Whether you take the route of the PGCE, Cert Ed or DET, your teacher training years are really important to your subsequent development as a teacher. Here are five ways you can really make the most of that time. 

Get in the classroom and teach

My advice - particularly for those who are on placement to gain their teacher hours - is to get in the classroom and teach. Teaching is often framed as a practice and as important as is to observe others and gain a deeper understanding of teaching, practice requires…. well, practice.

Get in front of students as often as you can. If you need to do 100 hours to complete your qualification, don’t assume that once you get to 101 hours, you’ll be competent and confident. Your teaching practice will continue to develop over the coming years. If you take the old adage that you need 10,000 hours to be an “expert” in a practice, then you’re looking at the first 10+ years to get to this position. Therefore, every hour and every experience you have during your training should bring you closer to this position.

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Plan and reflect

You need to plan and reflect. Planning is so important to any new teacher’s development as it can allow you to analyse and plan for the avoidance of common problems in the classroom.

Do you keep forgetting to recap one activity before moving on to another? Plan it in. Can you not work out why you lose your class 40 minutes into most sessions? Have a look at your plans, maybe your activities are similar or too long - why not plan some alternative approaches and see how they go. 

Make some honest notes about how the session went. If the session was great up to activity three then make a note of where things slipped and why you think they may have done. If you notice you lose a group every time you switch activities, look at your plan, write down the issue, consider the solution and begin to plan this into your sessions. 

At the risk of sounding a girly-swot, I still do this now and find it really helpful when I look to make adaptations each year, as I know which sessions or activities worked and which didn’t.

Consider deliberate practice on just one development point

Consider deliberate practice on just one issue or development point. This goes back to this idea of teaching as a practice but considers that you can’t change everything at once. So pick the thing that is the biggest or most important issue and work on that one thing. 

You’ll be getting lots of feedback during this time from mentors and students which can be overwhelming and tough. Be kind to yourself and look to change one thing in your practice at a time - once you’ve got that pegged, down move on to the next thing. 

If you’re not sure what to choose, talk to your mentor or teacher education team but don’t try to change everything at once. Practice development doesn’t work that way. 

Your value in your practice

Think about your value in your practice. Most of the really excellent teachers I see can either verbalise this or exemplify it in their practice. It needs to be beyond the “my students” response, because if you don’t value your students then you probably need to question why you are teaching. 

I think about colleagues I have or do work with and I can see real advocates for LGBTQI+ rights, technology in practice, work readiness, teaching students beyond the qualification, development of SEND practice, even people like me who get their “geek on” in practitioner research. 

I don’t know what it is about having that focus, but it always seems to relate to, and amplify their teaching practice.

Find a community 

The best piece of advice I can give is to find a community, in your teacher education classroom and beyond.  Community and support is so important to your development now and in your future, it’s how practice is passed and wellbeing increased. 

Support can be found in teacher education programmes, departments, wider college initiatives and online communities such as Twitter (give #UKFEChat on a Thursday evening a try as a good starting point). These communities can keep you fresh, help you think again and be a great support blanket when times are tough.

Sam Jones is a lecturer at Bedford College, founder of FE Research Meet and was FE Teacher of the Year at the Tes FE Awards 2019