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Welcome back to a new episode of Lead to Excel. I'm so excited to be with you today because today we're going to be looking at how leaders and managers can support new teachers. This is the beginning of a new school year, and many new teachers are starting their new exciting new career this week. My cousin and a few of my friends' children are among the new teachers who are starting this academic year as new teachers. And it's actually made me think of ways that they can be supported so that they don't become one of the 10% of teachers that leave the profession after their first year. Researchers now estimate that 44% would live within the first five years of teaching. And for me that's really sad. Having been in education for so many years and been an education manager, I know how daunting it can be for new teachers coming into the profession. Especially people who've worked in other professions and are now transitioning into teaching. See, they're coming with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot that they want to give, but only to be burnt, discouraged, and overwhelmed within the first few weeks. And that's why I felt this would be a good time to actually do this podcast to help managers actually think about ways that you can support the new staff and new teachers who are coming into your department or area. I feel that there are five key ways that managers can help new teachers thrive and enhance the school culture overall. Teachers, as we know, are one of the most precious assets in a school or a college, and hiring and retaining the best of the best is of utmost importance, but also one of the main missions of any manager. My cousin was a lawyer, and she decided after 10 years in legal practice to become a math teacher. The school that hired her actually waited nine months for her to complete her teacher training. So you see how keen that they are to get her in. And that's why it's so important at this point to make sure that she has a good introduction, a good onboarding introduction into the profession and into the college and into the or into the school. They also now need to ensure that she can be her best so that they can end up getting the most out of her and also able to retain her. They should ensure that they allow her to come into work with her brain, not just telling her everything she needs to do without actually listening to see what she can bring in. I know for a fact the heavy demands that are put on new teachers and it can make retaining the best ones an especially difficult endeavor. Being new in any profession is daunting, but being new in teaching actually comes with its own set of pressures. Managers are usually pulled in different directions, and this can result in the nurturing of new teachers slipping down the priority list. The potential impact that new teachers bring their schools or colleges includes things like the energy that they come in with, their enthusiasm, coming in with new ideas, all these should be nurtured. Every school and college needs these fresh-minded educators to bring something new, such as the infusion of technology expertise or a simple boost of excitement and energy. But without the right support, it can be difficult for new teachers to find their place. The despondency tends to arise due to classroom management challenges, which usually tends to occur quite early on, because we know that our youths would push boundaries and they would test people as much as they can. But also, the lack of administrative support brings a lot of despondency for these new teachers. Family or life challenges also, work-related stress, which arises from the uncertainty of knowing exactly what to do in different situations, but also sadly, the feeling of isolation that some of them experience. The question then is what can managers do to eliminate some of these factors? What actions can they take to increase the likelihood of this new teacher's success and satisfaction? But also, and most importantly, what can managers and leaders do to retain these new educators? So I've thought about this quite a lot. I want to give you some of the key things that can be done to support new teachers. The first is assigning them positive mentors. Many schools and colleges assign mentors to new teachers without adequate thought put into the process. This is where it becomes absolutely important to choose mentors who have high emotional intelligence so that they'll be able to provide the required support to these new staff. I once witnessed a very negative teacher with very low EQ assigned to mentor a new teacher in the college I was working with. And the issue was that his negativity wore this new teacher down so much that she got so stressed, so overwhelmed with everything, and then she left the college after seven months and actually left teaching completely and went back to her previous profession. Now, this teacher meant well, but the problem was that he was seriously, unconsciously so negative. What he didn't realize was that all he was telling her were all the things that were going wrong. But also what he did was took his burdens and put onto her. So she was carrying her own burdens, his own burdens, and it just got so overwhelming for her. What many managers do not realize is that when you assign mentors to new teachers, you're basically telling the new teacher that this is who I want you to be like. These new staff members then feel obligated to go to their mentor first with any questions, concerns, or issues. If these mentors are well skilled with high emotional intelligence, they can then provide a solid foundation for the new staff member, which can be very beneficial. But this isn't likely to happen if the mentor has a low emotional intelligence and is generally negative. This is why it's so important to choose mentors wisely. You, as the manager, must ensure that the mentor has adequate scheduled time, also ensure that they pay observe each other's lesson and possibly other people's lessons. With this mentor staying with them or even arranging for them to pay observe somebody else's lesson and come and discuss the feedback with them. These observations should begin early in the year and continue as required throughout the year. The right mentor can be a blessing to a teacher and serve as a guide and role model, but an inadequate mentor can be a disaster waiting to happen and a nightmare experience for any new teacher. The next way that you can help new teachers is to reduce their isolation. Do everything you can to ensure that new staff members make social connections, especially with as many positive and effective colleagues as possible. This is important because the club that pushes negativity are always looking for new members to join them. You probably recognize these naysayers at your own school, college, or department, and they're excellent at recruiting new members, so you must aim to reduce the chance of a new staff member joining a negative influence group by working hard to get your new staff to connect more with your productive team members. Ask positive teachers and team members to check in on your new teachers regularly. See if they can help them and even sit next to them in the staff room. This actually is really important because, like I said, another thing I've noticed quite often is when a new staff member is sitting next to a very negative staff member. Oh my goodness, that is awful because all the negative staff member does is just feeding this new staff member with negativity, and it's actually quite draining for anyone not to talk of somebody who is just new to joining the team, and they end up being torn in different directions, not knowing what to do, and leaving work with that baggage, taking that baggage home, and then it just piles up, and this is what leads to stress because at the end of the day, I don't know if you've listened to my previous podcast. If you haven't, go back and listen. The main thing that causes stress is the thought process that is going on in your brain. When a negative staff member is feeding a new staff member with a lot of negative things, they keep playing these things over and over in their head so that when a situation then occurs, they now relate these things happening to the negative things that they've heard about, and that's when they start getting stressed and tends to stop. Another way to support new staff members is to assist them with classroom management. This is such an important area because if classroom management is not achieved, the staff member will gradually lose their passion for teaching. Ensure your new staff members are trained to hone their classroom management skills and are able to effectively engage learners so that disruption is minimized. It's also crucial that they are aware of what to do when things are not going so well. The next point is give them permission to say no. As school leaders and managers, you need to make sure you create a growth mindset culture that gives new teachers permission to not do certain things. For instance, they don't need to be in every school event. They should not have to create schemes of work for every new lesson that they're given because every lesson for them is new. And to put that burden of creating these new schemes of work onto them as they start can be quite overwhelming. Give them lessons where you already have prepared schemes of work and teach them how to use these schemes of work so that they can then adapt these new schemes of work to their own lesson. Even give them lesson plans that you already have and teach them how to adapt them to suit their own style of teaching. You need to ensure that new teachers have the time and energy to be creative and effective in the classroom rather than expend that energy on more peripheral tasks. So don't add to their burden by giving them non-critical tasks such as attending PTA meetings or organizing a school trip quite early on in their career. Remember, one of your goals is to help new teachers sustain their enthusiasm by giving them the time, support, and space to find success within their classroom walls before you expect them to complete less crucial tasks. The next point is prioritize the time. In my online course on the growth mindset culture transformation, I explained the importance of a good onboarding induction for new staff. New teachers must be on your priority list to avoid the hideous task later of trying to break bad habits that they form and can be formed quite early on. This can be achieved by doing classroom drop-ins yourself from the start of the academic year before discipline issues begin to pile up. Make a note in your own calendar to visit each new teacher's classroom each week initially for even as little as 5 to 10 minutes to support them. And make sure that you meet with them later to just encourage them and possibly give them feedback if it's needed. But keep those drop-ins quite positive. Use your coaching skills to guide them and teach them. And if you find something that needs to be dealt with immediately, deal with it immediately by having the conversation with them and linking them up with somebody that can support them to change either a bad habit or give them the skills to form new ones. Also, dropping into lessons is very important. As you prioritize and give these new teachers time, it's also important that you make out time to meet with them as well as much as you can. New educators need to know if they are meeting expectations and if they are being effective before it gets too late. Starting to drop into their lessons from the first week after induction will enable you to establish their trust and ensure that you can provide ongoing guidance and support for them. I've seen in so many places where a lot of teachers feel very uncomfortable with people coming into their lessons. This is because it's not a practice that they're used to, and when it's then introduced, they fight back. So from the culture in your school or college where it's actually part of your culture that you drop into lessons, and peers can drop into each other's lessons as well. It does establish trust amongst everyone. Positively reinforce what's going well and help fill in any areas of need as soon as practical. Get into the habit of asking them how you can best support them, as it's much easier to help create appropriate expectations than it is to correct bad behaviors. The longer bad habits exist, the more they start to feel normal. As an education manager or leader, you must ensure that you protect your new teachers, support them, give them confidence to succeed. By assigning them effective positive mentors, providing tools to manage a classroom effectively and supporting their self-care, you can help them start their career on the right track, and then they are more likely to enjoy their new job and achieve the high performance that you require from them. I really hope this helps you to support your new teachers and new members of staff effectively. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast. I will also appreciate any comments that you have, but also are there topics that you want me to talk about relating to leadership in any way? Let me know and I'll make sure that I address it as well. It's always such a pleasure to spend this time with you, and I hope you found this extremely useful. Do have a wonderful week, and I look forward to seeing you again in the next episode. See you soon.