Sharing as equals

Structured one-on-one pairing of a mentor with a beginning teacher had not been feasible at Merrylands East Public School because of its relatively large number of new scheme teachers. Instead, identified mentors, Kaye Pearson, Belinda Sutton, and Bonnie Vicary, worked with different teachers at different times, allowing particular strengths and experiences to be shared in response to specific needs.

The climate of openness and the informality made the mentoring relationship beneficial for everyone involved. Rather than schedule set times for formal observations, mentors would come and go from classrooms, interacting naturally with both the new scheme teacher and her students. New scheme teacher, Kelly Seaman, commented that mentors regarded new teachers as colleagues, who valued the ideas and strategies that the new teachers, just fresh from university, brought to the relationship.

The mutual respect and the two-way feedback were powerful and motivating for the early career teachers, especially when their mentors subsequently used some of the new teachers' ideas and strategies in their own classrooms. Mentor Kaye, for example, adopted new teacher Diane Healy's practice of using flowcharts, tables and other graphic organisers as classroom displays. Previously, Kaye had tended to use just artwork or literacy-related materials on her classroom walls.

'It was very comfortable for both us and the mentors. The relationship was built as more of a friendship than as a relationship where someone was telling you what to do,' said Diane. Mardi Vassella agreed, commenting that the approachability of the mentors and other experienced teachers in the school instilled confidence about the quality of their teaching.

During 2006, the new scheme teachers worked together on an AGQTP-funded project which saw them produce sets of task cards containing learning activities that would meaningfully engage and challenge students who finished their work ahead of others. The project took a pedagogical approach to classroom management as a way of addressing Element 5 of the standards. After all, 'a quality learning environment makes for better student behaviour,' noted new scheme teachers, Jennifer Riley and Hannah Slender.

Although only one mentor worked with the new teachers on the project, the informal nature of the mentoring program played an important role in the project's success. Other mentors, as well as experienced colleagues, contributed indirectly because the mentoring program had established a strong collegial climate in which teachers of varying degrees of experience had been willing to share as equals.