Questions Encourage Professional Autonomy

One of the long-term goals of mentoring is to develop increasingly independent professionals.

Whilst instructional mentoring may require mentors to provide explicit guidance, mentors should also create opportunities for trainees to make professional decisions for themselves.

Whitmore (2017) argues that effective coaching increases both awareness and responsibility.

When mentors ask thoughtful questions rather than immediately providing solutions, trainees begin to take greater ownership of their own development.

For example, imagine a trainee who asks:

"What should I do to improve questioning?"

A mentor could simply provide a strategy.

Alternatively, they might ask:

"What have you already noticed about the pupils who responded most successfully?"

This question encourages the trainee to analyse their own evidence before receiving further support such as deconstructing the highest leverage area of questioning, with opportunities to rehearse with you before applying it in the classroom. 

Over time, these conversations help trainees become less dependent upon mentors and more confident in evaluating and improving their own practice.

This aligns closely with the ambitions of the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (Department for Education [DfE], 2024), which emphasises the importance of developing reflective practitioners capable of making informed professional judgements.