Supporting Your Learning Partner

Now that you have got to know your learning partner a little better, it’s time to think about how you can support each other as you progress through the courses, as you learn and trial new strategies in your classrooms. Here are a few ways you can do this:

• send an encouraging email/WhatsApp, especially if you know they are trying something for the first time in their classroom. You may want to send this before or after the lesson
• review their lesson plan, if they think this would be helpful
• act as a sounding board for their ideas. They might come to you and ask, ‘what do you think of this idea?’ Whilst it is important to be positive and reassuring, they are asking for your professional opinion, so you may want to suggest alternatives or highlight areas that you think need developing further. Remember to be sensitive to their needs, avoiding language like, ‘that definitely won’t work.’ Instead, you might want to say, ‘perhaps you might think about doing this instead.’

Your learning partner may ask you to watch them. We encourage this. As teachers, we are used to being officially observed by leadership, but, as a learning partner, this is a very different experience. Instead of a judgement that may affect pay, instead, you can watch them just for a specific strategy. Celebrate the fact that they are trying something new. Let’s say that your learning partner decided to use the ‘Do Now‘ strategy (how to start your lessons effectively); you could go and see them just for the first 5 minutes and provide constructive feedback on how it went.

Here is a proforma you may wish to use:

You might want to put a copy of your ‘Let’s Celebrate’ poster on your classroom wall and in your Teacher Portfolio. If it is on your wall, it will be clear to anyone who walks in that both you and your learning partner are upskilling your teaching!