Future-focused mentoring for second and third year teachers

This project involves schools from the metropolitan Brisbane area and aims to better understand the mentoring needs of early career teachers in their second and third years of teaching. In 2023, the FfM team delivered professional learning for second- and third-year early career teachers and, concurrently to this, researched to better understand their mentoring needs.

Teacher mentoring often ends after the first year of teaching, leaving teachers in their second and third years vulnerable to the ongoing challenges and demands of being an Early Career Teacher (ECT). As a result, these teachers may be challenged to remain in the profession. This project will work with relevant stakeholders to investigate the unique career experiences of these teachers and the ways in which mentoring can most effectively address their ongoing needs.

This project will generate new and contextually relevant knowledge about the mentoring needs of this group, and thus advance policy and practice intended to support these early career teachers in schools. Outcomes include the development of a nuanced mentoring program, as well as targeted professional support to build relevant mentoring capabilities of both mentors and ECTs. Benefits include improving these teachers’ ECT experiences beyond the first year of teaching, thus contributing to approaches aimed at reducing the current educational and economic burden related to ECT attrition and associated teacher shortages.

The outcome of this project will be a nuanced framework that will address the ongoing, yet different needs of this group of early career teachers and extend the focus on mentoring beyond the first year.

This publication is in progress.