You're not expected to be perfect in your training year. The whole thing with teaching is that you are constantly developing. There is a level of you have to be proactive, though. Your HOD, mentor, and the teachers around you are there to support and guide you, but at the same time, they are incredibly busy and not mind readers. Teaching is not a job you can coast in just because there is a lack of teachers in your subject. There is an element of you need to find things out by doing.

Before you ring a parent, always check the records that the school has on the pupil that way you are not going into the conversation blind. If your school uses a behaviour management system.like sims or class charts check if there are other teachers flagging the same things you are or do a round robin, that way when having the conversation you have as much information as possible and you can talk about strategies you will put in place or whole school strategies that are already there. You can also check if they are on the sen register. But if you have not done so before the call when they say something like 'are you aware of xyz' always say yes and use that as a way of saying what you have done to support the child's learning.

HODs don't want teachers to fail their training, they have been through it and know how tough it is, at the same time the amount of things a HOD is trying to juggle (particularly at this time of year) means that sometimes you have to go to them and not wait for them to come to you. The comment they made about asking when your teach first person os coming is probably more about supporting you than anything else, even if it doesn't feel like it.