Take part in induction and mentoring

You must complete two years of supervised teaching after getting a Tōmua | Provisional Practising Certificate. 

Professional development is not solely about attendance at courses. You can engage in professional development by reading online papers, books and blogs. There is Induction and mentoring professional learning available for PCTs and their mentors. Some of it is face to face across the country and some of it is online. 

You can also use classroom release time and your beginning teacher release time to attend professional development. It’s important to embed the theory and ideas you learn by reflecting on, and discussing, your professional development as you progress with your induction and mentoring programme. 

This can happen sometimes but it’s rare. You will need to discuss this when you are appointed to a position as you will need to find a Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate teacher who can supervise your induction and mentoring programme in flexible ways. 

Your options are: 

• You work under the supervision of a Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate teacher from another learning centre who keeps in contact and visits you regularly. 
• You use a Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate in a nearby learning centre serving a different age group, for example primary school, secondary school, advisory service or teacher education institution, as a mentor teacher. Your mentor teacher will need contextual understanding of your teaching setting. The Standards | Ngā Paerewa are the same for all sectors, and can be interpreted and applied for working with a range of age groups and communities. 

In either case, you should have an initial planning meeting followed by regular documented visits. 

Yes, but you will need to make sure your supervising teacher is familiar with your teaching in both centres. If your mentor teacher is based in one centre, you will need to arrange times for formal observations of your teaching to be completed. You must also have follow-up meetings to discuss your goals, follow up on goals previously set, and receive feedback on your teaching. Your mentor teacher must regularly observe you teaching at both centres to determine you are demonstrating the Standards | Ngā Paerewa.  

You may be asked to send evidence of your two-year induction and mentoring programme at the time you apply for Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate. A range of documentation will be expected to show evidence the support programme has been in place over at least two years. For that reason it’s a good idea to provide documentation from the beginning, middle and end of each year of your programme. Ensure all documentation is labelled with the relevant date of completion.  

The exact number of documents will depend on the structure of your programme and frequency of your meetings with your mentor teacher. You may, for example, have four formal observations completed for your teaching over one year, or you may have eight or more in addition to more informal observations.  

If you are asked to send evidence of your support programme, you will need to provide evidence you met with your mentor teacher regularly. This must show you received formative/summative feedback, observations of your teaching were conducted throughout the support programme and you reflected on your teaching regularly and participated in professional development activities. 

We want to see evidence of a coherent two-year programme of induction and mentoring and ‘hear' your ‘voice' and the ‘voice' of your mentor teacher throughout the programme. This could mean commentary about lessons, or reflections by each of you on activities or professional development you have completed.