Strugging NQT

[januarysunsetfire]

Hi.

I've just had a message from the NQT in our department indicating they are hugely struggling with the workload: primarily marking but also planning and genera organisation.

Everything they are struggling with is pretty much the professional standards, and to be honest I don't know what to suggest!

Any advice? :)

Has he taught the same lessons that he observed? How did they go?

In all the schools I've worked in not being up to date at the start of term would be cause for targets and a serious chat and future meetings with HOD at the very least.

OP - did he do his PGCE before the NQT year came in? So has actually done very little teaching in the last few years?

I has someone like this and he took a bit more mentoring , mainly with discipline, but he turned out brilliantly!

I have also had a GTP who couldn't "cope" with 6 lessons a week. I effectively failed him but the university passed him. He got a job as an NQT, but left after a term.

What marking is he struggling with? Is it HW or CW? The best thing I learnt about marking CW was that when you spoke to a kid, don't just verbalise it, write it in their book so if SLT come along it has red pen on it and is "marked"

Are his lessons good? Of not then perhaps he is not cut out to be a teacher

No way would I keep covering up his weaknesses now at this stage. I worked my backside off on my NQT year. There are no excuses. I would definitely document what is happening, stop bailing him out and speak to someone more senior so they can deal with it.

I think you need to be kinder to yourself. We have had teachers in our school who haven't cut the mustard and it makes it harder on everyone.

Thank you :)

Antoinette, there appears from what he has said in the email to be an absolutely massive backlog and, according to him, he "can't mark fast enough" to complete it. I will definitely inform him I will not be stepping in again but I think forcing him to do it will just drag it on until Easter.

The children do an assessed piece of writing once per half term: he misunderstood and got them to do two pieces at the end of the autumn term (this is year 7) - 25 children per class, so 100 pieces of extended writing. If what he says is true, and I am sceptical but there it is, he has spent the entire Christmas holiday doing the year 8 ones and therefore has ran out of time for year 7.

(I know!)

He did his PGCE last year but it was in further education (god, I hope he isn't on here as it's so obvious who I am and who he is ) but I do need advice and here is obviously less likely than TES. Before teaching he taught abroad for several years.

His lessons aren't good, no, although they have shown improvement.

100 total? Even allowing for some time totally off even doing 10 a day would clear that over the holidays...

I think you need to start copying in every interaction/obs/conversation to HOD and DOS. They are likely to need to hire someone else for next year and with this level of failing it should not be up to you to rescue him.

Thanks. I am the HOD. What does DOS stand for sorry? I haven't come across that acronym before

Do you still use AFs at your school? Could you model for him how to mark the assessed work for just two-three AFs so that it speeds it up? (I.e. not marking every single spelling / grammar mistake)

I do think he needs a kick up the behind too so some kind of formal warning might be needed. Do you have a hr person?

Director of Studies. Sorry-might be a school specific acronym!

I think you are dedicated in your role as a mentor and if nqt makes a massive turnaround and becomes a great teacher he will always remember you fondly as the one who helped through a really difficult time. On the other hand you must not ever do his work for him and you must always note down all the help and time given. It sounds to me that you are doing over and above what is expected. also, do your slt know to what extent it is taking up your time?

Also, if he is not putting in the effort or listening to your advice then that must be very frustrating. Sometime nqt s need a little hand holding as it is quite a scary place !! But if I'm honest I think he is lazy and not cut out for what u know is a very stressful job. good luck and keep us posted

Thanks Antoinette - there are SO many different ones now, aren't there?

I'll meet with the assistant headteacher with responsibility for NQTs. She is absolutely lovely which is great, but I think as a result she will sympathise with him and his workload.

ATruth thank you. No, we don't use AFs any more - I am out of practice with KS3 myself, having had a heavy KS4/KS5 timetable for three years now. But we do have a very clear marking policy, both whole-school and departmental.

The cold fact is I feel he is way out of his depth, and I want to be watertight myself when stating this to those above me that he has been given every bit of support necessary to improve but the problems apparent at the beginning are still present now.

I'm astonished he got through his PGCE. I dropped out of mine after the first big placement because I realised I wasn't cut out for it - I loved being in the classroom, marking, all that stuff but I just couldn't get organised. The bizarre and elaborate displacement activity really rang a bell with me - I tried to do everything just right too, when I think good enough would have been good enough, iykwim. The end result was that I fell massively, irreparably behind with the self-assessment side college required :(

With hindsight, I think I could have got through with more support - the job I'm in now requires a fair amount of organisation which is a skill I've learnt. I'm also better at saying "that'll do" sometimes - and fully embrace the Pareto principle

My mentor was occupied with other things (they were away for much of my time at their school) and I was left to my own devices far too much. Someone with better organisation skills probably would have been fine and I really should have sought help so I don't want to blame anyone.

Sorry that was totally irrelevant OP I hope it all gets sorted though - I enjoy my job (which has nothing to do with education) but I still bitterly regret messing up my PGCE :(

Do you think he will make a good teacher?

If not then document everything, ie email him the details of the conversation you have had. Minute everything, to show your support and so alter on you can say told you so or na na na na ner I think he needs help in these ares

If yes then give him a timetable - I want to see this marked by then sort of thing.

I do sympathise with you as the GTP I "failed" was a really respected adult educator in a certain field, knew his subject really well, but could not relate it to kids - or dumb it down to use his phrase

Sorry to hear that Johnny

Cadle - I don't, particularly, truth be told: he does have strengths but fundamentally I don't think he has the requisite subject knowledge, or the understanding of learning.

I'm going to have to demand weekly plans and marking and really get on his case, as he's with us until the end of the year, so not much else we can do, really!

Maybe he needs to understand that before he wastes spends time on bizarre and elaborate stuff, he needs to learn his craft and equally importantly, needs to demonstrate that he has done so.

This is the time he should be getting the quotidian stuff (ie the marking and planning) down pat so that, in the future, he'll have time for the bells and whistles.

Meant to say - perhaps he just doesn't understand this.

I think you could start by noting down now exactly what help you've already given (doing his marking, observations etc) so that you could share that with the assistant head and make a plan (preferably with the nqt present) about how to move forward.

I really feel for you. You sound dedicated and caring and it's just not fair that you're having to do his timetable as well as your own.

It's interesting you say he did the FE PGCE. In my experience, the FE PGCE is only a tiny fraction of the secondary one in terms of workload.

A teacher friend of mine had to be in the college teaching two days per week, at university two days per week and had a day off every Friday!

I did secondary and was in school 5 days a week, teaching 16 hours per week by the end. Friend barely taught a lesson on her own.

He's taking the piss. I'm a secondary English NQT. I teach 20 hours out of 25 and am expected to be on duty every break, lunch (eat with students, all staff do this) and on duty another lesson hour a week (special school so different set up to most but essentially 21/25 and no break and lunches) and have to differentiate hugely and make the vast majority of resources myself.

And I'm having an easy time compared to my exPGCE coursemates in mainstream schools because our students leave at 2:30.

In the nicest way I think you and your colleagues need to get tough. Really tough. Tell him it's not good enough. He will not get a job anywhere else.

A very very small point in his favour is that, if he trained where I trained, bizzare lessons were consider the minimum you were expected to produce. If anything was even slightly run of the mill you were letting down the children. Luckily I had been a TA for 4 years before starting so mostly ignored this (still got mostly 2s and a few 1s) but many people destroyed themselves trying to achieve this as well as the dull stuff!

Spring term - I was in school everyday. Had one group each Y7, Y8, Y10, Y12 for whom I was responsible. Obviously their "real" teachers were still in post, I just did the schemes of work (obvs these had to fit into the school's existing plans so basically I cannibalised existing ones) planned and taught the lessons, marked. Acted as LSA for one group each of Y9 and Y11s. Had a tutor group but this was very much alongside their real tutor, not instead. Odd bit of cover, too.

Maybe those two days in college were very packed

I think at this stage what we (I) expect are:- Planning (not elaborate lesson plans but the l/o, an outline and the resources)- Marking: books marked up-to-date in line with the school assessment policy which is books to be marked every fortnight.- Marking part 2: assessments to be marked within a week of children completing them.

Yes, lesson plans emailed to you in advance each week [or on the system in advance] - surely the LP has the resources on them anyway?
If he does the above, will it be enough for you to pass him? Is there anything else that he needs to do to get a pass? Does he need to run some activities by you before he does them to ensure that they are meeting Learning Objectives? Does he have to get an improved observation score by x date?
Get everything written out now that he has to do, in SMART target form, so that he can't turn around in 3 months and say 'you didn't say I had to do that...' and work on the top 3 [as above] this month, and the next next month and so on.
But make it clear HE has to do the work and work out how to do the work, you are just mentoring not picking up the slack.

If anything was even slightly run of the mill you were letting down the children Yup - we had this.

sorry can I just say that this thread came up in Most Active - I don't hang around The Staffroom like some failed teacher Miss Havisham

Blue emerald, why are you on duty every break? I'm sure you are only meant to do one days duty per week.

As a person that has just completed (bar 1 essay to hand in) my PGCE and about to embark on my journey as an NQT I have picked out the following suggestions from the ones on this thread that I think would help me in this situation - from the NQTs perspective if that makes sense.

(I have also been mentally fragile - LOTS of unrelated stresses - relationship break-up; bereavement; child self harming and PGCE on top.....having a supportive mentor and department has REALLY helped me complete my PGCE successfully and recover from the mental health problems...so it can be done but depends on underlying cause of stress).

1. Sounds like he is overplanning/overthinking/overpreparing. Something I am very guilty of. Can you make him force himself to only use existing resources for a week? These may be from TES/the department/you.

This will 'teach' him that planning can be reduced massively...freeing up time for the marking (and everything else ultimately...reports etc ). This also means that he still has to do his own marking, and any help given to him is not too much additional work for others - assumig you (or someone) have plans and resources for the lessons he is teaching.

1. Someone suggested getting him to log time spent. I like this idea. As a tool for him to see where he is spendig his time, and for you to see what your biggest focus for his support needs to be. Don't make it too onorous though. Perhaps just logging time spent per task (per plan/resource prepared/5 books marked) rather than how he spends every minute of every day.

You say that he has got double the work than NEEDS to be marked. Is there anyway he can reduce the marking of this. E.g. mark 1 piece of work in full to meet the requirements of the department. The second piece that 'shouldn't have been done', could this be marked in a different way? Perhaps peer marked? Perhaps just marked with a specific focus in mind? Depends on school and dept marking policy of course.