Have you got a student teacher in your class this year? Having a student teacher is a great honour, responsibility and opportunity to help out a new generation of educators. It shows that your school trusts you as an educator and believes you are well equipped to pass on your knowledge, to create a new generation of teachers with strong foundations. What a compliment! 

You may be wondering how can you best cater for your student teacher?

Follow these guidelines to head off to a good start. 

Communicate: 
Get to know your student teacher and discuss their needs with respect to their University. Let them know about your daily routines and what is expected of the children. 

Planning:
Student teachers should be part of all planning processes. This helps them to see how it is done and offers opportunities to ask questions. 

Marking:
Talk about the marking and how it’s done in your school. Have her mark alongside you and discuss what needs to be addressed and how. 

Displays: 
Student teachers need to gradually take on board all aspects of a teacher’s role. Being able to display children’s work and create educational displays is important. 

Feedback: 
The teacher should give feedback, both positive and critical. It should be done in an open, non-offensive way, so the student teacher can accept it readily to further improve. 

Lessons: 
All student teachers need to teach lessons. The student teacher should make their own plans and discuss them beforehand with the teacher. The teacher should be present during those lessons to monitor what went well and what could have been done better. 

Share: 
Sharing ideas, thoughts and information is very important. Both can benefit from one another as student teachers tend to think outside the box and can offer fresh ideas in the classroom, whereas teachers will offer the support and structure needed to implement them. 

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Till next time…