Trainee has not been given any scope to learn to plan

Don Guerau is learning to teach within a partnership programme that includes a long first placement and a second, shorter one. According to his first mentor, he completed the first placement successfully, although the mentor’s written report tended to focus strongly on generic aspects of teaching, rather than Don’s subject knowledge or ability to make substantive and disciplinary concepts accessible to students.

When the lead tutor, Lizzie, visited Don in school to review his progress, she was not aware that the PowerPoints used as the basis of the two lessons she observed (at different points in the placement) were both taken directly from the school’s existing scheme of work, without any adaptation. Although the PGCE programme formally stipulates that all trainees should be given opportunities to learn to plan, the school’s policy was that all teachers should use the centralised resources that had been developed by the head of department, in line with the policies of the multi-academy trust to which the school belonged. Don’s mentor, Phil, who was new to the role, had not felt able to question this policy, assuming that it would be especially inappropriate for a trainee, with limited experience, to be developing his own materials. Don was therefore not asked to develop any of his own lesson ‘plans’; he was simply expected to annotate the existing PowerPoint slide sequences, to add any notes about ‘delivering’ the lesson – such as timings, particular feedback strategies or reminders about students on whom he needed to check in first...