Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers book series launched

Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers book series launched by NASBTT and Critical Publishing
 
A new suite of books designed to help early career teachers navigate through their training year and first two years of teaching has been launched by the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT) and Critical Publishing at a reception at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury.
 
The Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers series, edited by NASBTT Executive Director Emma Hollis, complement and are fully aligned to the Early Career Framework and assist ongoing professional development by bringing together current information and thinking on each subject. The two texts immediately available are:
 
Assessment, by Alys Finch
A range of practical but critically engaged strategies and approaches to assessment. The book offers a brief history of the core ideas and educational philosophy underpinning these strategies, looks at links to planning and reflection, examines the concept of progress over time as a mirror for quality teaching and learning, and explores the idea of pupil self-assessment. Most importantly it recognises that assessment can and should be at the heart of enabling and accelerating the progress of all learners.
 
Alys said: “Assessment is a core aspect of all that we do in education: assessing others, assessing ourselves, assessing the impact of our work. It is a broad term which houses a wide range of processes, purposes, politics and pedagogies: negotiating the world of assessment can seem complex at best and impossibly confusing. This book aims to give readers a path through the myriad facets of what can be meant by ‘assessment’ and some starting points for their own negotiation of this world to enable them to both maximise the positive impact of assessment on their learners and to begin to forge their own understanding of it. I hope it will enable readers to begin to construct their own framework for developing the depth and breadth of their professional knowledge, as well as providing opportunities to think practically about what they do on a daily, termly, yearly and career-long basis.”
 
Mental Well-being and Self-care, by Sally Price
Exploring the increasingly significant issues of mental well-being and self-care for those training to teach or in the early stages of their teaching career. The book draws upon a new body of evidence-based knowledge and an emerging lexicon which fosters and supports mentally healthy routines as teaching practice develops. Critical but also practical, this text guides readers through research-based concepts and reflective tasks central to positive mental health and well-being, supporting them as they develop teaching skills and techniques.
 
Sally said: “Just like the rest of us, teachers have times in their lives when they do not feel so great. It is therefore important for them (and everyone else) to realise that, sometimes, it is OK not to feel great. It is even better if they understand what to do when that happens, and ideally have access to the tools to prevent it happening (as much as can ever be possible) in the first place. In my experience, teachers who require guidance on their self-care and well-being often will not allow themselves to seek help until it is far too late. All teachers need to practise self-care and look after their well-being. This book is responding to the fact that there are clearly many teachers who are not in touch with what it is they need to do to stay well and happy in their jobs. This is particularly the case for those at the start of their teaching careers.”
 
Both books are available to order at https://www.nasbtt.org.uk/essential-guides-early-career-teachers/ and there is an exclusive discount available to NASBTT members. Two other guides – Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, by Anita Devi; and Behaviour, by Patrick Garton, will be available to purchase in 2020.
 
Speaking ahead of the launch, Emma Hollis said: “As a passionate advocate of high-quality teacher education and CPD, it has always been a source of frustration for me that beyond the ITT year, access to high-quality, structured ongoing professional development has been something of a lottery for teachers. Access and support have been patchy, with some schools and local authorities offering fantastic opportunities for teachers throughout their careers, while in other locations CPD has been given lip service at best and, at worst, is non-existent.
 
The Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers series was conceived to attempt to close some of these gaps and to offer accessible professional learning to busy teachers in the early stages of their careers. The aim of this series is to distil some of the key topics which occupy the thoughts of early career teachers into digestible, informative texts which promote discussion, contemplation and reflection and will spark further exploration into practice.
 
Each edition has a series of practical suggestions for how readers can put the ‘big idea’ in each chapter into practice – now, next week and in the long-term. By offering opportunities to bring the learning into the classroom in a very concrete way, we hope to help embed many of the principles that are shared into day-to-day teaching.”