Vary Pedagogies

‘There’s more than one way to shine a penny.’ As the expression goes, most experienced practitioners know that using a variety of different pedagogical approaches is a key element to ensuring all learners in our classrooms are having their needs met. Malik relies upon the concrete resources in the class, while Maya is capable of calculating times tables quicker than you but is completely lost when given a multi-step word problem. Both Malik and Maya may look exactly the same on a data spreadsheet but will need alternative strategies to ensure they make the progress that they need to. As a trainee teacher it is difficult enough to ensure the children are listening, let alone start to consider the varying needs of everyone in class. For a teacher in the early stages of their career, understanding how you are going to work around the fact that your entire class grouping has been flipped on its head because you are teaching ‘time’ for the first time, can cause some sleepless nights. Your job, therefore, as a mentor, is to explicitly talk to your mentee about the approaches you take with each child. Point them out. Explain them in detail. Cognitively, allowing your mentee to understand how you plan and teach for one child, then a small group and then the class, over time, is a way of not overloading your mentee. Allow the mentee to take a journey through your thinking as an experienced practitioner. A useful phrase to keep in mind when working with a mentee is to ‘think about the things you do without thinking about it.’  If your mentee is working with other members of your team, it is important to explain this approach to them, as they are likely not to have received the same training as you have as a mentor.  It can happen that other members of staff are expecting too much too soon, simply because they have forgotten what it is like to be a trainee.

When it comes to varying pedagogy, be prepared to justify the approaches you are taking in class with your children. It could be that you refer your mentee to an expert colleague in your school or team. ask questions – lots. This is great! Try your best to not be defensive but be generous with your time when explaining why you have used a certain strategy with an individual child or group of children. If you’ve recently had an inset day or mentor training session, looking looking at the most effective ways of scaffolding for pupils with SEND, discuss the implications of this with the mentee. Don’t be scared to say that you too are learning and getting your head around a new strategy. Equally, if your trainee teacher has recently had a centre based day full of training around an approach to teaching literacy that you’ve never seen, allow them the opportunity to talk it through and maybe try it out. You might love it and make it part of your teaching practice, you might despise it and never let it near your classroom again, but you’ve modelled the importance of being a reflective practitioner who is willing to try new things. Being a reflective and open practitioner is something every training programme and school will be telling their trainees or employees to be and you modelling this to them is incredibly powerful.