Mentors
Evidence has shown that mentor teachers also benefit from being involved in Career Start. Mentorship provides an opportunity to develop leadership capability and provides a pathway to middle leadership for experienced teachers.
To support this, mentor teachers receive a 1-hour weekly reduction in face-to-face teaching duties for each early career teacher they mentor.
Mentor teachers additionally receive:
- opportunities for professional development
- regular support and guidance from Learning Alliance Leaders
- access to program resources focussed on evidence-based practice.
Mentor selection
Schools must designate a suitable mentor for every early career teacher. Effective mentor selection is important and will ensure the early career teacher can fully benefit from the Career Start program. Schools must consider:
- capability – is this a leadership development opportunity for an emerging leader? Being a Career Start mentor is an opportunity to leverage experience and be provided with support to build capability. This may be a pathway to middle leadership opportunities. Mentors of all experience levels require a commitment to continuous learning and development to be effective
- compatibility – is the mentor a good match for the early career teacher? Mentorship is a relationship that must be built on a foundation of trust and equity. Consider a mentor in the same team as the early career, who has experience in that part of the school or might have similar or relatable experiences. Mentors need to be actively teaching to ensure that early career teachers can observe their mentor in the classroom
- capacity – does the mentor have other significant roles in the school that may impact on their capacity to support the early career teacher? The mentor should have time for deliberate, regular and protected meetings.
Avoid selecting mentors whose position may impact an early career teacher's ability to engage openly in discussions around their practice or challenges they may experience throughout the year.
Mentorship models
- One-to-one – this is a model which allocates a single mentor to a single early career teacher. One-to-one is a model suitable for schools with a staffing profile that can facilitate the appropriate time release backfill.
- One-to-many – one mentor will support multiple early career teachers through the program. This approach may be necessary for schools that do not have enough experienced teachers available to resource a one-to-one model. If adopting this model, consider that early career teachers may feel as though they are being compared to one another. Separately connecting early career teachers with a one-to-one buddy who is not supporting other early career teachers may assist with this.
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