Student 'can only do' 8.30-3.30

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I'm fairly new to teaching so I really don't know what to do. I don't want to be responsible for failing someone.

It's just not enough time. I don't get the chance to talk to her properly.

She's okay. Not great- but if I actually had time to mentor her she might get better!

you can just do what you can to help her in the time you have.

For primary, where a trainee will teach a single class, for up to 75-80% of the week at the end of a final placement, the class teacher also has to think about the welfare and progress of the children.

For secondary, where even Maths or English lessons taken by a trainee would be a maximum of 1/5th of their learning week (assuming 1 period per day of Maths, 5 periods per day), and almost certainly less, a trainee will have less impact on a pupil's school experience. Yes, they may have an impact on a certain subject, but not on their whole experience.

A trainee with poor behaviour management in secondary, for example, would be balanced by 4 other teachers per day, plus tutor time etc, where behaviour is well managed.

On the other hand, a trainee in primary with poor behaviour management, or poor differentiation for a certain group of students, or poor subject knowledge / poor written English (surprisingly common), is those pupils' experience for up to 4/5 of the week, for a third of the year. It does have a much greater impact, and a primary teacher unable to coach a trainee well due to inadequate time has a responsibility to their class to raise and rectify the concern.

Sorry, should have said 'it does have a greater impact on a specific group of 30 children. A weak / poorly coached secondary trainee will have a lesser impact on each child, but will affect more children. That is why i can see that in secondary, an overall mentor looking across the trainee's classes has a much more important role, wheras in primary, it is the class teacher who has the greater role in week to week monitoring / coaching the trainee, with the mentor as administrative / higher level backup.

Not sure why any teacher should have to stay at school after the pupils have left, apart from for directed time activities. Presumably if she is teaching and preparing lessons for your class, you have considerably more spare time to complete marking and admin and could organise something during the school day.

have considerably more spare time to complete marking and admin and could organise something during the school day.

BBCK, The thing is, during the school day, one or other of

• the class teacher
• the student

will ALWAYS be in front of the class.

IME a teacher with a student will still maintain e.g. lunchtime clubs, assembly and duty rotas, lunchtime interventions, phone calls home to parents, etc etc.

This means that it can be genuinely hard to find time during the school day, especially as breaks and lunchtimes in primary will often be used for physically setting up the classroom for the next lesson (Lunchtime before art = setting up art. Lunchtime before science = getting all the equipment out for the investigation. Breaktime before e.g. Geography = fetching the atlases from whoever had them last. Lunchtime before ICT = spending time making sure all the laptops work).

So it is quite possible - indeed much more normal than otherwise - for either the class teacher or the student to be busy throughout the 'pupil contact' part of the day, and obviously BOTH need to be available for a meeting.

Oh, and of course a student teacher can't do PE on their own, so setting up for PE etc will tend to be done jointly but isn't very conducive to a meeting!

Is there a reason you can’t talk while setting up? I’m a very experienced mentor and a very busy teacher. When a student is teaching my class, I am in the room writing detailed feedback in a logbook and marking or prepping my other lessons. I don’t hold formal meetings more than once a week but students can email me to answer any queries or targets I’ve put in their log. Apart from the odd disastrous one, most students tend to reduce my own workload if they are teaching and preparing my lessons.
I am not referring to you here OP but some other posters seem to be very judgemental and believe everyone must act like a martyr to be a good teacher. If the student is expected to assume the exact same role as a qualified teacher, she should be paid accordingly, the same with any TA who thinks they are being exploited. Say no or train as a teacher and get the pay.

BBCK - are you primary or secondary?

I do honestly think the two situations are so different that it can be difficult to comment meaningfully across the two types of setting. I know that I can't e.g. comment on secondary marking except as a parent.

Generally, I would agree that by the second half of a placement, a decent primary trainee reduces the class teacher's workload (especially the marking load - it is really nice not taking 96 books home to mark every night). However, that is at the expense of some quite heavy work at the beginning, which does have to be outwith 'pupil contact hours', for all the reasons I have tried to spell out above. poor trainees remain hard work throughout, especially as 'damage limitation' to the class tends to mean a lot of co-teaching or small group teaching to prevent certain children falling behind.

I can't imagine conducting an effective or useful feedback session whilst rushing around filling up paint-pots.

Well, that too!

Effective feedback session: time for the student to reflect on their own lesson; referring in detail to what went well and what could have been improved; decisions on action points to work on and timescale; notes of these on feedback form; possibly briefly revisiting plan for next lesson of the same subject to see if specific changes are needed, or agreeing when revised plans need to be e-mailed.

Not really possible when rummaging in the depths of a science cupboard for equipment, or filling paint pots, or troubleshooting laptop connectivity [no ICT technicians in primary], or getting out gymnastics equipment in the 10 minutes after lunch has finished in the hall but before the children come in and need to be supervised when changing.....

Very easy (and much more productive) in the 20 minutes after the children have gone home...

poor trainees remain hard work throughout, especially as 'damage limitation' to the class tends to mean a lot of co-teaching or small group teaching to prevent certain children falling behind.
This is true in secondary too!
A good trainee (however they manage their working hours) is worth their weight in gold. A good trainee who has childcare issues will talk to staff and help find a solution and we'll work together as professionals.

A poor trainee (especially if they are in school the very minimum) adds insanely to workload. They are also (in my experience) the first to whine and complain about how mean school are, why they don't have time, don't meet with staff, aren't proactive etc.
Last year I had a poor trainee and they were a horrendous drain on the department.

I can't imagine conducting an effective or useful feedback session whilst rushing around filling up paint-pots
Me neither. Trainees need proper time, especially if they are weaker.
And maybe I've encountered a few poor trainees but I do tend to find that where you have ones who don't engage, they tend to be weaker and then tend ti be very quick to blame anyone else other than themselves.

I think you need to discuss this in more depth with the student. When I did my pgce there was one placement which I had to take the train to so could only stay til 4.15 or I would have been late to pick up dd from nursery. Not everyone has a lot of options, and being in a full-time job and managing childcare IS different to the chopping and changing you have to do as a student teacher.

I'm currently doing a PGCE and we were told that we should expect to mirror the CT.

If the student is not engaging in the community of the school then she should not expect a particularly high grade on her placement evaluation form.

I assume she has a Uni mentor? Have you spoken with them to confirm the expectations?

ILoveDolly
I agree it's worth a chat with the trainee.

From the OP I kind of took it as the trainee has announced 'I can only do x hours' as a that's it sort of thing. I would be a bit as a mentor if that was the case and it would be a red flag to me (with a hint of right, and yet you knowingly signed up to a course where your placement schools could be anywhere in the region, some could start earlier / finish later, you'd have twilights and meetings etc. Either you really are silly or it's not set in stone and you are very naive if you think that will get you far).

If a trainee joined us and said "Hi maisy, can we chat. I live here and this placement is on the other side of the placement zone. I was keeping my fingers crossed for something closer if I'm honest. I'm having x y z issue with childcare and it's a bit of a bitch this placement. Childcare is available a-b. Is there anything we can do to work around it?" Then I would do as much as I could to make it happen for them as best as possible.

It's all about attitude in my opinion.

Same for trainees doing lengthy publuc transport journeys. One year I ok-ed a trainee to leave after school meetings and CPD 15 mins early to avoid them having a 50 minute wait for the next train at an unmanned station.

From the OP I kind of took it as the trainee has announced 'I can only do x hours' as a that's it sort of thing.

She came in and said off the bat that she could only do 8.30-3.30 and I asked if there would be any chance of that changing.

A good teacher is going to probe and see what more can be learned and what more can be done to achieve the end both the teacher and trainee have in mind.

The OP wants to move the fixed object here - she knows it's childcare, and must have some appreciation of what ILoveDolly understands; it is easier to organise childcare when you have fixed hours and the increased income that comes with a full time professional position.

Instead, why not think a little (it's actually not that much) out of the box and consider email or a phone call at a mutually agreed time later on, perhaps when the small children of the trainee are in bed and the OP will have settled her own family for the night too.

yet you knowingly signed up to a course where your placement schools could be anywhere in the region, some could start earlier / finish later, you'd have twilights and meetings etc. Either you really are silly or it's not set in stone and you are very naive if you think that will get you far
This issue effectively keeps mothers of young families who are not well off out of teaching. It is discriminatory to expect such extreme flexibility on the part of the trainees, most of whom are women, and tutting at someone who finds herself between a rock and a hard place is unfair. They have a desire to provide better for their families, they have a desire to do this by teaching, which is not an easy path to a secure income, and they find massive hurdles placed in front of them, and the way they deal with those hurdles used as a means of judging their personalities and even their suitability for teaching.

The problem is the lack of flexibility and the lack of acknowledgement that young women sometimes have babies and young children to take into account. It's the not really very new problem that workplaces fail to account for the fact that men and women have lives. They can get away with that to a large extent when the trainees and employees are men who have 'secretaries, kid taxi-services, childminders, laundresses, cooks, and PAs' - aka partners - at home dealing with the details of their lives for them, but it all comes apart when the trainee or employee is a single mother or someone whose partner cannot do the childcare element of family reality.

Are women really naive to expect that in a profession that is dominated by women, the reality of women's lives would be taken into account?

But unfortunately teaching is not 830-3.
Not whilst you are training
Not in your NQT

Not later in your career

If this trainee has signed up to teach under the view it is 830-3, family friendly hours and you get the school holidays then they're in for a massive shock.

It's not keeping women out of teaching to point out that the working day for teachers goes after 3pm. The job does not end at 3pm. That's not presenteeism or working excessive hours it's just the job.

I want to teach but:
I can only do 830-3
So yes I'll probably miss the morning briefing for staff
and parents' evenings are an issue
and CPD is inconvenient and I can't attend that either

and team meetings are no good for me either really
and getting sent on courses can't happen because I need to leave at 330
I need my bags packed and ready to go so any parent who wants to catch me at the end of the day will have to wait
but equally they can't see me before school either because I can only be in from 830
I'll hardly speak to other colleagues because our PPA doesn't match up and not everything can be explained by email

Are women really naive to expect that in a profession that is dominated by women, the reality of women's lives would be taken into account?
This isn't about the reality of women's lives. This is about basic elements of the job.
Teaching is not 830-3pm. There are parts of the jobs beyond that time.

It would be like me signing up to be an on call doctor but not having a car and then complaining that the hospital should make arrangements for me.

Or me opting to take a job working away on the rigs but saying 'sorry but i can only really do Monday-Thursday and would like zipping home every weekend'.

When she is being PAID as a teacher she will likely be able to pay for child care.

Our staff briefing was 8.30. So she wouldn't have missed that. Parents evenings don't happen that often. We had an assistant head who would leave at 3.20pm (kids left at 3) and take her work home.

As I said when I did my PGCE I arrived at about 8.20 and left at 3.30pm. I car share with 2 others. A PGCE student even at the end of their placement should only be teaching a max of 50% timetable. And shouldn't need detailed feedback about every single lesson.

But the assistant head is an experienced teacher who knows what they are doing and they will be back for meetings and other elements of the job after 320.

Some days I leave at 330 and take work home. It doesn't mean I can tell school that I need to be out at 330 each day.

I'm hugely sympathetic and willing to accomodate trainees (given examples on this thread), but I would be a bit hmm about them signing up to a course when they have to leave at 330 as if the job ends at 330. To me, expecting colleagues to do stuff other times (evening phonecalls have been suggested) because a trainee needs to leave on the bell each day is not reasonable.

I'd happily get trainees out of twilights early if they had an awkward long public transport commute. I'd also let them shadow the first part of parents' evebing if they had childcare issues and would be as flexible as I could within reason. But leaving on the bell and expecting everyone to sort it out isn't reasonable.

Tufted I’m guessing it must vary - I’m pretty sure when I did my PGCE (Primary) by the end of the final placement we were supposed to be doing something like 80% of the teaching.

I'd be pretty hacked off if I was expected to conduct a detailed phone debrief with a student/colleague at 8/9 o'clock at night after I'd wound up for the day. In fact, I wouldn't do it. Sorry.

Too many teachers (and I'm sure other professionals, but this thread is about teaching) go along with this sort of shit and it really isn't acceptable. We are allowed to switch off in our own time.

It can be hard to get enough placement schools. I’ve had a student who had a two hour (by train and bus) journey each way to us, now she had no kids but if she had she’s have needed to leave immediately to make any normal nursery or childminder’s closing time.

That's my thought almost.

Otherwise we get to a point where it's considered totally reasonable to expect a mentor to conduct work in their evenings but obviously totally unreasonable to expect a trainee on a professional programme to actually do reasonable hours for the job they are training for.

Poor trainee having to be in school longer than the kids = doesn't think about women / putting women off the profession / they are only a trainee so basic elements of the job don't apply

Expecting a colleague to give up their evenings at a time convenient for the trainee = obviously that's totally fine and not at all the sort of nonsense that goes hand in hand with workload issues.

All training providers should (in my opinion) make it very clear that teaching and training to teach does not mean 830-3. Anyone who signs up to ITT thinking short days, convenient for childcare and good holidays should seriously reconsider.

A PGCE student even at the end of their placement should only be teaching a max of 50% timetable.

That’s just not correct. Ours are expected to be at an 80% timetable (the same as NQTs) by the end of the training year.

There seems to still be a significant body of opinion that teaching is family-friendly. Holidays, yes. But during term-time, it absolutely is NOT.

I work with PGCE students regularly and i would be shocked if they had to leave for child care at 3.30. How do they manage the uni weeks of the course? It's a full time course and childcare needs to be in place as it would with any other full time working commitment. Obviously one off issues arise but regular child care is a must. Out of the students I've worked with recently (12 this term) 4 had children and all 4 had regular childcare in place so weren't rushed.