Early Career Mentoring in England: a case study of professional discretion and policy disconnection

Cronin, Sue (2023) Early Career Mentoring in England: a case study of professional discretion and policy disconnection. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching. ISSN 2046-6854 (Accepted for Publication)

Text (Journal article) Final Early Career Mentoring in England Final (1).docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (62kB)

Abstract

This paper considers the practices and experiences of the new school-based mentors for Early Career Teachers (ECT’s), emerging from the UK Government’s new Early Career Framework (ECF) policy (DfE, 2019a). The paper uses Lipsky’s (2010) framing of professionals as ‘street level bureaucrats’ to consider the extent to which the ECT mentors, as new policy actors, exercise professional discretion (Lipsky, 2010) in negotiating and aligning the new ECF policy with existing practice. The main aim of the ECF policy is to deliver ‘a step change in support …, providing a funded entitlement to a structured 2-year package of high-quality development’ for ECT’s (DfE, 2019a:6). It signals a commitment to provide these beginning teachers with a dedicated mentor, who undergoes specialised training, to support the ECT’s professional development and to complement the existing role of the school-based induction tutor who is responsible for assessing the ECTs progress. The ECF framework signals a new level of policy prescription with the role for a mentor who has followed a defined programme of training in order to then deliver a structured, weekly programme of professional development for their ECT.

Early findings from interviews with a sample of new ECF mentors suggests a disconnect between the intentions of the policy and the reality of its enactment at a local level. The ECT mentors have limited professional discretion, but some are exercising this in relation to their own professional development training, as well as that of the professional development training they are providing for their ECTs. They are not simply implementing the policy but enacting the policy through an active process of interpretation and translation (Skerritt et al., 2021). The findings and the degree of discretion exercised by the ECT mentors alongside the implications of their policy enactment are discussed in the paper.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	This author accepted manuscript is deposited under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) licence. This means that anyone may distribute, adapt, and build upon the work for non-commercial purposes, subject to full attribution. If you wish to use this manuscript for commercial purposes, please contact permissions@emerald.com.'
Keywords:	Mentor, Early Career Teacher, policy implementation, policy enactment, professional discretion
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Education
Depositing User:	Sue Cronin
Date Deposited:	25 Jan 2023 16:16
Last Modified:	11 Nov 2024 10:50
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/3746

Actions (login required)

View Item