From the outside, teacher mentoring can look like a simple weekly meeting, a quick post-lesson conversation, or a shared planning session squeezed in before home time. But mentoring is multi-dimensional work. It involves constant shifting between encouragement and challenge, between stepping in and stepping back as mentors do the work of:
- inducting someone into the profession and all its unwritten norms.
- offering pastoral support when the realities of teaching feel overwhelming.
- guiding and developing the beginning teacher’s thinking behind subject-specific curriculum and pedagogy.
- making difficult judgements about readiness for independent practice.
A profession built on ‘paying it forward’
In the UK context, mentors sit at the centre of system-wide ambitions for Initial and Early Career teacher development (DfE, 2024). However, despite the role being seen as vital in policy documentation, mentoring does not always get the recognition it deserves. Fortunately for the profession, most mentors take on the role because they recognise they have inherited a profession shaped by others and feel they have a responsibility to contribute to its future in some way even. And they do it even though they are unlikely to be the beneficiaries of that support and hard work, as they are likely to send their mentee out into the wider education system to work in another school.
Most mentors take on the role because someone once did it for them and they see a purpose in sustaining and contributing to the wider education system.
A simple thank you
So, as the year closes, this is a simple post with a simple purpose.
To say thank you to our mentors. Thank you for the hours you didn’t have but gave anyway, for the conversations that mattered, for the care you showed to beginning teachers finding their feet, and for your commitment to a profession that depends on this work more than it often recognises
Mentoring is not just support. It is stewardship. It is how we ensure that teaching remains a thoughtful, reflective, research-engaged profession. It is how we build continuity across generations of teachers. And it is how we keep the conversation about what it means to teach effectively in our subject/phase alive.
If you have mentored this year, our profession is in your debt.
And we hope, too, that in giving so much, you have found something in return: a renewed sense of purpose, an opportunity to re-engage with your subject/ phase, a space for your own professional growth, and a sense of belonging to a community that extends far beyond your own classroom or school (Crooks & London, 2025).
Quite simply, THANK YOU.
Becoming a History Teacher 