Alex discusses feedback and the role of the mentor

Hi everyone, this blog will focus on the role of the mentor within your school on the Redhill IL SCITT programme and how they play a large part of helping your development into teaching to find your voice, confidence and reflective ability. 

If you haven’t seen my previous blog, I am currently a Geography trainee in suburban Leicester. My mentor, Tom, is Head of Geography at my school and to begin, he was the first person I met once through the automatic doors of the school foyer. This welcome set the tone, and his eagerness to have me within the class followed and for the first couple of weeks, I studied his mannerisms, behaviour management, relationship with the students and intonation closely. It was also in this time that my mentor and I figured each other out, seeing how best we could work together, how regularly I would receive feedback, when and where I could have a quick chat and who to turn to if he wasn’t available. These small things all helped me in my routine, but before long, it was time for me to step up and begin teaching.  

The lesson was to be Year 7 Geography Skills, focussing on getting the basics of compass directions, map symbols and grid references embedded. This was followed by a healthy dose of Battleships, a practical way in which students can use not only their grid references accurately and in pairs, but also using competitive strategy and picking up on any misuses in order to correct their fellow students in a positive game environment. Seeing the class using them correctly was so satisfying, and I had known that if nothing else, they had learned to use their grid references well and would remember this concrete learning experience as a result.  

Overall, the first lesson went well, with my mentor providing feedback on fine tuning my modelling and clarity of explanation to ensure that next time, it would be an even crisper learning experience for all, which would create even more time at the end to let the students enjoy Battleships. In this, my mentor had created an achievable focus for me to work on, without knocking my sense of ability. It was important for me to know what was to be worked on, I simply had to do it again, but better. I felt empowered and took ownership of that area of my teaching ahead of the opportunity to reteach the same lesson a couple of weeks later to another Year 7 group. Our weekly meetings in between helped both of us see the progress I had made towards my weekly targets, and where I had picked up quick wins from research into improving my explanation, such as in Redhill’s own explanation session which I revisited, helping me to see where I could improve next time around. 

So, the time to re-teach was upon me and I managed to model and explain my six-figure grid references with greater effect. This went so smoothly that the Year 7 group managed to have an extra five-to-ten minutes playing Battleships as I didn’t have to correct misconceptions or misuse of the learning content. Seeing the class being able to complete a full game was the reward I didn’t know I needed and this minor change in my teaching style, as a result of effective feedback, helped me in my confidence and skill set as a teacher. The Battleship diagrams themselves were so good I was able to use them as part of my PebblePad portfolio and this is a lesson I cannot wait to teach again to my own set of Year 7’s later down the line!

Alex Wilson, Geography trainee