There has been a huge focus on mentoring over the past few weeks. It is no wonder really, as the imminent roll-out of the Early Career Framework (ECF) has made schools reflect on their systems, and consider whether they have the capacity to provide the quality support for new teachers that the ECF commands.
Tes recently ran an article explaining in great detail what the new framework would mean for early career teachers and schools. In the article, it spoke about the new two-year early career induction period, with a rigorous and structured framework, which is based on the best available research evidence.
The article spoke about the increased support new teachers will get from their mentors, as a result of extra funding that schools will get from the Department for Education. This includes access to funded high-quality training for mentors, which will be provided by external training materials.
While many teachers welcome the framework and are positive about the changes, some are concerned about how the changes promised by the ECF will be possible to implement in the average school setting.
Early Career Framework: How mentors can balance NQT support with their own workload
One of the biggest concerns is about the increased support that mentors will be expected to offer and how they will have the capacity to do so with no reduction in timetable.
I share their concerns. As a busy teacher who has mentored for well over a decade, I sometimes find it difficult to tread the tightrope of support they need, while balancing my own ever-increasing workload.
That is why I wrote my book Mentoring in Schools, as I realised that not all mentors have the time to plough through the evidence and reading that may be required to help early career teachers achieve the “learn to” statements that are in the framework.
The ECF and the planning to implement it does not state whether mentors will gain any protected time to carry out their roles. The policy states that there will be “funding to cover mentors’ time with the mentee in the second year of teaching”. This suggests that - dependent on how schools plan to deploy the funding - protected time may form part of this, as well as providing cover for mentors when they need to observe or team-teach lessons, or even hold their meetings.
Support for more experienced teachers
Other colleagues commented on the fact that there is already a lot of support for early career teachers out there, and that more support should be provided for more experienced teachers, who are also leaving the classroom in droves.
I totally agree. But I actually think that the Early Career Framework might help experienced teachers, too. There are many teachers up and down the country who love being in the classroom and have no desire to progress through the traditional routes of middle leader or pastoral leader, and on to senior leadership. With the abolition of advanced skills teachers and few lead-practitioner roles available, there is scant opportunity for these teachers to progress in schools. Mentoring may be the answer to this problem.
As the chair of the Department for Education’s initial teacher training market review stated earlier this week, mentoring might not be “the right role for somebody who is themselves in a very early stage of their teaching career”.
I call mentors “expert colleagues” in my book, as experienced teachers have a wealth of subject and pedagogical knowledge to draw on, picked up from years in the classroom. This often makes them the perfect professionals to work with early career teachers.
This is why I am so excited about the Early Career Framework. Despite many unanswered questions about how it may be implemented practically in schools, I feel it can only be excellent news for experienced colleagues like myself, who have been crying out for the opportunity to develop others and improve our own pedagogy with some high-quality training. Let’s give it a chance.
Haili Hughes is an English teacher at Saddleworth School in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Her book Mentoring in Schools is available from Crown House or Amazon
