Mentoring: a perfect match?

New headteachers, children's centre leaders and directors of children’s services (DCSs) can all get support from a mentor. But the benefits of mentoring go beyond the professional boost it gives the mentee, with the mentors themselves reporting major benefits “back at base” as well as a real boost for their own professional development.

For experienced Bristol headteacher Neil Galloway there were two distinct benefits to mentoring another head.

“When talking to new heads you get face to face with raw excitement and enthusiasm and that passion for learning,” says Neil, headteacher of Kingsweston Special School in northwest Bristol.

“It’s important as an experienced head to keep exposing yourself to that energy. It's contagious and you pass it on in turn to your colleagues.”

As one of the first professional partners – mentors that support newly appointed headteachers as part of the National College’s Head Start programme – Neil sees the work as hugely beneficial for new heads and for the development of his own practice.

“With almost every school there are things to see and learn from,” he says. “It’s about supporting and contributing towards the effectiveness of the new head and the first thing I emphasise when I start a new mentor relationship is that the relationship will be determined by their needs.

“It’s important as an experienced head to keep exposing yourself to that energy. It keeps you excited about your job.”

“I try to support their thinking about consequences of the different ideas that they bring forward. But on a number of occasions I’ve brought ideas developed during those meetings back to my own school. One was the restructure of my senior team. We now have a member of SLT who does not have QTS and is responsible for the school's community and equality work, with a key duty to organise outreach with parents as we take pupils from across Bristol. That was developed from an idea I’d discussed with my mentee.”

Mentoring is now an established part of the armoury of professional development and support available for England’s headteachers, children's centre leaders and DCSs.

Over 3,300 dedicated mentors are currently working for the National College alone, supporting trainee headteachers on their placements in National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) leadership development schools around the country and as part of the 1,100-strong force of professional partners.

Mentoring is also a key element in many other College programmes, including the National Professional Qualification for Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) and the school business management qualifications, while mentoring is seen as a key role of school-to-school support such as the expanding National Leaders of Education and Local Leaders of Education programmes.

Dr Fred Paterson is head of knowledge and learning at the National College and a facilitator who works with mentors on the College’s Mentor Plus programme that matches new directors of children’s services with mentors. “There are obvious benefits of mentoring for the mentee,” he says. “It helps them reflect on their practice, develop their understanding and skills and identify areas where they can develop. But working as a mentor is real professional development for that individual as well.

“As you move through your professional career being involved as a coach or a mentor can be a significant driver for your own professional development. It can improve your job satisfaction, help you develop skills – and it encourages the same self-reflection that can help you improve your own practice.”

Mentoring has certainly given Essex head David Crowe fresh ideas. The head of The Boswells School in Chelmsford is an local leader of education working with a nearby school.

“It’s not been one-way traffic – the relationship has led to improvements in both our schools,” he says. “It is very much a reciprocal learning partnership and we framed it in those terms from the beginning.

“It’s helped our partner school and it’s also helped us here at Boswells. We’ve made changes to our curriculum and our leadership approach over recent years. For example, I have increased involvement in decision making at the school by taking some key decision making responsibilities away from SLT and investing them in four executive committees, made up largely of middle leaders, working to clear terms of reference. Our partnership working has helped a number to work in higher leadership roles in other schools which has given them the experience to make an even bigger contribution when they return.”

The benefits for the mentor seem clear, but what’s in it for the mentee?

“It is very much a reciprocal learning partnership.”

Rachel Dickinson, strategic director, children, at Leicester City Council, is working with Phyllis Dunipace, a hugely experienced London DCS who retired from the role last summer, as part of Mentor Plus.

“It was an affirmation for me,” says Rachel. “When you step up into the role of DCS there are issues that are hitting you from all sides. Unless you are a supremely confident human being you have to regularly ask yourself whether you are doing the right thing.

“In my first meetings with Phyllis I outlined the key issues that I was facing and I was able to get an independent view from her. She was able to prompt me to make additional lines of enquiry which stimulated further thinking on my part.

“As a DCS you have a uniquely challenging role as a system leader and it can be very isolating. Who is it within your network who understands the specific challenges that you face?

“My chief executive is used to the DCS here and has been tremendously supportive. Having said that it has still been important to have someone independent and objective. You couldn’t reasonably expect your chief executive to take on the role of a mentor – however experienced they are in your field. It is important to have support outside the accountability structure.

“Given that the role is so wide you could use your time 20 times over. There is a real skill in using your time as effectively as possible, with the right people in the right places at the right time and discussing this issue with a mentor is a very useful way of sense checking this.”

But there are challenges, says Rachel. Finding the time is the chief obstacle. “You have to be clear about the benefits,” she says. “You need to make time to reflect and think issues through with a mentor.

“It is difficult to find time but the time that’s found pays dividends. It’s a very dangerous thing for a leader to say that he or she hasn’t the time to stand back and reflect. I think it’s really important – it improves the quality of what you are doing.”

For Fred Paterson, mentoring has implications beyond the professional enrichment it gives mentor and mentee. It is often the first step towards wider system leadership roles such as national leader of education.

“Becoming a mentor through a role such as professional partner may well be the first rung on the ladder to becoming a system leader,” he says.

“If every leader could point to aspiring leaders they are mentoring, as well as the fact that they are themselves being mentored by an experienced leader, then we would be some way towards a vision of a system which really supports and develops itself.”