To ask for advice on student teacher?

[Lucybell85]

I am getting a student teacher. It is my first time with a student teacher.

Any tips?
What roles or responsibilities should I give them?

Any help well appreciated, Thankyou.

Try staffroom!
Have you not had any guidance from their university?

Don't let them do nothing for too long. Unless they have a focus for their observations, they don't know what they are looking for anyway and the kids don't see them as in charge. Give them front of class stuff such as leading to assembly and settling or bringing in from play.
Help them get their head round behaviour management asap. Can't teach if they can't control the class.
Don't try and be their best friend. If they are shit, you need to be able to have the difficult conversations and that gets very hard if you are their 'mate'.

You need to post in the staff room. Is this primary or secondary? Either way I’m concerned that you are getting a student with no mentor training- the provider I work for would not allow that. There should be someone in your school in charge of students (job title varies depending on provider) and a link tutor from the provider itself. You need to meet with the person in your school and get advice ASAP, there will be prescribed responsibilities expected of your student and a specified number of lessons they have to have. It’s not a case of ask on mumsnet and do what we say! This is a professional qualification.

Good Luck. A few are brilliant, some struggle but try really hard and unfortunately a lot of them are there because of the large government bursaries and they didn't know what to do when they finished uni 🤨 Although by this stage of the school year you are likely to get better ones as a lot of the terrible ones will have left.

Agree with pp that behaviour management is key. If the kids aren't listening or engaging it doesn't matter how good their lesson is.

Not sure if you are primary or secondary. You should have had school based or ITT based mentor training.

Personally how hand on/off you are depends on the trainee.

As a basic for secondary:

• weekly mentor meetings (and minute the life out of them - this is useful if there are problems later)
• beore they start, plan their timetable and get them into the classes they'll be teaching
• get them to observe across the department and the school (even better if you can direcr the focus of observations e.g. 'your first placement said you need to work on classroom management so when you visit sarah and charlie, look for strategies they use)
• get them into staff training sessions
• give them subject knowledge development areas (preferably linked to what they will he teaching)
• get them copies of the schemes of work they'll be teaching
• get them to do a book look and compare with the marking policy
• allocate speciifc time for planning and subject

How closely ypu micromanage depends on how strong the trainee is.
Always have ypur paperwork completed. You'll need it if you have to raise a concern about a trainee.
Don't have them doing nothing for too long
Avoid getting into a situation where trainees make a trainee clique. Sure they'll chat but first and foremost they are professional members of their training department.
And the usual stuff, welcome them, show them where everyone eats lunch, where to get tea and coffee, how to use tje photocopier etc.

Are you in the UK? You need to be asking these questions of the HEI and your link tutor, not Mumsnet!

Although by this stage of the school year you are likely to get better ones as a lot of the terrible ones will have left
I wish that was the case for me this year.

New one this term appears terrified of actually interacting with children, aren't doing a great job of interacting with the team either and seems to need asking 5 times to do the simplest of tasks. Trying to be optimistic but it's probably going t9 be one of those placements.

You'll be given a mentor pack with everything you need to know in it. You should also have their link tutor's email address so that you can email them if you have any further questions. All their responsibilities will be in the mentor pack and they will change week on week. For example my current student was teaching 40% in the first week and he had a couple of tasks to complete, now he's week 4 he's teaching 60% and being really involved in the planning and assessment.
I've mentored about 10 student teachers and I prefer the 3rd year BA students as they, usually(!), know what they are doing.
What student will you be mentoring?

My block A student was horrendous. Lied about me but luckily I'd emailed myself the minutes from our meetings and she was caught out. She also lied that a student had been late to her 1 to 1 but my HoD had been waiting with him little did she know. She threw her toys out of the pram when I graded her RI on her first review when that's standard for most students. She thought she was better than she was. In her review of the school she had the cheek to say that she'd never seen a "good" lesson. Just wow! She'd even managed to get on the wrong side of her uni too so that was on my side!

The new block B student is older and more mature so I have high hopes! I will continue to write good minutes of meetings needless to say!! I dread to think what would have happened if I hadn't have done that. She would have gotten away with accusing me of all sorts I imagine.

Namechange16
Agree so much on having minutes. It is so important to cover our backs. It also gives evidence to boost upwards. I gave my first placeement trainee Good at christmas. ITT weren't convinced but they saw a lesson and the paperworl and said 'yeh we see it'.

Another new mentor tip for OP - be very clear witj class teachers what the student should be doing.
E.g. I told trainee to see you this week to discuss X. End of the week - has trainee been to discuss X?
The responsibility is on the trainee to do it but I've lost track of how many times some trainees claim they can't find members of staff in their own team when we have our own block, all full timers have their own rooms and we have our own department office. Oh and email too.

Please get the mentor information pack and/or ask for training. There will be very specific things they need to work on in the TS if this is placement 2. You should have someone in charge of the student teachers at your school, talk to them and if you can contact the tutor/link tutor from the university. A lot will depend on whether it’s second placement or alternative school placement. Good luck!