Managing your role as a mentor

Mentoring can be defined ‘as a one to one relationship between a relatively inexperienced teacher and a relatively experienced one which aims to support the mentee’s learning and development as a teacher, and their integration into and acceptance by the cultures of the school and profession’. With the increase in school-based training in England, an emphasis on organisational professional development, whereby the beginning teacher is prepared to work within the specific context in which they train, may be creating short-term development rather than the occupational professionalism evident in other types of training, which focus on more universal skills and strategies that prepare beginning teachers for long-term involvement with the teaching profession. Barrett, Mazerolle and Nottingham suggest that mentoring is beneficial because it provides the person being mentored with a chance to feel connected, assimilated and eventually legitimised.