5 Tutoring role

Being a tutor to a student teacher requires many of the same approaches as that of a mentor, but in subtly different ways. This section will explore the role of the tutor and the particular pedagogy that is associated with it.

The ITE tutor takes a holistic overview of the student teacher’s development. It involves:

• liaising with school based mentors to provide consistency of support and challenge both within the placement and at points of transition
• developing a student teacher’s individual training plan, including the setting of appropriate developmental targets to support their holistic development across the different contexts or sections of the course
• monitoring a student progress and providing interventions to support progress where necessary
• observing a student teacher in school contexts, and in discussion with the mentor, agreeing future targets and, as appropriate, the current level of achievement in order to moderate assessment across different school contexts
• provide academic support and guidance on assessment, as appropriate
• developing student teachers ability to critically reflect.

Although this list outlines the difference in tasks between tutors and mentors, it doesn’t necessarily capture the differences in pedagogy between the roles, which we will explore in the next section.