Reluctant to recommend trainee for post

[DandelionBurdock]

As the mentor for trainees in my subject, I've been put down to complete a reference.

Obviously this will need to be agreed by my Head, so it's not completely up to me, but I'm really unsure of what to say.

We had our second group of trainees shortly before the closure and he was really reluctant to start planning, teaching and marking, doing the bare minimum. The request acknowledges that my comments might be brief as I barely know him, but what I've seen isn't good. My honest answers at this moment in time about his ability and performance fall into the last category on the proforma of needing to be developed and requiring support.

He disappeared when schools shut and didn't work with me to have input in setting work for his classes, but effectively handed it back to the teachers without being told the placement had actually ended.

Although I know it's a stressful time and remote teaching is hard for us all, I at least expected contact so I could give leeway and support, but all my emails were ignored and I don't feel he's even tried to fulfil his role or explained why he's not in a position to.

After finally making contact, via the university, he's said he's overwhelmed with the academic side and deadlines and I've basically been told not to put pressure on him to provide anything for his placement, as other schools the university work with have asked trainees not to.

Of course, if I was seeing him each day and we genuinely needed to build up slowly, I'd be happy to do this, but it feels a bit like he thinks he can get out of this part of the course because of lockdown and still be handed QTS, without worrying about the pupils.

Should what I say reflect any of this, or would it be better to say I can't really comment on most of the areas?

Give honest answers based on what you’ve seen and give a comment detailing that he only completed X lessons of teaching for placement 2 and has had no further input teaching-wise.

What else can you do? The university will have to decide what to do with that information. They’ll know him better than you and will have seen him on placement 1.

Had he had any observations that you can base his reference on? I doubt he'll just get handed QTS because of the requirement to spend 120 days in school. I think there must be a lot of PGCE students who won't be able to get QTS this year without the government putting something in place. I know of at least one university who ended all PGCE placements in March and the students will have to continue when the lockdown is over.

Be honest but the education sector hardly ever gives honest references unless so bad that it is well known so expect your head to change it

Thanks for the advice. I suppose I can only comment on what I've seen, and that does include two observations.

The comment about no further input sounds good. It's true, and I suppose gives the benefit of the doubt, despite him disappearing off and not worrying about the placement.

The reason I mention gaining the QTS without the placement is because it seems that some of his cohort are being given extra hypothetical tasks from the university, because they no longer have a placement e.g. Writing programmes of study or applying the GCSE mark scheme to old standardising scripts, because they won't have access to real pupils and their work meet all the teaching standards.

I guess I just feel like still being trusted and supported to work with our students should be the best practice, and real experience of how teachers are working now shouldn't just be abandoned first and then excused because of workload.

Under normal circumstances, if he'd just not turned up to school when it was open because he had an essay to write, we'd not take that lightly and it would affect a reference!

I would be as honest as you can and you could just confirm he was there for however many weeks and taught however many lessons. If it's a job reference you don't have to complete the form they give you but just confirm dates of training. That will speak volumes to prospective employer.

I would be as honest as you can and you could just confirm he was there for however many weeks and taught however many lessons. If it's a job reference you don't have to complete the form they give you but just confirm dates of training. That will speak volumes to prospective employer.

Speaking from the other side - I'd be cautious assuming what university have actually told their students. We were doing a very low-key placement in school for my degree (I'm an ex teacher as well so see both sides of it) one day a week and obviously the pandemic hit, and we were told by university that placements were terminated immediately at one point - that was it, no further contact to be made by us to schools as they were obviously incredibly busy planning other things. I felt bloody awful stopping dead with kids I'd got close to - I at least wanted to have been able to take in a thank you card at the end of the placement, but I did ask uni to pass thanks along - but I doubt they'll have done so.

Sounds like he wasn't really blazing a trail of glory anyway - but just seeing it from the possible side - we suddenly had a huge swathe of exams that were reformatted to be assessed essays instead dropped on us from on high which led to a couple of stressful weeks if you got them out of the way as they appeared (half my course are still dithering about them now) - buggered up us all expecting exams to be May like we were planning on when pacing workload!

I think you're wrong to have expected him to be providing work during lock-down. They are not his students, and I don't imagine that universities would be expecting students to provide virtual work. That's the job of the class teachers. I'm actually bemused that you think otherwise, and I don't think you should have been emailing him.

Otherwise, I think you just keep things brief: say how long he worked with you, what kind of groups he worked with, and make basic points about his planning, and delivery.

I think you're wrong to have expected him to be providing work during lock-down

This is the whole school expectation, not mine personally. And since I posted, his course provider has clarified that though not all partner schools are willing to continue to support PGCE students, they appreciate the ones who are still expecting them to behave as a member of staff and allow them real experience of planning and resourcing, delivering (remotely) and marking.

Class teachers always have the overall responsibility, but trainees are supported to have a go in school to benefit from the experience, so I'm not sure why not now providing everyone involved is well.

I'm a secondary trainee, but at a SCITT, so still very much part of the teaching team. It seems that trainees are pretty much on a free pass now. Our training provider has told us that anyone who wasn't on a cause for concern has passed the teaching experience side of things. Still have weekly and monthly assignments to do.

I was only 2 days into my second school experience the week that schools closed and was called back to my school for the rest of the week so I'm really only going to have taught in one school. Definitely not going to be as good an NQT as i would have been.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree.

It sounds like the university have copped out of their responsibility in my opinion.
Either trainees should be expected to be in school or the placement should end and no trainees go in.

It sounds like the university have said to trainees the placement has ended but anyone who wants to can go in if their schools are happy to have them. They can't be accepting some trainees doing nothing whilst expecting others in school.

It doesn't sound like he's made the best impression but any reference should be based on his teaching placement, not lockdown.