Well, thank you very much, what's your name and where do you come from?
My name is Emma Nash and ITT lead are here at Finham Park School.
Fabulous. And tell me about how long you've been doing that role for.
So I've been ITT lead since April 2020. But prior to that, I had a similar role in the school on a temporary basis for a term. So kind of on and off for a couple of years.
Work long songs alongside somebody to develop within that
role. Yeah, so I work currently work alongside the Alec Aleksandra Ford, who is the head of the line Alliance. And with Sean Townsend as well, who is our administrator within ITT
fat, and how long have you been teaching been teaching
since this is where Max is factor 2008. So a long, long time going on the whole time.
So tell me then about instructional coaching. What sorts of learning if you didn't about even if it's if it's not as much as you'd wishes, or maybe on paternity leave recently, but any experiences that you've had of instructional coaching, learning from university or from the school or just from your own kind of knowledge and thoughts around it? What sort of learning have you done about it?
So we have adopted instructional coaching here at finham. Within our teacher training, our teaching and learning community groups that we we have across the whole school, teaching and learning groups, we've had it for an impart for a long time, which has always been very much groups of teachers working together to improve their own teaching practice, and focusing on an area that they want to develop an embed from doing like a mini project effectively across the course of the year, this year, that has shifted to an instructional coaching model between two members of staff that worked together to get on a mini project, but they support and help each other, observe each other's lessons provide feedback. So the instructional coaching module is something that we've we've adopted as a school as well,
which means that kind of within departments or between kind of bosses and not bosses, it's just
just teaching staff, and it's across departments as well. So for example, our head of history and our head of geography are working together on their project. So it's it's outside of leadership, it's colleague to colleague, teacher to teacher. So it feels like a peer to peer process.
So would you say then, that most all teachers in the school have got a rough idea of what instructional coaching might be, even if it's an inner kind of introductory thing? They've got an idea?
Yeah, I would definitely say that I think all about staff are aware of what instructional coaching is, or at least one form of it. I think there are a variety of models out there, and approaches to instructional coaching. But yes, all of our teaching staff have a have a grasp on what instructional coaching is about. And do
they keep saying partner for the whole year?
Or? Yep. So they're working with a partner for the entire year,
and then switch after another year? Is that the plan? Or?
I think so yeah. I believe this is the first year again, returning from maternity leave, this is the first year that it's run. And I think it is here to stay. And I imagine it will probably be with a different partner next year, it'll certainly be a different focus or a different project if you like. But yeah, it could be could be with the same person it might be might be different.
So tell me about your role then and how you interact as a professional mentor with other kind of subject level mentors. What sorts of things do you do to support them? And they for you, I suppose.
Yeah, so we always every half term, have a meeting, after school, where we discuss what's going on with trainees and we look ahead on a practical level in terms of what's on the calendar and things like that and getting our heads around around that. I have lots of informal meetings with subject mentors as well dependent on their needs as mentors, but also their trainees needs. So some of our trainees obviously need a little bit more support and guidance than others. In the same way that our subject mentors do. We have a wide range of mentoring experience here at finham. We have very experienced mentors that have been doing it for many, many years. And we have even this year, new mentors that require support. So we always meet together as a team, once per half term, but lots of informal conversations meetings one to ones As the year progresses,
tell me about kind of you've experienced the role of a mentor in taking the time to change, I guess, yeah, I know that it kind of used to be a more perhaps didactic model of you, you watch a lesson, you'd give a narrative of the lesson, some stuff that went, well, some stuff that didn't go so well. And you as the mentor might say, This is what well, well, this is what didn't go well, you might start the conversation with the how do you think it went? And then you go into like, this is what actually happened. So the kind of instructional coaching module kind of moves away from from that model on into more of a kind of a quality kind of model. Tell me about any challenges that your subject mentors might have experienced moving from one model to really quite different model?
Yeah, I mean, I think firstly, at the beginning of the year, in September, a number of mentors struggled with the instructional coaching method. Because in September, there is no denying there is an expert, there's a novice, so it's quite difficult to shape. Our mentors found it quite difficult to shape those conversations beginning of the academic year, whilst trainees are right at the beginning of their journey, and trying to hone their craft, I guess. So that was definitely a challenge, and required some quite skillful mentoring from our mentors.
I guess that's still a challenge now.
I think so for some again, because all of our trainees are so different. It's not mentoring full staff is not a one size fits all approach. And as we said, instructional coaching certainly isn't either. So yes, I think it is still a challenge, we still have a wide spectrum of trainees, and how quickly they progress and improve, and again, learn their craft, or does take take time they take a little bit more sunshine, to, to bloom, as it were. So yes, I think it's fair to say that even now, at this point in the academic year, there are still some challenges. I think, for our mentors of School Direct trainees who are largely with us for a significant portion of the year, I think that we've been able to see a little bit more improvement and then feeling more comfortable with the instructional coaching model. Whereas perhaps with the core trainees, where it's a shorter placement, you've got to get to learn your training and know your training quite quickly. But it's a different journey. Let's put it that way.
And so the instructional coaching model, and the relationships you were just talking about there, there's there's that kind of if you're going to have that instructional coaching conversation, would you say how important would you say the basis of that relationship and trust between trainee mentor, how important is that to develop and nurture?
I think it's extremely important you instructional coaching only works if you can have very open conversations. If the trainee is thinking certain things that they're not saying similar to the mentor, you've got to be able to in in a productive way, you have to have a good relationship. Because otherwise, training won't move forward, you have to be able to say, not expressing this very well. No one
talks about reality. He says, he says you've got to analyse the reality, you've got to discuss the reality. Yeah, you've got to make sure that you're all on the same page where Yes, what is going on in that lesson? So tell me about the importance of a relationship when you have in what might be quite a challenging conversation.
Yeah, and I think this comes down to professionalism as well, isn't it and being able to have a professional conversation and being able to, again, I'm not I'm not putting this very well. They need there needs to be a good working relationship, that and there needs to be the train, the mentor has got to be very skillful in being able to show the trainee what they can see in a non judgmental way. I think that's the key bit, really, it's that non judgement that has to come across. But then we still need to have Yeah, a very honest conversation and be true. A true representation, as you say, of the current reality and what is being seen, because otherwise the trainee can't progress. But sometimes I think if you've got perhaps a trainee that is struggling and you is more challenging, it can be hard for the mentor to they don't want to upset them or offend them. So they might try to skirt around it.
And ultimately, that's not wait.
No, because the you're not gonna obviously see the progression that we want to see in our trainees. I think that has been a bit of a barrier sometimes. Sure.
And so how do you kind of nurture your subject mentors to have that like approach of like, they've got to establish that reality, they've got to maybe have their champion conversations, they've got to try and utilise this new paper? Because for some SCI, Fi paperwork, and new different things that have kind of follow the instructional coaching kind of model, how do you have you begun to start to help them
I think that's the key thing I was going to say that is definitely a work in progress for us. This year has mostly been about right, let's understand the form, let's understand the correct approach to answering it and allowing, allowing need a different word there. But getting the trainee to take ownership of the form, it being a fluid to a conversation, though, that's been kind of our focus really, for this year, allowing mentors to understand how to, to use the current form to have that conversation. And understanding as well, mentors needing to understand that it isn't the instructional coaching part of the weekly meeting can be quite small, doesn't have to take on the whole hour meeting. And I think that for part of it was at the beginning was a bit of a challenge for our mentors of although this is a whole hour like knowing the instructional coaching, it can be quite short, that can still be other things that are discussed in that meeting.
Um, how do you think I'm thinking about how you need links to school, in your experiences? Do our trainees making making links between the stuff they learn at uni and the stuff they're learning here? Or they see them as separate? And how do you see that university learning? How important do you think that kind of theory is? To the practice? How do they talk to each other? And how important do you think it is?
I think it is really important, I think university is fantastic for giving them some of the background and the pedagogy that they need in order to be able to implement that in the classroom. Whereas I think, in PA, we definitely focus a lot of our training, I meet with the trainees every Thursday, for example, after school, and we usually use a piece of research or something to focus that training. But actually, we've focused more on the practical, right, so you've learned this theory, how do we put it into practice in the classroom? What strategies can we use? What have you seen? What's been effective? What have you tried? Have you thought about this? Could you try that? How would this work in your lessons? So we tried to have those conversations using the platform that's that's been started at university?
Do you find it easy to kind of keep up with the kind of recent research I don't know how kind of your your CPD is kind of driven here if it's research driven or not? Or how do you and your subject mentors kind of know what they're doing at uni? But also, how do you kind of keep yourself up to date with what's going on in the kind of research? Well, because it can sometimes feel a totally different world?
Yeah. Well, we are quite lucky at finham, that we have a really good CPD library, which Alex impart overseas with another assistant head here who takes charge of teaching and learning. So a lot of kind of current thinking and books in teaching are available to us. We're also very lucky that we have a wide range of current, we call the Meet the expert sessions. So we've got we've had a range of kind of the high profile names, and now Chinese have benefited from that as well. We're back we've got Isabella Wallace joining us next week, for example. So we definitely have those links with pedagogical thinking and members of our school staff, members of the teachers, the the institute with the charter Teachers College, which again, is fantastic being a member of that because you get a little magazine every few months and again, there's lots of research and reading in there, which we use in our sessions with the Chinese as well. So I think actually at finham, we probably are quite up to date. We also have in school every Wednesday morning and we have a waggle Wednesday so we're a member of teaching staff or it might be a head of department assistant head presents on a certain issue I think that's that's going on. That's popular at that moment. So again, out Staff probably aren't quite in the loop there, I would say, We've also got our teaching staff, I have always been very willing to try things. And we're quite lucky that we have a fairly open door policy. I feel very lucky as a leader of it to either I've got a wealth of experience, knowledge understanding, and I know that I can ask staff, if that host, some trainees, I've got a trainee that really needs to see behaviour management or trainee that really wants to see assessment for learning in the classroom, would you would you have them and I'd say nine times out of 10 into Yes. So and we have that that's a culture of our school that we learn from. And again, it fits with the instructional coaching model really well, we learn from each other. And that's something we encourage our trainees to take part in as well. And we can help with that.
Now, we're near the end, so he can breathe. And I want you to tell me, if you were talking directly to the face of somebody who was a professional mentor, like yourself, and you could kind of maybe they're new to the role of being a professional mentor? What what sort of three things might you say to that that professional mentor, how, what would you say is the best three nuggets of advice that you could give to that professional mentor to support the subject, kind of mentors that they've got kind of working with them?
Three pressure, I think the first thing is embrace it. Change is always a little bit uncomfortable. And being professional mentor, you are going to be working with a difference in experience, we suggest mentors, always you're going to and you're gonna have some that are willing and excited by change and others that are slightly resistant to it. So embrace it. And I think that's part of the leadership of it, too, is if we embrace it, and then we can then disseminate that. And I think there's a degree of instilling confidence in our mentors as well, that yes, it's a different approach. But it could be a really good one. So I think that's the first thing I would say. The second thing is just on a personal level, offer your mentors as much one to one support as possible. We now because of the collaborative review document and the SharePoint folders, as ITT leads, we can dip into our Chinese folders quite easily. So you can see the icon forms if they're being completed and how they're being completed. It does make that process a lot easier. So dip into those folders and have a look, you'll soon get a picture of who's struggling with it, and who needs perhaps a little bit more support. And use other mentors, we've got some that have really, really embraced it and are doing really well with it and others that are struggling or put them in touch with one another, you know, to offer support to mentor to mentor, they're probably in a better position than professional mentors to offer that support. Because we don't use the icon form. It's the mentors that are using it. So yes, we can lead and we can guide and offer advice. But often, it's your team of mentors that can offer that support in some ways in a more practical way. I'm trying to think. I suppose if we're talking about try mentors, it's talking about trainees as well, I think it is also a case of knowing your trainees. And if you're working with mentors to help them, we also need to work with our trainees as well, to show them what they can bring to the table. Encourage them to think about what would be useful to bring into a meeting. So perhaps some training in one of their professional mentor sessions at the beginning of the year about sorts of questions that they can be asking and the things that they can look ahead of that meeting and what they should be thinking about through the week to have the best instructional coaching conversation that they can. So I think there's some work that can be done there too.
And then tell me about if you're directly talking to a new trainee come in to this school. Tell me about give me perhaps two or three things that you would you'd really advise them to do.
So get to know your mentor, get to know your department. So take what you mean by So spend some time with the staff. So we again are quite lucky at finham in the art department tend to all stay together. We don't have a common staff room. We have lots of departmental offices. So spend time getting to know your staff going and observe as many lessons as you can patch primarily within the department to start with, but then do ask us Subject mentor or me as your professional mentor to put you in touch with expertise around the school as well
