Introduction
Your job as a mentor is to develop a positive working relationship with a beginning teacher to enable them to grow and develop, both professionally and personally. How you go about this will be influenced by a number of factors, such as your own experience of being mentored in the past and your commonsense opinions of the role. These are important starting points, but you are likely to grow as an effective mentor when you also base your approaches on evidence. This book is designed to support you in considering the evidence that will underpin your practice.
This chapter starts by looking at different definitions of mentoring. It then examines the importance of the context in which you are working as a mentor, highlighting a number of documents from England and other countries that impact your mentoring practice. The chapter then considers three potential mentoring models a mentor could adopt to inform their practice. These models underpin various roles you undertake and hence the other chapters in this book.
Objectives
At the end of this chapter, you should:
ā¢Have a greater understanding of what is meant by the term āmentoringā for a beginning teacher
ā¢Have an appreciation of the key context in which you work that may influence the manner in which you act as a mentor in school
ā¢Have an awareness of the plethora of mentoring models that exist
ā¢Be able to compare and contrast three developmental mentoring models and how these could be used to support your role as a mentor.
Before reading further, undertake Task 1.1.
Task 1.1Mentor reflection: Reflecting on your understanding of mentoring
Reflect on what you understand by mentoring by considering the following questions
ā¢How would you define mentoring?
ā¢How does your definition inform your practice as a mentor?
ā¢How do the various policy and guidance documents relevant to your context influence your mentoring practice?
ā¢Do you base your mentoring practice on personal experience or on a model(s) of mentoring? If a model, which one(s)? Why?
Definitions of mentoring
Mentoring is widely used in many contexts for the purpose of helping people to learn and develop, both professionally and personally. There are numerous and frequently contradictory definitions of mentoring, with accompanying models of how mentoring is best approached (Haggard, Dougherty, Turban and Wilbanks, 2011). While different models might utilise different terminology and vary in emphasis regarding the role of a mentor, what remains consistent is the view that mentoring is a supportive learning relationship. The mentor, with their more extensive experience, is there to support the learnerās development. The quality of the relationship between mentor and mentee is extremely important.
The terms āmentoringā and ācoachingā are at times used interchangeably. Both aim to develop the professional or professional competencies of the client or colleague. Although mentoring and coaching have much in common, an important difference between the two is the focus of developmental activities. In mentoring, the focus is on development at significant career transitions, whereas in coaching the focus is on the development of a specific aspect of a professional learnerās practice (CUREE, 2005).
Montgomery (2017) suggested that definitions of mentoring often involve the concept that advice and guidance to a novice, or person with limited experience, is given by an experienced person. In this way, mentoring can be seen to be hierarchical; a top-down approach largely based on a one-way flow of information.
In contrast, other definitions of mentoring follow a less hierarchal structure. These include peer mentoring (Driscoll, Parkes, Tilley-Lubbs, Brill and Pitts Bannister, 2009) and group mentoring (Kroll, 2016). In these approaches to mentoring, the flow of information is more bidirectional. Montgomery (2017) suggested they are more personalised as mentoring is more effectively adapted to an individual menteeās goals and needs. Higgins and Thomas (2001) suggest that top-down mentoring has greater impact on short-term career outcomes and individually driven mentoring supports long-term career development more effectively. Whether the focus is on short- or long-term tailored development of a mentee, there are common aspect to all forms of mentoring. CIDP (2012, p. 1) identifies four characteristics of mentoring:
ā¢It is essentially a supportive form of development.
ā¢It focuses on helping a person manage their career and improve skills.
ā¢Personal issues can be discussed productively.
ā¢Mentoring activities have both organisational and individual goals.
In education, school-based mentors play a vital role in the development of student teachers and the induction of newly qualified teachers. They also support other staff at various points of career development. As with mentoring in other contexts, there is a focus on learning, development and the provision of appropriate support and encouragement. The definition of a mentor outlined in the National Standards for School-based Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Mentors in England (Department for Education (DfE), 2016b, p. 11) is someone who āis a suitably experienced teacher who has formal responsibility to work collaboratively within the ITT partnership to help ensure the trainee receives the highest quality trainingā. However, in initial teacher education in many countries, including England, assessment of the beginning teacher is integral to the mentorās role. This is supported by Pollard (2014), who suggests that the role of the mentor in ITT has developed because of three aspects: the complexity of the capabilities teachers need to meet, the focus on high professional standards in school and the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. Before reading any further, undertake Task 1.2.
Task 1.2Mentoring reflection: Understanding the term āmentoringā
ā¢Research the terms āmentoringā and ācoachingā.
ā¢List a variety of terms that you associate with coaching and mentoring.
ā¢Make a list of common and unique characteristics for both.
The context in which you are working, which underpins your mentoring practice
Mentoring is increasingly important in a range of fields, both in the United Kingdom and internationally, as a tool to support recruitment into a profession, retention in that profession, professional learning, networking and career development. In teaching, it is widely recognised that there is a strong relationship between professional learning, teaching knowledge and practices, educational leadership and pupil results (Cordingly et al., 2015). There has been an increase in the development of policy and guidance documents as well as frameworks, toolkits and factsheets over the past few years to support educators and others in fulfilling their roles as mentors.
As a mentor, it is important to recognise and embed current policy and statutory guidance into your mentoring practice. A number of key documents underpin the mentoring process in initial teacher education and beyond in England and elsewhere. These constitute the key external drivers in shaping mentoring practice in school. Being aware of these is important, but knowing how to use them to support your work with a beginning teacher can add purpose and validity to what you do. (There are examples of how to do this in other chapters in this book.) They also enable you to recognise the value of being a mentor in school, as āeffective professional development for teachers is a core part of securing effective teachingā (DFE 2016b, p. 3).
Table 1.1 highlights policy and guidance documents that influence the work you do in school with a beginning teacher in England, but also signposts you to examples of international equivalence documents to enable you to make comparisons internationally. Now complete Task 1.3.
Table 1.1Key external drivers influencing mentoring work
| | Policy/guidance document | Author and date introduced | Key purpose |
| Teacher Standards documents | Teachersā Standards (England) | DFE (2011) | Used to assess all student teachers working towards qualified teacher status (Q... |
