Am I taking this feedback too personally?

[Warmday]

I’m training to be a teacher. And I feel like the constant observations make me feel really critical of myself. Every single thing I do has to be critiqued for the assessments.

Anyway I could be overthinking this. But part of the assessments were if you’re meeting the standards or not. I was put as met. But there’s also the option of “exceeding standards.”

As my mentor has only ever met me in person once on our training day. He said to me. “I said I’m happy you’re meeting all the standards but not that you’re exceeding “ is that a criticism

No. The standards are the same for you as for me. I've been teaching 22 years and I don't consistently exceed them. If you read them, meeting them is hard enough£

Honestly, the job is all about criticism and rarely about praise. It seems you can't make a teacher improve unless you tell them what they're doing wrong! Rarely will anyone tell you what they think you did that was good. It's just the nature of the beast. You do have to be able to take it and reflect and adapt. And remember that it's all a bit subjective anyway - I think truly awful teaching is easy to spot but good teaching is less easy to define and will depend on a given day with a given class at a given time. You can run the same lesson past two classes of similar abilities and get very different reactions depending on whether the wind is blowing and whether or not there's an 'r' in the month. You just need to learn what advice you should be taking on board and what is utter bollox. And loads of it is utter bollox.

He said to me. “I said I’m happy you’re meeting all the standards but not that you’re exceeding “ is that a criticism?

So he's made it 50% about him. Wanker. Don't they train these people in how to express this?

Should have been: You've met the standards. Congratulations. Reviewing what you're achieved so far, which 3/5, etc. of those standards would you target for exceeding?

No, you're not taking it too personally because he expressed it personally.

As Enough, said, this kind of shite infests teaching.

@EnoughnowIthink thanks! It helps sometimes to hear that. I feel I’m under someone’s watchful eye at all times and occasionally my confidence drops as a result

Yeah I wish he put it that way. Like well done so far this, this, this is on track however we need to think about how well move forward with a,b,c. I’ve been a supervisor at a legal firm a few years ago and I remember I used to have to criticise people. But I’d always cushion the blow so to speak.

It feels like a thankless task training does. I’ll be honest I genuinely think I have exceeded and I’ll tell you how:

I chased all opportunities myself. No ones done it for me especially in the pandemic with everyone being passing ships

I go in to school too to teach year 11 and 12 lessons and found that opportunity myself

I’ve planned several lessons when a lot of other trainees on my cohort haven’t even been in and do it all online.

With the current situation I would say I’ve exceeded. But I suppose I’m just doing what any teacher is

It sounds like you think you have exceeded in terms of the effort you have put in. Perhaps you have, but that is not at all the same as exceeding against the professional standards against which all teachers are assessed.

It sounds to me that you may be thinking back to the appraisal system you used to work under where 'exceeded' might have meant something different. Being proactive is great, but does not mean the the quality of your teaching/planning/ assessment/behaviour management etc exceeds the standards.

Agree, the standards are not effort grades. A lazy teacher could exceed them and a very hard working teacher could fail to meet them. They are about how effective what you do is, not about how much you do.

Meeting the standards is perfect. Many don't exceed them consistently, even experienced teachers. Some days, factors beyond our control mean that some kids won't be engaged or things won't go to plan -it's the way it goes.

Your observations feedback should give you pointers to develop - doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, but small tweaks can make big differences.

I genuinely don't mean this unkindly, but you have made several threads recently about your placement/not liking it/feedback/your mentor. It may be that the school just isn't right for you and you have to just get through the placement, however, I think you also need to consider how you respond to feedback. I am in no way suggesting mentors should be overly critical -I'm not with my NQT, but they do need to be honest.