Certificate of Initial Teacher Education and Training (ITET) Mentoring (Secondary)
2008-2009
Tutor: Christine Counsell
A course for mentors who have, ideally, completed stage 1 training. The course will:
- help mentors consolidate skills and understandings gained in their first year and provide the opportunity for them to reflect on and further develop their mentoring skills and understandings
- provide recognised certification for skills and understandings gained
- help to ensure consistency of mentoring expectations and expertise across all schools and subjects in the Secondary Partnership.
The course aims to give participants:
- the opportunity to reflect on their mentoring skills and experiences
- the opportunity to learn from research and theory about mentoring and how trainees develop their teaching skills
- the opportunity to share these reflections with others and find out about good practice in other schools
- a formal entitlement to observation and feedback of a mentor meeting by their Professional Tutor
- the opportunity to be supported by a community of mentors
- a recognised form of certification of their work.
To provide coherence, continuity and progression in and between Stage 1 and 2, the course will include the following strands:
- how trainees learn and develop
- planning a training programme - timetabling, target-setting and creative training activities, tailoring training to the trainee's needs, moving on the trainee who has reached a plateau, integration with subject studies programmes, managing the mentor period
- assessing progress - oral and written feedback
- 'pastoral' skills
- managing the mentoring department - liaison with colleagues
- working in a Partnership between school and Faculty.
A key focus will be mentors' critical reflections on their own experience of mentoring, as they draw out their learning about specific issues arising during the year and to share this with others in order to learn as a community. In addition, they will further develop their understanding of trainees' learning and the practice of mentoring from reading and discussing published research and theory from books and journals.
Contact hours:
- Three twilight sessions (1 per term) 4.30 pm - 6.30 pm
- Attendance at the usual 1.5 days subject mentor meetings held at the Faculty of Education over the Autumn/Summer terms
- Meetings with Professional Tutors
In addition to attendance at the above sessions, in order to gain the Certificate of Further Professional Study mentors will:
- complete a mentoring portfolio containing the documents generated naturally as part of the mentoring process (mentor meeting record sheets, reports etc) plus two short ciritcal reflections on subject specific issues raised at subject mentor days, and a short critical reflection on the participant's learning as a mentor over a term of their choice
- give an oral presentation comprising a critical reflection on a mentoring issue of the participant's choice, including ideas from background reading. (The participants' notes for their talk and the feedback will be kept in the mentor portfolio.)
There is a registration fee of £152.00 (reduced rate of £130.00 if there are two more participants from the same school).
Please note that this Certificate of Further Professional Study is only open to mentors working with Secondary PGCE trainees in Cambridge Partnership Schools.