How can the Internet help Trainees and NQTs?

This post is designed to highlight a number of ways in which NQT’s and Trainee Teachers can make use of the Internet to help them develop into highly effective teachers during their first year.

There are a number of useful resources online that are specifcally aimed at helping to make the transition from Trainee to NQT as smooth and pain free as possible. They by no means replace quality mentoring, but do provide additional support and lots of tips from experienced colleagues from around the world.

The first suggested port of call is the NQT Survival Guide which will be developed into a section on this website. This guide is a series of twitter posts aimed at providing Newly Qualified Teachers’ with ideas that will save them time and help them to establish themselves quickly. There are hundreds of ideas on the twitter feed which are currently being written up into a more formal guide, the plans for which can be found here.

The Teacher Development Agency documents the things that are expected of an NQT in documents linked to from this article. Whilst you’ll be given all of these materials as part of your induction, it’s worth bookrmarking the page so that you can access the materials online at any time you need to check where you are in relation to the standards.

The Education Guardian has developed a section of it’s website that is aimed at supporting Newly Qualified Teachers. It features a series of guides to things such as union membership as well as including articles that address some of the issues that cause the most stress for NQT’s.

I’d highly recommend joining your Subject Association. This is particularly useful for NQT’s who are in small departments. Your Subject Association membership will provide you with access to up to date CPD resources; guidance on a wide range of issues and provides you with the opportunity to become part of the wider teaching community for your subject area.

Keep up to date with Educational Issues. The most popular Educational News websites are the TES Website, The BBC Education News Website and the Education Guardian Website.

Find and follow teachers of similar subjects and age groups on social networking sites such as Twitter. This will help you to hear about other teachers’ successes (and failures) and often helps you to keep things in perspective. There are also lots of really good Educational Blogs available, such as these teaching and class blogs which were shortlisted for awards last year. Many subject areas also benefit from having vibrant subject related forums. I’m bias as I’m an administrator of this one but the History Teachers’ Discussion Forum is a great example of a subject based community that helps and welcomes new entrants to the profession. Similar communities for other subject areas are easily found via relevant subject related websites.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel! Many NQT’s spend hour after hour planning their lessons and creating resources. Whilst the effort is admirable it’s often not the best use of time. Where possible use existing teaching materials and tailor them to your needs. This allows you to stay fresh and gives you the time to focus on particular lessons or issues that require more attention.

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