June is conference season in education, and don’t I know it! I’m current wrestling with my presentation for HallamEdFest (the Sheffield Hallam education festival) whilst also thinking about the presentation I have to do at the Wellington Education Festival and working on the design of our Ipswich programme for training mentors of recently qualified teachers (see below).
Last week I was working with colleagues from initial teacher training support at an event at the Royal Society of Chemistry which was right next door to the new Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. For years I have had vivid dreams of visual art - and especially textiles - and I wake up deeply frustrated at my inability to recreate them in my waking life. I would give my eye teeth to have a really good mentor who could help me develop my latent talent here J, perhaps help me access the right kind of learning experiences and keep me moving forwards! I know I don’t even begin to understand the demands of the role and work of visual artists in dept – and you really need a mentor when you don’t know what you don’t know (aka the Rumsfeld question).
But I do know a bit and I know even more about mentoring early career teachers. I know a lot of the evidence about how to help mentors use their experience of developing their mentoring practice in ways that strengthen school improvement. I know quite a bit from helping artists work with teachers to help embed learning through the arts in the primary curriculum. I know a great deal about just how powerful developing deeper mentoring can be for accelerating school improvement. Sadly, too few school leaders understand the many different ways in which strong mentoring practice can support school (and individual) development.
In my Sauce for the Goose monograph (complete with an apple, chilli, ginger and coriander sauce – also good with vegetarian dishes!) I summarise some of the 42 different ways in which learning to be a mentor enhances mentors’ own teaching practice. Our workshops and development programmes take this to scale by exploring the connections between enhancing mentoring and wider school development. We haven’t got to 42 yet - but we are well on the way, starting with the way mentors can use new evidence and ideas from initial teacher education to review the school’s teaching and learning policies. Come and join us at Sheffield Hallam’s exciting education festival or in the Ipswich programme. Or contact us to explore a training trainers’ model for your TSA or MAT.
Philippa Cordingley
Chief Executive