| NQT Handbook - Introduction | |||
| Rewarding and stimulating as it can be, teaching is an extremely complex career requiring high-level expertise in many skills areas. It is also a profession in which the nation is permanently interested, and of which seemingly increasing levels of accountability are demanded. You only have to glance at a newspaper or listen to the news to see how frequently education issues are, sometimes inaccurately, discussed. Add to this the pace of change in education, and you could easily find yourself confused, however satisfying your job is. |
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The purpose of The Newly Qualified Teachers Handbook is to provide NQTs in
primary and secondary schools, as well as those considering a return to teaching
and supply teachers, with a valuable resource for their first few years in the
profession. It includes ideas on easing your way into your new career and draws
from the Standards for the Award of Qualified Teacher Status, the Induction
Standards and OFSTED guidance, as well as dealing with the other needs of new
teachers, such as finding a job, how to deal with work-related stress and union
membership to name a few.
Keeping up with the latest developments in a profession such as teaching can be a challenge. Working as a teacher requires that you be familiar with a wide variety of laws, circulars and guidance, strategies and initiatives, not to mention the latest curriculum and requirements of QTS. All of these aspects of teaching in England necessarily develop as time passes and for this reason, The Newly Qualified Teachers Handbook has been thoroughly updated since the first two editions were published by The Stationery Office in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Some teachers experience teaching as a relatively lonely career, with many NQTs feeling that they must cope with the job alone. This book is designed to help you accept that you don't have to muddle through - that there are lines of support that you can follow and lean on. Your first few years of teaching should not be about 'getting through' induction and surviving the profession; surviving is only a marginal improvement on barely existing and no one can teach effectively under those circumstances. Your induction year is about building on your sense of security in your job, as well as developing and encouraging enjoyment of it. The Newly Qualified Teachers Handbook is not an academic textbook, relying heavily on teaching and learning theory. It doesn't attempt to tell you how to teach - a skill that you will continue to perfect throughout your career - neither is it a digest of academic papers and texts. It does, however, seek to draw together good practice and a heavy dose of common sense in an easily accessed way. It is a practical, functional guide for everyday use - for you to reach for and dip into whenever you need an idea, support or inspiration. It seeks to enable rather than preach, to help you guard against misinformation and dogma and to encourage you to develop your own ideas about the best way of managing your job with integrity. ChecklistsFor ease of information retrieval, many hints have been organised into lists. It is not intended that you should follow each list slavishly; rather use them as a springboard for your own ideas. They are designed to be a time-saving device for you. Simply dip in, select the information you need, and go. Action featuresThese have not been written around hypothetical issues, requiring you to spend time on hypothetical answers. Rather, they are intended to draw from your own wealth of resources for problem solving. Again, there is no need to work through them systematically. Example boxesAll of the examples have been drawn from the real experiences of teachers, although some of the names have been changed. They have been included to illustrate points in the text, and some deal with relatively unusual situations. About BoxesThese boxes contain succinct information covering the many issues and situations that face new teachers. No book is perfect, and there are bound to be comments and ideas that you, as an NQT, would wish to make about the material presented here. If you would like to make your thoughts known, then you can e-mail me at: eh@elizabethholmes.co.uk. Feedback from trainees, trainers, induction tutors, headteachers, returners and NQTs themselves inspired many of the improvements that have been made in this edition and there is no doubt that this has contributed to the evolutionary nature of this book. Should any of the information presented here become obsolete during the life of this book, updates will be posted at www.elizabethholmes.co.uk. | |||