1 Coaching within a school-based setting
The terms ‘coach’ and ‘mentor’ have different nuances in different fields: they may mean different things when used in an educational context compared to business, counselling or sport, for example. Even within education, there are different interpretations of the mentoring and coaching roles. Lancer, Clutterbuck and Megginson (2016) believe that the confusion between terms has arisen because of the complex nature of both coaching and mentoring, and due to the wide range of coaching and mentoring approaches, with elements of these overlapping.
As an experienced teacher supporting a beginner teacher’s professional development, you may have an opportunity to work with different ITE providers. In doing so, you will come across a profusion of labels for the roles of mentor/coach. In a review of literature on mentoring provision in Wales, commonly used terms were found to be: cooperating teacher; mentor teacher; supervisor and assessor (Bethell et al., 2020). It is also the case that beginner teachers may be called by various terms, including: student-teacher; trainee teacher; early career teacher or beginning teacher (Hobson and Malderez, 2013).
To aid in understanding how coaching differs from mentoring, this course will draw on the research of Lofthouse et al. (2010) on developing coaching among teachers. Read the following quote to help you complete Activity 1.
It is widely accepted that mentoring usually takes place at significant career events, such as induction and taking on new roles, it has an element of gatekeeping and the mentor is almost always someone more senior in the organisation and indeed there is an organisational motive for the process. Coaching … is associated with developing repertoire through focused experimenting with new classroom strategies and often has the objective of assisting in the development of open and collaborative cultures. Coaches do not have to be senior staff just someone with particular expertise and they should be supportive and not judgemental.
Lofthouse et al., 2010, p. 7
Activity 1 Mentoring or coaching?
To help clarify your understanding of how coaching and mentoring may differ, read the short scenarios below and indicate whether you think they are examples of mentoring or coaching.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is a.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is a.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is b.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is a.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is b.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is b.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is a.
a.
Mentoring
b.
Coaching
The correct answer is b.
This activity has demonstrated a few aspects that will be used to differentiate mentoring and coaching on this course, as well as when either is an appropriate role to take in enabling a beginner teacher to move towards autonomy. The next section will discuss more about coaching.