I'm Emily Brown. I'm the head teacher at Langar Primary School in Nottinghamshire, and I am mentoring Andrea Lark, who is doing her PGCE with NITE.
Why did you choose NITE?
Andrea had done all the research about this course herself. She had been a teaching assistant (TA) with us for probably seven or eight years and really grown in her experience, her confidence, her passion. You could just see that she really lit up every time that she was in charge of a class, and she was desperate to find a way of continuing to be able to work with us. But doing teacher training and the salary is always an issue, isn't it? No one wants to take that risk of suddenly becoming unsalaried.
So she had done all the research and found NITE and it just seemed like the perfect pathway for somebody in her position and the perfect pathway for us as a school. The fact that it was virtual, but that you also had tutors who would come out. She’s been guided step by step. There's so much for her to be engaged with.
The way the course is constructed, connecting the online learning and the classroom experience with the tasks that she is set, that we can develop in the mentor meetings, and she can follow that up with the observations in other year groups.
It all ‘jigsaws’ together, it is just such a good package, and it feels so relevant. Rather than just going off and doing the lectures and that being very separate from school. It all feels really interconnected, which I think has been a really good experience so far.
What about the support for you as an in-school mentor?
One of the nice things is it's been really manageable. I've mentored in the past where it's been local university-based and then there was this expectation to go out for training sessions or doing quality assurance. But the way that it is set up with NITE, the weekly bulletins that we receive, just the fact that you can dip it in and out of it in your own time when you've got the space and the headspace to do so.
We've formed a nice relationship with Matthew, her university mentor, and it means that I've only had to get in contact with him a couple of times, but it feels that he is a direct link, and receiving his weekly emails always reminds me that he is there if we need him. So, I have felt really well supported.
The introductory webinar we had explained everything clearly and it really did do what it said on the tin! I haven't really needed a lot more since then, really. It was a really good introduction and I'm very clear on what’s happening.
Would you recommend NITE to other headteachers?
Oh, definitely, yes, without a doubt. And as I say, it wasn't something I'd come across before. It was Andrea who did the research, but I would highly recommend it, it really has been a positive experience.
I know that the workload on whichever pathway you take to take teacher training is high. But in lots of ways, I think this has felt much more manageable than most because the trainee is not expected to go out and have those days where, I know that other students in the past have sat in a lecture hall on a Friday feeling overwhelmed and unable to take it on because they're thinking about the workload they've got. Whereas I just think this structure allows them to manage their time and according to their experience, they can, to an extent, choose how highly they engage. I think being able to have that flexibility is really powerful because it provides the correct support for whatever point their entry level is.
