November 2021

Musing on life as an ECT (Early Career Teacher), 7 weeks in:

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Being an Early Career Teacher (ECT) is hard.  Really hard.  Some of the days have felt long.  Really long.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to job and there is nothing else I would rather be doing, but it is not an easy job.  Part of that love for the job comes from the fact that when I’m facing a difficult moment or a tough decision, I can look back at my fantastic training to guide the way forward.  That is what I want to talk about today.

 

The central training and the subject sessions prepared me greatly for being an ECT in their different ways.  The central training provided current and interesting ways to develop my craft.  I know they are latest theories because they are the same ideas and pedagogy that are being taught currently as CPD at school now.  Last month the CPD was focused around a book called Retrieval Practice by Kate Jones.  Most of the staff sat there and looked intrigued, but I relaxed and got comfortable.  Read it last year.  Been putting retrieval practice into my lessons since that first lesson I did as a trainee (perhaps the most important thing I did in that lesson).  Not only that, but I’ve got the whole history department doing retrieval practice in every lesson.  In addition, I am using the book to create a wider variety of ways to use retrieval practice in lessons.  That’s how I know the central training is at the cutting edge and how I know I’m doing a good job so far.  No need for me to tell you about the retrieval practice though, just read the book!  It’s not just one book that shows how well prepared I was though, it’s everything.  It’s using Bloom’s Taxonomy to create my learning objectives effortlessly, showing clear differentiation.  It’s being able to talk about Daniel Willingham to the assistant head and having them be impressed at the depth of pedagogy I already have.  In short, the central training has put me in a better position than those who didn’t train through the BASCITT and I thank all the staff for their attention to detail to allow that to happen.  A fellow ECT told me that they feel like they are always catching up on their teaching knowledge when they talk to me, which I think just highlights how strong the central training was.

 

As I alluded to before, the subject study sessions were also crucial to my professional development.  Those Monday mornings with my fellow humanities trainees (there was only 4 of us so we became very close) are times I will always remember fondly.  I think that is mostly down to the subject board tutor and their high quality training.  As a historian, I have studied many many incredible women.  Elizabeth I, Rosa Parks, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Boudicca to name a few.  My subject tutor deserves her place amongst these women.  Lucy is an excellent teacher of students, both student teachers and school children.  Her insight and knowledge of what makes a good humanities teacher was staggering.  I found myself often forgetting to write notes as she talked, as I was just captivated by what I was hearing.  There are numerous insights I gained from those sessions that will stay with me.  Using enquiry questions, subtle differentiation techniques, planning your schemes of work.  It wasn’t just the sessions that helped me develop, but also the fact that Lucy was always on hand to offer her advise and support when I needed it.  She also observed some of my lessons and provided the most helpful feedback.  It was the niche of the feedback that would impress and help me most, picking up on subtle things I could improve on that I hadn’t even realised.  It just highlighted the attention to detail she has when it comes to teaching and when I acted on her feedback, I actually felt myself smiling within the lesson when I saw that making the tweaks she suggested worked.  It’s just a wonderful feeling when you can actually feel yourself improving and it’s addictive, it made me constantly ask for ways to improve to the point where I think she was glad to reach the summer!

 

I had the pleasure of spending my second placement at The Clere School with Lucy and this was massive to my development.  Lucy placed me in charge of the entire scheme of work for Year 9 whilst I was there.  I can’t lie to you, when I first got to my second placement I was very nervous (that’s the cleanest way to describing it).  The timetable was increased and asking me to plan an entire term of work for a year group!?  Not just any group but also Year 9!  A pivotal year for options subjects like history to ensure that you actually have classes to teach next year.  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was asked to be doing so much.  I know it was a lot because I spoke to other trainees and I was doing so much more.  Maybe it’s payback for the all the times I called Lucy old?  After talking to my mentor Hannah a couple of weeks in about Lucy, I realised the actual reason for all this work.  It is because she had total confidence in me.  She knew I could handle doing more than what most trainees could do.  It came at just the right time too because I was just about to say that maybe this is a bit much and can I do a little less.  However, once I realised that I knew I could not say that.  There was no way I could let Lucy down and so I got my head down and worked so hard to prove her right.  In the end I was able to do so and it has developed me more than anything else I did in my training year.  If an experienced teacher like Lucy can put that kind of faith in me so early on in my career, I must be doing something right.  My confidence in myself skyrocketed!  Oh and in case you were wondering, the scheme of work I made on WWII for year 9 was brilliant and those students I taught will not be forgetting Harry Truman anytime soon.

 

Anyway, the point of that story is that having that personal connection with a subject board tutor developed my confidence and teaching ability on a large scale.  That personal touch is unique to the BASCITT and it is another factor that prepared me for being a teacher.  At my school now, I have taken responsibility for the year 8 scheme of work.  The difference is that this time, I wasn’t asked to make the scheme of work, I asked to be the one to make it, because I knew I could do it.  I knew I could do it well.  I know that because I have done it before.  I did it before because I had a fantastic training scheme that had faith in me.  I know how important a coherent scheme of work is to a school.  Knowing exactly what is happening makes it easier to plan for formative and summative assessment, makes it easier to plan and even makes it easier to manage behaviour because you have clarity on what you are teaching so you can focus on behaviour more rather than thinking about the next task.  I will always be grateful for the training I received.

 

I think the most important thing I learned during my training year was the idea of human first teaching.  As soon as Kelly spoke about this I knew I was on the right course.  The principle sounds simple really, remember that you are a human first and should be a compassionate positive person for these students to talk to if they need it, then worry about teaching them.  Teachers have more than one role and actually getting our students to learn when World War One started is only a small part of that.  Again, that sounds really simple, but sometimes I think some teachers forget that.  We might be the only positive adult influence they have in any given day and that is a truly great responsibility.  It’s why I wanted to be a teacher and to teach in an area where the aspirations for many kids are low because that’s the same school I went to.  I connected with Kelly that day and smiled to myself as she spoke because I knew that I was going to make a difference as a teacher.  It was the same idea that Lucy believed in too.  It may have only been 7 weeks but I am already doing that.  A young girl in my year 7 tutor had her Nan pass this term.  She was upset but she came to me.  Me.  She trusted me as someone to talk to and someone to support her.  I’ve known her for two months and I was trusted by her more than her friends (who she admitted she hadn’t told yet).  We spoke about how she was feeling every day that week before tutor started.  She is slowly feeling better and we still talk whenever she needs it, she knows my door is open to her.  It’s not just being there for their low points though, it’s being able to enjoy the highs that makes human first teaching.  Like when one of your tutees comes to your room at break to say they got a positive point in their planner.  Or when you watch the year 7 football team match against another school, seeing one of the boys in your tutor score the winning goal and wanting to talk to you about the game afterwards.  It’s just having a parent email you to say their daughter is settling in really well and thanking you for helping them to do that.  I feel that I have already built a special relationship with my tutor because of this human first approach and I know I will make a big difference to every one of them.

 

Of course, it’s not always been easy.  As I said at the start it has been very very hard and there have been days when I really doubted myself.  Why don’t they just be silent when I ask them to?  Do they really respect me?  It’s not a bad thing to question yourself like this, after all if you don’t reflect then you can’t improve, but it can lead you to doubt yourself.  A 7 week half term doesn’t help either, it makes you tired which makes everything worse.  I think in these low moments being a human first makes it easier.  You can talk to these students, human to human, and ask them those tough questions.  For me, I couldn’t get this year 8 class to stop talking.  So, I asked them why they didn’t respect me as a person to not listen to me.  It made them stop and think and we worked in silence for the rest of the lesson.  The truth is that they do respect me and that’s why they worked in silence for me.  They just needed to see I was a human and that they needed to treat me like a human the same way I had been treating them as a human.  That class is better than it has ever been.  Although it was a difficult moment, I am proud that I was able to use it as a way to strengthen my teaching ability.  I think if you can turn those difficult moments into wins, then that hard life as an ECT will slowly get easier.

 

Being an ECT is hard.  Really hard.  But I have been well prepared for it in my training and the BASCITT could not have prepared me any better.  I have the tools I need to succeed and I am getting better at using them.  Some of the days have felt long.  Really long.  But I am getting better at managing my time.  Even when I take longer than I expect to plan my lessons, I still sometimes smile to myself because I know I’m doing the job I love.  There isn’t any other job I would rather be doing (except being the head of department but I will get to that one day) and I can do it thanks to amazing support I received when I was a trainee.

 

Billy Turner – 2020-21 History Trainee