Provisional teaching is an exciting time in your educational career.
Not only is it a time to put all the things you learned in your degree into practice, but it is also a time to develop your teaching practices and values.
While amazing and rewarding, a lot of work goes into this stage of your teaching progression.
While you will be supported by your Centre Mentor and colleagues, sometimes it can be helpful to arm yourself with further helpful resources.
Roadmap to Certification is the ultimate resource for helping you and your mentor work through the different components of provisional teaching.
Keep reading to find out how this tool can help you to maximise your learning during this time.
The Roadmap To Certification
What is the roadmap? Written by myself, an experienced ECE Mentor, Coach and Teacher, it steps you through everything you need to do to gain your full teaching certification. It, arms you with the tools to get the most out of the experience – focusing on helping you improve your practice, not simply proving you have met the necessary requirements or standards.
The Roadmap includes the following key components:
- Familiarisation: setting a strong foundation to work from at your Centre
- Planning: set yourself up for success by knowing how to plan effectively
- Mentor: advice on how to maximise the relationship you have with your mentor
- Useful tools: timeline, goalsetting advice, the inquiry process, and reflection – it’s all covered in this section
- Key documents: links to all the documents that will help and guide you
Unpacking The Roadmap
Timeline
When two years stretches on ahead of you, it can feel overwhelming to plan what you are going to tackle during your provisional teaching and when. The timeline function of the Roadmap resource takes all the guesswork out of that.
With all the guidance for when you should schedule foundational, observation and review meetings, as well as inquiries and other commitments, the timeline will keep you on track. It also has handy page number references that correspond to other parts of the roadmap that are pertinent at various stages of the timeline.
Familiarisation
Whether you are beginning work at a new Centre or continuing to work at the one you did while you were studying, you need to take the time to familiarise yourself with the provisional teacher role. It will look different from any ECE work you have done before, so it’s essential that you give yourself around 6 weeks to settle in and build relationships with the children, your colleagues and whanau in your new capacity.
Once you are feeling settled, it is time to start the process of finding a mentor to support you throughout your certification journey. The Roadmap will help you undertake the process to ensure you find the ideal person that makes you feel supported, valued and heard.
Planning
Planning is going to be key to your provisional teaching success. You will need to create a plan that is unique to your journey and your situation. That is the only way you can ensure that the plan will work as you want it to!
The Roadmap timeline is a flexible framework that will help you plan for the different requirements of your teacher certification journey. It lays out exactly what you have to do by providing a guide to completing each component.
Chat with your Mentor and put your personal calendars alongside the timeline. Together you can draw up a workable plan that will suit you both and still help you to reach the various milestones of your certification on time.
Goal setting, Inquiries, Professional Development and Self-reflection will all feature heavily in your planning. There is no set format for documenting these aspects, they will all be crafted uniquely to your needs and circumstances.
Mentoring
Meeting with your mentor will be another thing that you do consistently throughout your certification path. Your Mentor will provide you with a safe space to explore your teaching practices, resolve any concerns you may have, and gain a deeper understanding of certain teaching aspects to enhance your professional development.
During your mentorship, the meetings are foundation meetings, regular review and reset meetings, meetings based around observations, and documentation meetings. These meetings will help you to discuss and meet the various requirements of your certification.
The Roadmap explores each meeting type in greater detail. This helps you and your Mentor to know what to expect in each circumstance and ensures you cover the necessary components every time you meet. This helps to make your meetings valuable and effective.
Useful Tools
There are plenty of resources that can help make your provisional teaching path easier. The Roadmap contains access to them all!
From guidance on how to set goals that you can actually achieve to unpacking the Inquiry process, you will be able to get the most out of the certification experience. A sprinkling of assistance with brainstorming, mindmaps, feedback and self-reflection tips round out the resources that will not only help you enhance your teaching practices now, but will also teach you good habits you can utilise throughout your entire career.
Key Documents
It is essential to familiarise yourself with various documents that will assist you through your provisional teaching journey. Not only are they full of valuable information, but by the end of your certification, you will recognise them as the professional responsibilities of teachers.
The Roadmap details each of these vital documents and shows you where to gain access to them.
Support From Your Peers
The Roadmap resource is a helpful tool. When you purchase it, you also gain access to a closed Facebook group led by expert ECE Coach and Mentor, Leanne Jackson. This is a fantastic source of support and advice as you can connect with other teachers at the same stage of their certification journey as you.
It is also a place to ask questions and brainstorm ideas both with your peers, but also with a knowledgeable ECE Mentor.
Ready To Roadmap?
The Roadmap to Certification is a valuable tool that can help take the stress out of a lot of components of provisional teaching. A collaborative resource you can work through with your mentor and it will help you both stay on track and ensure nothing is missed.
If you feel like this would be a good addition to your certification journey, you can find the Roadmap right here on our website. As a digital resource you can gain access to it instantly. Once you have purchased the resource, you will also gain access to the closed Facebook group containing other ECE teachers at the same learning stage as you.
Find the Roadmap here.
If you would like to make the process of gaining your Full Practising Certificate smoother, click here to read more about the Roadmap or click here to purchase the Roadmap to Certification e-book for Provisional Certified Teachers. Alternatively, if you are wanting to learn more about my packages, reach out today.
If you are interested in learning more about external mentorship, you can Find out more about it here and partner with me for success!
Useful links:
My Website
Hi there,
I am first year student doing my bachelor’s in ECE and needing help and support as my head teacher/mentor is the centres assistant manager so I don’t get much support or help.
Kia ora Katie, I’m sorry to hear you are not getting much support. The first year can be tough going, especially when trying to understand what they are wanting. Do the training provider have any support groups or connections you have made to seek input and discussion around what you are working on?
Happy to chat with you. Leanne