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ACER and the Eastern Region - mentoring in ITT pilot case study

About ACER and its Mentoring Training
The Association of Colleges in the Eastern Region (ACER) represents all 36 further education, tertiary, sixth form and agricultural and horticultural colleges in the East of England.  An important part of ACER’s role in the region is to undertake and disseminate research that will materially improve provision in the East of England.  ACER also provides a range of training courses and specialist conferences to both members and non-members through its network of partners, associates and consultants.

 

ACER started to offer mentoring training as a result of the introduction of the new teacher training qualifications in literacy, language and numeracy at levels 2, 3 and 4.  One result of this training programme was the development of a mentoring handbook together with a guide called ‘Steps to Setting up a Mentoring Scheme’.  ACER’s previous work and experience with teacher training providers informed the starting point for this research pilot for mentoring in Initial Teacher Training (ITT).

 

Introduction and background to the project

 

Key idea
"The aim of the mentoring pilot project in the eastern region was to explore, develop and evaluate existing mentoring schemes across a range of providers in the region, using our ‘Steps to Setting up a Mentoring Scheme’ as an initial template of good practice." 

 

Our objectives were to:

 

• investigate and evaluate existing models of mentoring using the ‘Steps to Setting up a Mentoring Scheme’ as a checklist
• identify where good practice existed in four providers in the East of England
• introduce new practices into existing mentoring systems
• evaluate new practices
• make recommendations based on our evaluation
• amend our existing guidance in the light of the research.

 

We identified four providers who were representative of the range of provision in the region and who were at different stages of introducing mentoring into their Initial Teacher Training (ITT) or their Skills for Life (SfL) specialist teacher training programme(s).

 

The providers Writtle College is an HEI serving the land-based, amenity and leisure and rural industries.  Less than half the students are in the FE division.  The college has no internal teacher training provision.  New teachers train at the Anglia Ruskin University or one of the local colleges.   Suffolk College was commissioned by the Professional Development Centre to run the Level 4 Specialist Literacy and Numeracy qualifications for the county.  The teacher training team was drawn from nine organisations across the county as were the trainees and the mentors.   Norfolk Adult Education is a county-wide LEA managed service who runs the City & Guilds 7407 for both internal and external trainee teachers   West Suffolk College is an FE college offering further, higher and adult education courses.  Their ITT programme includes a PGCE, Certificate in Education and the City & Guilds 7407