Benefits of pupils mentoring student teachers

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Benefits of pupils mentoring student teachers
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Key issue addressed by the study

• The study looked at a school-university project
  where pupils acted as mentors for student
  teachers
• Trainee teachers and pupils gained greater
  understanding of each others perspectives

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Outcomes for KS4 pupils mentoring student teachers

• The pupils
• became more supportive in the classroom
• developed an understanding of teachers actions
  and the reasons behind them
• gained insight into the behind the scenes work
  of the teacher
• reflected on their own and their classmates
  attitudes and behaviour

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Insights pupils gained about teaching through
mentoring

• Its hard because everything is new and
  different learning all the names at once, all
  about the abilities of the pupils, and its easy
  to get lost in the school at first. How much goes
  into planning and the thought that actually goes
  into lesson

• Pupils can be very rude and can give teachers a
  hard time but teachers think a lot about their
  pupils () they want to gain respect but not be
  too fierce or too friendly

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Skills pupils gained through being a mentor

• Student teachers felt pupils became more
• reliable
• approachable
• skilled in active listening

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Benefits for student teachers

• Student teachers
• saw what school and teachers looked like from the
  pupils perspective
• became more aware of pupils learning needs
• became more committed to collaborating with
  pupils and solving problems together
• found the balance between openness and authority

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Common subjects for discussion between student
teachers included

• class management
• discipline matters
• the role of the form tutor
• assessment
• teacher-pupil relationships

• what makes a good teacher
• homework
• bullying, sexism and racism in school

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Developing pupil mentors

• Pupil mentors and student teachers attended a
  half-day session at Nottingham University at the
  start of the project
• Two Year 10 pupil mentors worked with each
  student teacher throughout the 13-week teaching
  practice

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Who were the pupils in the study?

• 189 Year 10 pupil mentors supported 91 student
  teachers over six years

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How was the information gathered?

• The researchers analysed teachers and pupils
  questionnaire and interview responses to assess
  the impact of the programme

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How might teachers use this evidence?

• Pupils and student teachers discussed a wide
  range of topics around school improvement, such
  as discipline and both gained valuable insights
• What opportunities are there for you to create a
  similar forum for open discussion?
• You could, for example, involve pupils more in
  departmental review meetings, or set up mentoring
  arrangements similar to those in the study

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How can school leaders use this evidence?

• The mentoring project was carried out between an
  initial teacher training provider and schools
• If you re a training school, would it be valuable
  setting up a similar scheme for your student
  teachers?
• You could start with a small scale pilot

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Follow-up reading

• Study reference Youens, B. and Hall, C. (2006)
  Incorporating pupil perspectives in initial
  teacher education lessons from the Pupil
  Mentoring Project in Teacher Development,
  Vol.10, No.2, July 2006, pp. 197 206
• You might like to read a longer summary of pupil
  voice, with related teacher case study examples,
  on the Research of the Month website
• http//www.gtce.org.uk/PolicyAndResearch/research
  /ROMtopics/pupilvoice/

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