The Early Career Teacher (ECT) induction is a vital part of your journey into teaching. Formerly known as the Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) year, the new ECT induction period now includes an additional year to support you in demonstrating how your performance in the classroom meets the teachers’ standards.
The ECT induction has been designed to support you on your journey from trainee teacher to an experienced one, with support from experienced tutors and mentors. The induction is underpinned by the Early Career Framework (ECF), which builds on and complements Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses.
In this blog, we explore tips and tricks that can be used during the ECT induction period, and beyond, to help you make the most of this important stage in your teaching career.
What does it mean to be an ECT?
Being an ECT is an excellent opportunity to use all of the great practice you learned during your training period in the classroom. Whilst you will now be responsible for a class, this is still a transition period between being a trainee teacher and being an experienced one, so this is the perfect opportunity to use all of the resources provided to you. As an ECT, you should have the chance to show your teaching skills and, in turn, your ability to meet the teachers’ standards. However, you should also benefit from extra time out of the classroom, additional training courses that are held specifically for ECTs and the professional support of other teachers.
Tips for thriving in your ECT induction period
- Use your ECT time wisely. In the first year of your ECT induction, you will receive a 10% reduction in your teaching timetable and a 5% reduction in your second year. This is a huge benefit and the extra time should be used to help you in any way that you deem appropriate. Some examples of how to use this time could be: gather evidence to show how you meet the teacher standards; prepare for your next meeting with your induction mentor; review the targets that were set at your last meeting and gather evidence to show how you have met these; suggest an action plan of how you will meet any targets that you have been set.
- Take time to build your portfolio. Gathering evidence to demonstrate how you meet the eight teaching standards is an important part of your induction and one that you should begin thinking about early in the process. As the teaching standards are broken down into even smaller statements, you would need to provide a wealth of evidence (now collected over 2 years) to prove how you meet these. Depending on where you work and what the expectations are, you should be systematic about collating and organising your evidence as this will help you to showcase your strengths when meeting with your mentors.
- Read policies and procedures carefully. With constant reviews and updates happening, reading the policies and procedures that your school has in place is an important task to help you get started in your new setting. Whilst many schools tend to have policies and procedures relating to similar topics, the content can vary massively between settings. Just one example of this is a school’s marking policy; some schools may require you to mark in specific colours or at a specific point of the lesson, whilst others may not require any form of written, formal marking. Don’t be afraid to ask if you can see these policies and procedures in practice within your school if you feel that this would help you to understand them better.
- Use the experience and resources around you. You will have been assigned an experienced tutor and mentor within school and this is for good reason. Whilst your mentor will be the person that assesses you at the end of the year, they are there to support and guide you through the beginning of your teaching career, as well as your tutor who is there alongside you along the way. Don’t be afraid to ask for support. This could be in the form of observing their teaching practice to magpie ideas, asking them to help you understand a policy in practice, help with planning and resourcing a project that you know they have taught in the past; the list goes on! Your tutor and mentor are there to help you succeed, so being proactive in learning from them and using their experience is great practice.
- Keep your work-life balance realistic. It is easy to compare how we work to others around us, but keep in mind that everybody is different. For example, some teachers are early risers and enjoy getting to school before the start of the day to get resources ready, whereas some teachers like to use their breaks throughout the day or time after school to get prepared for the next day. Ensure that you use your time in a way that works best for you.
Summary
Whilst these tips may help you through your ECT induction period, these are all tips that can be used throughout your career. As you develop your own practice, you will naturally pick up a range of other tricks that you can use, but hopefully this provides you with a good start to how to get the most out of your ECT induction.
How we help ECTs
Curriculum Maestro helps ECTs to view hundreds of projects, thousands of lessons and resources, and reduce workload with our easy to use monitoring tools for coverage and progression. All online training/CPD sessions are completely bespoke to you and your school, and are included as part of your Maestro licence. To find out more or to book some training, call us on 03333 20 8000.
