Getting mentoring right

It's now common for many experienced RE teachers - sometimes not very experienced! - to be given the task of mentoring a PGCE student or perhaps a GTP appointment. I saw one infamous case of under-experience where a GTP trainee had been asked to mentor a PGCE student. The PGCE student was not happy, with good reason. But although that case is exceptional, and institutions and consortia that act as providers of training make mentor training compulsory, it's often a one day or a half day process that is necessarily taken up with how to operate the detail of what that particular course requires. I'm often asked for overview tips, not on how to do the paperwork attaching to course X, but how to be a good subject mentor in RE. Here they are!

1. Remember your own L plates!

Some teachers move so quickly from their original training to impressive performance that they forget what it's like to take first steps. It's also the case that some students take longer than others to see how to make connections between their own religious knowledge and insights and how to translate them into the world of children - but when they do get there, they are every bit as competent as those who got there more quickly. If one gave a first lesson taught by any trainee all the criticism that could be applied, they'd probably pack teaching in. Criticism has to relate to how far down the line a student teacher has travelled. It's not just about meeting so-called objective criteria in the form of the Skills and Standards (which change from time to time). What is a good lesson in week 2 could be a very bad one in week 12. So while there has to be a pass line and external standards matter, the week by week individual progress review is equally important - and a student who plateaus out needs to be challenged to move forward, however far they have progressed through the Standards.

2. Give the student teacher time

Getting dedicated time from a mentor for at least an hour a week, or failing that for two half hour sessions, is a 'must'. Otherwise the student teacher gets the impression that the mentor 'can't be bothered' with them, teaches less effectively, loses morale, produces even worse lessons and eventually lands in serious trouble. All because the mentor didn't provide quality one to one time.

3. Walk the tightrope between over-protectiveness and throwing them to the lions

Sometimes mentors over-protect - either the student teacher or their own classes. Nobody wants relationships and RE subject image and morale they've carefully built up with classes or difficult individual children, perhaps over some years, wrecked by a student teacher in one term. But we have to cut our teeth. Careful monitoring and co-teaching in the early stages means that gradually the student teacher can be allowed to develop more independence and you'll both feel happier. But in any co-teaching, make clear who is the police person (or is it student teacher and mentor jointly?). In other words, who sorts out the off-task or misbehaving child? Student teachers often assume the mentor will do this in a team-teaching situation, but some mentors feel that student teachers should be pulling their weight equally. Tell your student teacher how you want to 'play' class management in that situation. At the same time, help the student teacher to see how to use and not abuse the TA.

4. Their lesson plan or your lesson plan?

It's important for student teachers to learn to plan and although it's helpful in the early stages if they are given a scheme of work and individual lesson plans, they must learn to plan their own lessons, so that they can make a big input into their NQT departments at the end of training and operate independently. I once had a case where a mentor was simmering because after six weeks the student had not produced a single original resource. The student's reason or excuse was that the department was so well resourced that she was not aware that she was expected to invent her own individual lesson plans. (Actually it was only well-resourced for Death by Worksheet). This was clearly an issue of communication. Mentors should not assume that professionalism is inborn. It is acquired and it helps if expectations are explicit rather than implicit. A lot of expectations are made of student teachers in today's schools, but mind-reading should not be one of them.

5. Giving a student teacher the class of a non-specialist

Some non-specialist teachers in RE are superb. Others are conscripts, sometimes weak on subject knowledge and not particularly committed to their RE lesson or lessons. Attempts to re-brand such teachers as TWOs (Teachers With Other Specialisms) are unconvincing. They may feel very vulnerable if given a specialist trainee to work with - and in my experience - out of this vulnerability can sometimes come hyper-critical lesson commentary and bad pedagogy. Clearly the RE mentor will want to give student teachers the classes of some non-specialists, but it is important that the mentor oversees the quality of support and feedback that the student teacher is receiving. What if a student teacher with a first rate knowledge of, say Buddhism, is attached to a class in which misinformation about Buddhism is being provided by the 'real' teacher? The mentor has to anticipate this situation - and why not use the student's expertise to the good of the department? This could be exactly where to place their major lesson / resource planning exercises to help the department.

6 'We like having students to keep us on our toes and make us aware of new developments'

Lots of teachers say this, but not everyone plans the student's contribution so that it actually happens. The truth is that a student teacher is both a drain and a resource. A drain because they take up precious staff time - a weak student can take up a very great deal of it. A resource because an average or good student can, over a term or more, make an input into the department (creation of resources, small group support work in some classes from Y7 to Y13, subject knowledge expertise on a particular religion possibly not existing in the department etc). The best mentors are those who want to train teachers and don't merely see it as a grim duty.

Terence Copley - November 2007