Page 97: The wider 'life' - the roles and responsibilities of being a primary school teacher

 Page 97: The wider 'life' - the roles and responsibilities of being a primary school teacher

Being a teacher is a lot more than that '9-3'. Those of us who are teachers or who are training to be are more than aware of that but for those who aren't, it may come as a surprise that there are other bits and bobs that we get up to. Particularly this year taking on the role of being a class mentor, supporting the training of a student teacher, it has highlight some of the further bits and bobs we get up to which as useful to know if you are planning to head into the career or would just like some more information!

Not that it can really be classified in this way, however if I was to choose a 'main' aspect of my job role, that is my day to day planning, preparation and teaching for my 30 wonderful children. Working alongside my year partner, phase leaders and teaching assistants, we use long and medium term plans to structure what learning we plan for in our class room every day. A big aspect that sits hand in hand to this is assessment and data. We are always assessing in our practice to inform and adapt the day to day learning which is taking place. More formally this can be seen as an end of unit quiz, as well as more importantly being integrated and dripped throughout all interactions through methods such as questioning strategies used and live marking. We use this data and observations to adapt and inform our planning and preparation for the next day/unit of work. As teachers, some of our other roles and responsibilities in supporting this area of our job role is writing reports, conducting parents evenings and running parent workshop.

Following on from a brief overview of what 'teaching' can appear to be, for the rest of today's page I am going to share some of the other bits and bobs we get up to being a teacher. As teachers, particularly speaking for myself and some of my colleagues, we fundamentally believe in the importance of teaching and educating being research driving, ensuring we are using the most up to date research to inform teaching styles and strategies. This can be demonstrated by some of my supporting blogs around cognitive theories. In order to facilitate high quality teaching and learning, research driven, we must ensure we are up to date with our CPD.

1. CPD (Continued professional development)

As briefly mentioned above, education, the world around our schools and the society that we are apart of is constantly changing. We need to be up to date in the latest research, policy and understadning of our communication to support our children in maximising progress and developing crucial life ling skills. It is integral to ensure we equip our learners with the transferable knowledge and application of their school based learning. CPD comes in many forms. This could be an in house training day where SLT and subject leaders deliver specific input, external training from an outside agencies and in the world on today, there are a number of fantastic online CPD opportunities available. This is fundemental in supporting our development and delivery of quality first teaching. 

2. Being a subject leader

During your ECT years, you will have the opportunity to shadow subject leaders, working as part of a subject team in driving the subject forward across the whole school. As you progress into your third year of teaching, you will be given a subject to lead. Depending on the size of your school this could be a subject team or solo leadership. You are the expert in your setting. As a subject leader it is your responsibility to guided and support all staff in delivering high quality teaching in this area. Some aspects of this role include running CPD, developing curriculum, completing subject leader evaluations, conducting lesson visits, book looks and pupil interviews and attending networks. 

3. Being a mentor for a student teacher

As a teacher we all have to learn from somewhere! We can not quite learn everything particularly in terms of the practical skill set and putting university knowledge into practice sitting in a lecture theatre. To gain your QTS (qualified teacher statues) you must complete and pass school based training. Throughout your career (school dependant) it is very likely that you will work mentoring and guiding a student teacher through their practice. I have throughly enjoyed my experience of being a mentor this year and look forward to more mentoring in the future. 

4. Attending networks and working alongside other institutions

This is an area I have really promoted and strengthened throughout my ECT2 year. Firstly network groups are fantastic for sharing ideas,  knowledge and understadning as well as being great for a chat with somebody who is going through or leading the same thing at the time time in education. I am currently part of a few networks across a range of different categories. I am currently a part of a Religious Education subject lead, EYFS teacher and ECT network. When considering working alongside others, work between cluster schools is fantastic to share good practice as well as working with the universities. I have throughly enjoyed my work alongside Manchester Metropolitan University this year. 

5. Wider school events

These are some of my favourites. Simply from attending and running a stall at the Christmas or Summer fair, being a part of a parent support coffee morning, organising and attending school trips and residential. These are good fun, really rewarding and a great opportunity to strengthen relationships with pupils and their families outside of the classroom. 

I hope you have enjoyed me sharing another side of teaching today. It is these additional 'bits and bobs' driving your own leadership, getting involved with events and networking that really makes being a teacher so rewarding, promoting that feeling and community that we are all so lucky to be a part of. 

Miss Yeoman