For me, one of the most fascinating moments of England’s World Cup quarter-final victory over Norway happened in the minutes immediately after the match.
Jude Bellingham’s two goals had led England to victory and a semi-final place and the players were exhausted after a gruelling contest in difficult conditions. Yet, when Thomas Tuchel was interviewed after the match, he was critical of their performance.
“We made life very, very difficult for ourselves. The result is fantastic. We are in the last four. It’s amazing but I am not happy with the performance.” He went on to describe England as “sloppy”, making “a lot of technical mistakes”, and admitted that they had been “lucky” on the day (BBC, 2026).
When these comments were put to Bellingham, his reaction was telling.
“Yeah well, whatever.”
His whole demeanour shifted and he looked visibly deflated. He pointed out that playing against Norway had been “a tough shift” and emphasised his appreciation for the players who had worked so hard for the victory (BBC, 2026), appreciation which was (according to the interviewer) seemingly lacking from their manager.
The rush to analyse and the need for recognition
The post-match interviews of Tuchel and Bellingham reflect the inherent tension that can exist between the mentor and mentee perspective post-lesson. Bellingham was right, England had worked hard, shown resilience and had won. But Tuchel was right too. England had also been outplayed for long periods, made mistakes, and given themselves unnecessary problems. It was time for celebration but also for reflection and analysis to develop next steps.
So too in the classroom. How many times do teacher mentors watch a largely successful lesson but immediately think about what could have been better? Equally, how many times have we been on the receiving end of feedback and thought: “Yes, I know it wasn’t perfect, but didn’t you see how hard I worked in challenging conditions to make it as successful as it was?”
Like Bellingham, our beginning teachers need their effort to be recognised. Like Tuchel, our mentees need help to focus on how to make progress. The art of mentoring lies in doing both at the same time and at the RIGHT TIME.
Miss Steen’s Lesson
It’s Thursday period 4 and Freda Steen feels the knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach as she awaits 8RY’s arrival. The pupils are coming from Music on the other side of the school. The beginning of the lesson is always bitty and difficult with half the class arriving long before the rest finally pile in. Last week behaviour was dreadful and over half the class were kept behind at lunch. Her target from that lesson was to be clearer in following the behaviour policy – earlier warnings, more consistent follow up – and to give clearer instructions and explanations to get pupils settled to their work more efficiently. At the back of the room her mentor, Matt Bridge, has the observation booklet on his knee, pen poised.
At the end the lesson Freda wants to punch the air. She has managed behaviour more effectively, given warnings, and a couple of early sanctions seemed to nip bigger behaviour challenges in the bud. Sabrina, who spent last lesson with her head on the desk, has actually engaged in the activities. Freda was able to explain the task instruction clearly the first time and everyone, well everyone except Johnny, immediately settled to work. She is tired and pleased and desperate for Matt to recognise how hard she has worked.
Matt has recognised the improvement. He is especially pleased that Freda has acted on her target. He’s written this down in the book. But when Freda sits down expectantly at the start of lunch and says “So, what did you think?”, all Matt can think of is how good it is that she’s worked on these basic issues because now they can move on to discuss some of the more substantive issues he’s been wanting to raise with her for weeks. “Behaviour was much better” says Matt, “but let’s talk about Johnny. He wasn’t able to access the task you gave him and didn’t start the activity when everyone else did. You know he has an EHCP. What you needed to do is…”
Freda is deflated. She stops hearing the feedback because she is trying to protect the sense of achievement she had felt only seconds earlier.
The problem is that not that Matt’s observations are wrong but that they being shared before giving full acknowledgement of Freda’s effort to address her targets and the difficult conditions of the lesson. She needs Matt to notice not only what happened, but what it took to make it happen. Critically, she also needs Matt to give her time to process the lesson and move her own focus from an emotional response to lesson analysis where she is ready to engage in her own post-lesson reflection.
Reflection before judgement
One of the most useful habits mentors can develop is delaying offering their own evaluation of the lesson before eliciting the reflection of their mentee. Creating space for thoughtful and collaborative reflection is usually better than immediate judgement, and this dialogic approach ‘reposition[s] the mentor and [beginning teachers’] agentive professional identity’ (Jones et. al, 2021) meaning the post-lesson conversation has more power.
Instead of starting with feedback, mentors can scaffold reflection by asking questions rather than offering judgements. For example, Matt might ask Freda:
“What did you do before and during the lesson to act on your target from last time? What impact did that have on pupils/ the lesson? How do you feel about that?”
This opens a conversation that provides Matt with an opportunity to recognise and celebrate with Freda the hard work that helped to improve behaviour in the lesson. It also allows Matt to understand how working on this target his affected Freda emotionally and professionally and gives Freda a greater sense of ownership over her own progress. Consequently, her evaluation of the lesson is likely to be more analytical than defensive when Matt then says:
“You’d made some really positive changes from last week’s lesson, and it was brilliant to see the pupils responding well to your guidance and completing the task. You should be proud of that. Because you were so successful at moving things forward after last week’s lesson, was there anything in this lesson we can take forwards as a development point for next week? For example, I was wondering how Johnny could be prepared for a future independent practice task?
A lesson for mentors
Perhaps the biggest lesson from this World Cup moment is that timing and framing matter.
Tuchel was rushed into sharing his judgement of the match by a TV interviewer, and he will know that undertaking this analysis as the fans leave the stadium is unlikely to bear dividends for the team. Tuchel’s analysis may have been accurate and improvement focused, but it was too soon after the event. Bellingham’s pride in the collective effort was understandable, but it was an emotional response that lacked the reflection that will ultimately drive improvement.
As mentors and teacher educators we need to develop both the analytical eye of Tuchel (the ability to see what needs improving, regardless of outcome) and we also need the empathy of Bellingham (the recognition that people need their effort, resilience and success to be acknowledged).
References:
Johnston, N. (2026), World Cup 2026: Tuchel fumes at ‘lucky’ and ‘sloppy’ England – but Jude Bellingham defends players, BBC Sport.
Jones, L., Tones, S., Foulkes, G., & Jones, R. C. (2021). Associate Teachers’ views on dialogic mentoring. Teachers and Teaching, 27(1–4), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2021.1933421
Becoming a History Teacher 