Teacher Educator Programme (TEP) Case Studies

she said. “I am also the school-based tutor which involves weekly group meetings with all the trainees at George Spencer Academy and facilitating discussions based on weekly topics. In some years I am a subject moderator too, which means going to trainees and mentors based in other schools to check their progress and quality check the lesson feedback that the mentor provides.”

In the Training School, meanwhile, Alison has designed, prepared and delivered a series of workshops on ‘Dynamic Sixth Form Teaching’ which incorporates areas such as effective but efficient assessment, and motivation and independence. “Being a coach/facilitator is a skill that underlines all my different roles, but I had not had any formal training on it until I attended the NASBTT courses,” Alison revealed. “It was recommended to all the SCITT mentors, whether new or experienced. My original learning objectives were to understand best practice and identify areas in which I could improve, and that the course would give me skills to act on those, so overall I had quite broad aims really.”

Not only were Alison’s learning objectives met, but they have transformed her thinking in specific areas. “Before the course I had not appreciated that coaching and mentoring are actually different skills, and each has its own benefits, but that it is about matching the skill used to the situation,” she explained. “I was given the opportunity to reflect on my own skills, so I know now what are my strengths and areas of development. The main area I identified was that I do not like silences, so tend to fill them with suggestions of what the person could do, as I like to be helpful. I now see the pauses in conversation as more of a tool, and know that the other person can come up with valuable insights and suggestions in these times, and that I do not have to have all the answers.”

Alison’s highlight from the two TEP programmes was the time spent practising the skills in Level 2. “This was a key part of the course, as it would have been quite daunting to go out there and apply the model learnt in real life if we had not had a go in a ‘safe’ course environment first,” she said. “We were encouraged to partner with someone we did not already know, and this helped as it meant we had to ensure we gained the information on the situation and could be objective. I partnered with someone who was in the senior team of a primary school, and was able to coach on a real-life problem. Receiving the feedback that the session had been of real use, and they were going to try out the next steps that had been discussed, was really great. I was really pleased as I know from the self-analysis that we did on the course that my comfort zone is one of providing solutions to people’s problems, but I had used the GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Wrap-up) model effectively and the coachee was the one to come up with her solutions. I felt my prompts and questions had been really valuable in enabling her to step back from her situation and come up with ways of making it easier. This left me feeling confident in what I had learned.”

Alison pinpointed a number of ways she has applied her learning back in the school setting and the benefits of the TEPs. “I was a coach for a trainee teacher in their last half-term and helped them to meet their teaching targets,” she said. “This was a new role to me, but the first course I had attended had given me awareness of the difference between coaching and mentoring. The coachee was able to gain more ownership of the things we discussed and to come up with their own solutions, due to the nature of the coaching conversation. I also apply the learning when speaking with the sixth-form students, and put more onus on them to come up with their next steps and solutions. This has the benefit that people can really own the solutions they have suggested themselves.”

She continued: “I learnt a lot from the NASBTT TEP courses and would recommend them to others. They are well structured and interesting to attend as they do not involve a presenter just delivering material, but encourage you to think, reflect and engage with the material covered. Plus there are some useful practical strategies that can be transferred to real life.”

Case study developed: April 2020