Being a Mentor with Sally Bethell and Sian Wickersham

It's been quite a while since we discussed the all-important role of the mentor in initial teacher education, and we welcome two guests today: Sally Bethell, veteran of several podcast recordings, and Sian Wickersham, one of our newest colleagues.

Sally has spent years becoming our go-to colleagues about all things to do with mentoring, and is in the closing stages of doctoral research on the subject. Meanwhile, Sian has just joined us from a role at an academy chain in London, and her perspective as a new member of the team (and one with experience of initial teacher education over the border in England) adds a new angle.

There have been some major changes in the way we work in partnership with our schools to educate new members of the teaching profession in the last few years. How has this manifested itself in the role of the mentor, the person who the student teacher probably sees more than anyone else on the programme? How have our colleagues who train and support mentors changed how they work to take account of this? And how can schools select the very best possible people to be mentors?

---------------------------------

Recorded in studio D0.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 9th December 2021