ECTs
We are pleased to be able to offer support for Early Career Teachers here at Cippenham School. We register our ECT's through an appropriate body and assign all ECT's a mentor, who will work with you to complete your assessments and will assist in arranging essential and tailored CPD to help you through your first year of teaching.
As well as protected time through the school week, you will have planning time with your team/team leaders for lesson preparation and will be granted opportunities to observe experienced teachers in a variety of subjects, to support you in your journey to qualified teacher status.
But don't just take it from us, we are happy for you to speak to any of our current or past ECT's to get their perspective. Mr Donnelly shares his thoughts on his ECT year below:
"My ECT year was something that I felt nervous about going into, as it’s a big change and going straight into having your own class and responsibilities is a daunting prospect. As soon as I started, I felt that I was supported. Working alongside my year team, I was able to quickly get to grips with what the expectations were and what I needed to do. I was assigned a 1:1 mentor who I met with on a weekly basis, we spoke through any issues I had and the things that I needed to work on were broken down into small manageable targets that I was able to keep on top of. The school has a variety of different people who were available to support me , with each subject having a designated leader and mentor to work with. The friendly atmosphere within the school meant that any member of staff felt approachable and this was key to being able to ask for help from others. People were willing to give up their own time to help and were ready to talk things through in depth if I had any problems.
Having completed my ECT year, I feel that I have improved massively as a teacher, both in confidence and in practice. It was a struggle at times, keeping on top of the various responsibilities that come with being a teacher, however with support from a variety of people within the school, I have come out feeling positive about my future."