practice are more measurable and have more impact on my learners. I found that my first year of teaching was very much about learning the processes of the school, adjusting to new policies, learning the schemes of work delivered/texts studied etc. By the second year, these have become second nature which allows for Early Career practitioners to assess their strengths, identify areas for development and then enables action on these. The increased independence of the second year creates a greater ownership of progress and professional development.
Additionally, the movement to subject-specific groups in Year 2 is a fantastic opportunity to network with other ECTs in a more meaningful way. Whilst it is beneficial to hear from colleagues in other subjects and phases in the first year, the sharing of good practice and pedagogical discussions amongst those teaching the same subject at the same stage of their careers are insightful, reassuring and beneficial.
What excites you about teaching your subject/phase?
As Malorie Blackman claims, “reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while”. English is a complex, stunning combination of: linguistics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, art and history. As such, I firmly believe this subject is an invaluable tool for us to shape young minds at this formative stage of their development; ensuring our learners leave us as members of society who embody British Values, particularly those of respect and tolerance. In a climate where opportunities to enhance cultural capital have been limited, English advocates for the exploration and understanding of different perspectives, cultures, ideals and beliefs. This, coupled with our study of semantics in non-fiction, reminds me daily that I am in a very privileged position of teaching young people how to navigate the ever-increasing influx of literature in the media promoting division and reinforcing inequality. The power of English never fails to astound me.
When writing, the English classroom is a hive of creative activity, a safe space for our young people to express themselves, to have a voice. I never underestimate the vulnerability and the bravery it takes to do this. This acts as a constant reminder of what an honour it is to be their teacher.
What has been the highlight of your year and why?
The metaphor of teaching being a roller-coaster is so clichéd, yet so true. The challenges we face are more than worth it when we reach the top: when the pupil who struggles to understand poetry produces an insightful response, when a child goes above and beyond on a homework task showing their engagement with the topic, when the learner who struggled to find the confidence to answer questions in front of the whole class plucks up the courage to do so, the “thank yous” as pupils leave the lesson, the smile on their faces as they walk in the door – choosing a singular highlight of a year in teaching is impossible. The pupils we serve are at the heart of what we do. This year, I have found that, now I’m more established within our school setting, and have become more confident in my individual style of teaching, that my relationships with pupils are flourishing and this is positively correlating with attitude to learning and effort.
What areas of your practice have you most enjoyed developing this academic year and how did you approach this?
In relation to the ECT development cycles, the area I most enjoyed focusing on this year was encouraging pupils to develop subject-specific skills. There is debate in the English sphere at the moment surrounding effective contextual links in literature. We are finding that pupils are somewhat restricted by failing to embed context within their analysis, ignoring the influence of genre, and by referring only to the social and historical events of the time period in which a text was written. In order to remedy this issue, I proposed to my mentor that I adapt the way we teach pupils how to write about context in a Charles Dickens scheme of learning we were teaching at that time. After observing a colleague delivering this contextual content, I felt so inspired to modify my approach and this has paid dividends – although the contextual knowledge changes with each text we study, the skill of using it to illuminate analysis is having a lasting impact.
I am acutely aware that my professional development should not be dependant upon ECF requirements. This initial phase in teaching has emphasised the importance, and created a culture, of continual self-reflection which I am certain will last for the entirety of my career. This year, I have opted to complete additional, optional training courses in: oracy, scaffolding, teaching pupils with selective mutism, teacher wellbeing and retrieval practice, all of which I feel are shaping me into a more effective practitioner and have left me hungry for more!
What area of practice are you hoping to develop over the coming weeks and what do you hope the outcomes will be?
This half-term, my focus (as aligning with the ECT development cycles) is on curriculum design. As a department, we are in the process of evaluating/refining our current schemes of learning to make modifications to best suit our learners for the next academic year. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to consider the way in which we can make individual schemes of learning more effective and engaging. However, more broadly, I am looking forward to situating these within the learning journey of our pupils; how the skills we are developing in a spiral curriculum to ensure they are mastered prior to assessment at GCSE level. I am also keen to make the thematic links between our schemes more evident to build on the prior learning of our students both within our subject and across the wider curriculum – to highlight the holistic nature of our subject.