From the Teacher Support Network, www.teachersupport.info.

MENTORS: THE NQT LIFESAVERS

As well as providing services to help improve the lives of individuals, Teacher Support Network also engages with other organisations within education and government itself, whether in borough councils or Westminster Palace, to discuss the needs of teachers. You may have read about the contribution that our charity made to the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee’s work on false allegations made against teachers earlier in the year. More recently we helped its chair, Barry Sherman, MP, and his fellow committee members during their investigation into the training provided to teachers by contributing written evidence of our understanding of the subject and its impact on the health of teachers. Their report was published earlier this month.

Training is of course a vital ingredient to teachers being able to fulfil their responsibilities to the best of their abilities. The pressures of school life – and the ever-changing nature of curricula and initiatives as well as the constant influx of new pupils – means that even the most experienced teacher can benefit immeasurably from support in developing an understanding of new issues, techniques, targets or legislation.

For this very reason, amongst the manifold responsibilities of teachers, the mentoring of new teachers is amongst the most important. NQTs who contact Teacher Support Network repeatedly emphasise the importance of their relationship with their mentor. The assistance they provide in developing an understanding of the responsibilities of teaching, the needs – educational or not – of their pupils and the unique characteristics of their school community can make or break a new arrival’s ability to develop and their enthusiasm for the job. One teacher we recently spoke to called his a ‘lifesaver’, without whom he ‘would probably would have packed it in during the first term’.

However, far too many NQTs tell us that a lack of support from their mentors is causing them great difficulty. Without the invaluable guiding hand that a mentor provides, teachers can find the challenges of the profession, which can be so much more pronounced when they are first experienced, even more difficult to cope with.

But of course those teachers who take on mentoring responsibilities are no strangers to these challenges themselves. Although experience in the classroom means teachers are more likely to have developed mechanisms for dealing with workload, pupil behaviour or problems with parents, the nature of schools means that these problems can culminate in a seemingly insurmountable combination of pressures at any time in a teachers career. Mentors themselves need support, and it is the responsibilities of schools – with the support of the government – to provide it.

For this reason, we were pleased to read the report’s commitment to ensuring the provision of such support. Amongst their recommendations, the committee said that “that those who mentor trainees on school placement should have at least three years’ teaching experience and should have completed specific mentor training.”

Effective training for NQT mentors is an integral element in providing new teachers with the support they need, developing their skills and preventing them becoming overwhelmed and unhappy with their jobs. It’s also vital to making sure that mentors themselves are not put under undue pressure because of the additional responsibilities they have taken on.

In all, the training programmes at any school community must meet the needs of teachers at any stage in their career – from new arrivals to senior or experienced staff – in order to improve the emotional wellbeing of staff and sustain levels of educational standards. Whilst we will always be on had to help individual teachers experiencing difficulties, we’re pleased to have had a influence on the government’s position towards training and hope that the Committee’s recommendations help improve the provision of training to mentors across Great Britain.