Mentoring: a vehicle for supporting staff and pupil wellbeing

January is often a time of setting goals, making resolutions and starting to implement the changes we want to see in our lives. This year, with the coronavirus pandemic still impacting massively on the school community, it’s more important than ever to ensure wellbeing is at the very heart of the goals we are making.

The EFS team has taken a look at mentoring as a low-cost and time-efficient option for supporting staff and pupil wellbeing.

What is mentoring?

Broadly speaking, mentoring is an ongoing, supportive relationship between colleagues, aimed at creating a safe and nurturing space in which the mentee can grow, learn and develop. There are several different types of mentoring approach, including experience- and skills-based mentoring and more holistic, pastoral forms of support. The type of mentoring that will bring the biggest benefits to your setting will ultimately depend on the people you have and the situation you find yourself in.

Who can be a mentor/mentee?

One of the most important things to note about mentoring is that it is NOT line management. In order to create the sort of safe space where a mentee feels able to make themselves vulnerable and ask questions, it’s important that they are paired with a mentor they feel comfortable with. Pairing an NQT with a colleague who is a few rungs above them on the career ladder might not always be a bad idea, but it’s important to factor in personalities, roles and responsibilities when making these decisions. The main aim of mentoring is to foster a judgement-free zone for learning, development and growth, so pairing the right mentor with the right mentee is vital.

What difference can it make?

Effective mentoring can make a huge difference to the wellbeing of everyone in the setting – not just those within the mentor/mentee relationship. If a member of staff feels supported, and has access to the right guidance at the time they need it, without fear of judgement or reprisal, the chances are their confidence will grow and this will carry over into the way they perform their role. The knock-on effect of this will be felt across the setting, improving relationships among staff and pupils, and fostering an environment in which everybody feels safe and supported.

Why is it worth investing in?

A well designed and managed mentoring programme can have a dramatic impact on the culture of a setting and the engagement people feel with it. Mentoring can mean the difference between a happy school community, and one in which everybody feels like they are simply showing up every day to complete their roles in a vacuum – no sense of achievement, no sense of belonging, and no commitment to investing more than they need to.

The mental wellbeing of staff and pupils is of paramount importance, especially during the pandemic. Teachers are struggling. Pupils are struggling. And the strength of our communities is being challenged in a way it never has been before. Starting the year by implementing a mentoring programme will not only ensure those all-important lines of communication are kept open, it will set your school community up to grow and flourish, despite the challenges we are all facing.

Common mentoring misconceptions

We’ve talked about what mentoring is, so what about what it isn’t? Here are just a few of things mentoring is NOT.

• Mentoring is not line management.
• Mentoring is not cascading.
• Mentoring is not therapy.
• Mentoring is not a cure-all.

How to get started

If you want to implement a mentoring programme in your setting, the best place to start is by making sure a proactive plan is in place for when people might do it. Everybody has enough on their plates at the moment, so you’ll need them to see it as a highly valued and positive exercise, rather than another thing on their to-do list. Their mentoring time should be a protected space that the mentee can rely on.

The next step is to raise awareness. You’re going to want people to ‘buy in’ to the programme, and the only way they will do that is if they know what it is, why they are doing it, when they will get time to do it, and what the hoped-for benefits are.

Once you’ve prepped everybody on the merits of mentoring, you’ll need to get a plan in place for rolling it out, and for monitoring its impact. A fundamental part of this will be asking for volunteers. Your school EP can help you with this process, and the EFS manual contains additional ideas and prompts for supporting staff wellbeing. Implementing a mentoring programme is a great target to include within your EFS Action Plan.

How do I know it’s working?

Done well, mentoring programmes will enjoy high engagement and participation rates, low dropout rates, high satisfaction rates and high reporting of goals being achieved. There will, however, be broader signs that your mentoring programme is starting to have an impact. Some of the most frequently cited impacts of mentoring, which should be visible within the setting, are:

• Increased staff retention
• Increased confidence and self-awareness
• Enhanced staff-pupil relationships
• Lower levels of anxiety
• Enhanced team culture
• Increased knowledge sharing
• Job satisfaction
• Increased morale

Essentially, when a good mentoring programme begins to have an impact, it will feel like there has been a huge, positive culture shift across the setting.

In order to ensure the mentoring programme is working in your setting, it will be important to decide what indicators you will consult, e.g. EFS staff audits, questionnaires, feedback forms, performance data, attendance data, discussion, focus group. It will be important to do this regularly, especially in the early days. When data from agreed indicators has been collated, it will be important to share this (anonymously) with the school community to support the continued commitment to and relevance of the programme.

Further support:

Please feel free to contact your school EP or the EFS team for further information regarding staff training around the topic of mentoring. You may also be interested in receiving training from the EPS on Solution Circles – a creative and supportive problem-solving tool for teams.