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Hello and welcome to Little Learners. In this video I'm going to be talking about how to prepare for
a teaching placement, so if you are starting your teacher training or you're watching this during
your teacher training, hopefully these tips will help you feel a little bit more prepared
when you go in for that first school experience placement. Before we get started don't forget to
click that like button [ding sound effect] during the video if you find it helpful and if you want to see
more videos like this, click the subscribe button to become a member of the Little Learners family.
Okay let's get into it. Now I want to just preface this by saying that all training providers or
universities will do things slightly differently and the things I'm going to talk about are from my
own experience, from my own university, and it may differ from yours. However I did my training at
St Mary's University Twickenham and they are an outstanding teacher training provider, so they're
obviously doing something right, but just take everything with a pinch of salt. Certain things
that I talk about, certain documents, might be called something different where you are. Things
might work slightly differently but this should give you a good idea. Okay so let's start with
a little bit of an overview of placement first before we get into exactly how to prepare because
I think that will help you to start thinking about what you need to be doing before you start. So a
school experience placement is when you go into a school and you do teaching of various different
types - and I'll talk about that in a moment - and you are observed and assessed as part of your
teacher training course. When I did my teacher training we had two assessed placements and one
non-assessed placement but that might be slightly different now and it might be slightly different
between different providers so make sure you have a look at that. So you'll be placed in a
school and you will have a Class-Based Mentor or a CBM, when I was doing my placement this was called
a class tutor mentor, it might be something different where you are. You will also have
a Link Tutor who is someone who is linked with your provider or your university and they come
into the school and talk about your assessment, they will formally assess you at the end of your
placement and they are also there if you have any problems so, they're not actually affiliated
with the school they are there for you, so they are kind of like a mediator between you and the school,
and I can tell you from experience that they are really really helpful when you do have a
problem with the school that you're at. You'll also have a Professional Co-ordinating Mentor or a PCM
which is someone who is at the school and they are in charge of all of the training students. So you
will have your Class Based Mentor but you'll also have someone who is overseeing the entire programme
and they will also come to observe and assess you. When you go into your school experience placement
you will first start off with just observing, so you'll be observing your Class-Based Mentor
but you may also be observing other teachers in other areas as well. Then you will start going
into teaching, so in your very first placement it's likely that you'll do a bit of team teaching so
you and the class teacher will teach together and then you will start doing some solo teaching and
you will be observed formally by your Class-Based Mentor once a week. Once you've been observed by
your CBM you'll have a meeting with them each week to discuss how the lesson went and
any targets that you think are relevant moving forward. These targets will always be linked to
the Teachers' Standards and they are there to help you when you're moving forward and when you go
into your next lessons to be thinking about those targets and how you can prove that you can meet
them during the next lessons you're teaching. As you go through your school experience you'll start
teaching more and more you should have a document from your university or training provider that
tells you exactly how much you need to teach each week and what areas you need to be teaching in. You
may also have some other things that you need to be doing each week, that will be in this document
things like going and observing the head of a subject or doing a display board, there might be
something like that in there. Throughout your placement you'll be keeping evidence, so you will
have a Teaching and Learning file, this is where everything goes, so any observations you've done,
any lesson plans that you've done, worksheets that you've done or that you've been teaching during a
lesson, all of the planning, all of the timetables, school policies, pretty much everything that you
produce during your school placement goes in this file, so just put everything in there. You will also
have a Standards Evidence Profile and this is something that you carry with you throughout
your entire teacher training, throughout your experiences, and this is divided up into the
different Teachers' Standards and you slot in some evidence for each one, to prove that you have met
those standards. If you'd like a video on ideas of what evidence to put in your SEP or your Standards
Evidence Profile do let me know in the comments below, I'd be more than happy to make that video
for you. Okay so that was a very brief overview of school placement. Let's talk about what we need
to do when we're getting ready for it. So first of all if this is your very first placement make sure
you have your Standards Evidence Profile ready, so you will need a section for each of the Teachers'
Standards, so maybe a divider for each one and stick the standard on each one of those so
that you have that ready, and you can just slot in evidence when you need to. Also start your Teaching
and Learning file, so this will probably just be an empty binder and very quickly you'll be able to
fill this with school policies any documents that you've been given by your provider and
any documents that the school have given you. And then of course as I mentioned, as you go through
your experience you'll be putting everything in there. Make sure you read any handbooks or
guides that your provider has given you so that you're really clear on what is expected of you
and it may answer any questions that you have, or you may read it and still have a question that you
need answered before you start your experience, so make sure you read all of those documents.
Find your photo ID, this might be your password or your driving license, and your DBS certificate,
so that you can take those in on the first day. Schools will usually want to photocopy these so
just make sure you have them somewhere and you're not like me searching for it until midnight the
night before! Contact your Link Tutor and introduce yourself. Usually this will just be an email
and you'll say 'Hello I've found out that you're my named Link Tutor, just wanted to introduce myself,
this is the school that I'm going to be working at and I look forward to meeting you'. Pack your
bag with everything you need, so this includes your ID and DBS that I talked about, any stationery that
you want to take, the files that you need to take in with you, any documentation from your provider
and anything else that you've been asked to take with you to the school. Also make sure
to pack yourself a healthy lunch and maybe stick in a treat for a nice snack when you're feeling a
bit stressed! I would also recommend taking in some hand sanitizer. If you need to take any medication
in with you do let your class-based teacher know that you need to lock away your bag just to make
sure that it's away from students. Make sure you have suitable clothing for the duration of your
school experience. I'm sure this is an obvious one but you may come to the day of, open your wardrobe
and realise you really only have one outfit that's suitable for school so make sure you're checking
that before you go, and different schools have different expectations of their teachers in terms
of clothing some schools are a lot more formal than others, so make sure that you know exactly
what their expectations are. Look at your school's website to get a feel for the school, look at what
their ethos is and look at any policies that are available online, so their behaviour policy,
their safeguarding policy, either way make sure that you definitely read the safeguarding policy
either before you go or as soon as you get there. When you go in for your school placement the first
thing that you'll probably be doing is just doing observations for the first few days or the first
week, however it works for your provider, in order for you to get a feel of how the school works.
Make sure you set up a meeting with your Link Tutor and Class-Based Mentor so that you can
all discuss what's going to be happening during this placement. You'll also need to discuss your
profile children, so these are children that you and your class-based mentor will choose together
and they will be the children that you're really focusing on during this placement, so you'll be
gathering evidence for them, you'll be spending a little bit more time with them. You'll be looking
at any planning, timetables, resources, policies that you need to know about, and if you have a question
just ask - they're there to help you, and if you feel like someone who is supposed to be helping you
isn't really helping you, contact your link tutor. Now school experience can be a bit of a shock when
you first start, it can be very draining and there is a lot to do; just planning a lesson
can take a really long time, much longer than it will when you are actually a class teacher because
you have to go into so much detail, but trust me, it is worth it. It really helps you in the long run
but just remember to be kind to yourself give yourself time for rest. If you have a day or
even a week where you're feeling really down or stressed, maybe someone observed your lesson
and it didn't go the way that you wanted it to, please don't feel too disheartened. This happens to
all of us and if we don't make mistakes we don't learn. You're not expected to be an expert teacher,
an exceeding teacher, just when you start your training. So it does feel like a big jump when
you first go in but just be kind to yourself and know that it's the same for everyone, you are all
in the same boat and it will get easier as you get more experience. I hope this has been helpful and
given you some ideas and some food for thought on how to prepare for your placement. If you have any
questions please do leave them in the comments section down below, I will look through those and
answer them to the best of my ability. I'd like to wish anyone starting their teacher training this
year the very best of luck and do let me know also in the comments below if there's any other videos
that you think would be really helpful for you starting your teacher training. I will also link in
the description box down below some other videos I have about teacher training that you may find
helpful. If you found this video helpful please do give it a like as it really helps out the channel
and don't forget to click that subscribe button and the bell so you get notified
every time I post a new video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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