"Sink or Swim"- Mentoring Beginning Teachers

This article is based on my master's research project (Knight, 2022) which looked at the support that newly graduated teachers receive in enacting Te Tiriti o Waitangi (TTOW) principle of participation. Semi-structured interviews with newly graduated teachers revealed that gaps in existing mentoring programmes may not be limited to mentoring around TTOW, but may in fact reflect gaps in all aspects of the mentoring programme. This lack of clearly structured mentoring programmes for many new graduates will be my focus here. Based on the literature and findings of my master's research, I will argue that in order for teachers to be both retained in the sector and effectively grown as professionals, effective mentoring must be considered and prioritised. Of additional interest is teachers' emotional wellbeing. The article is framed in the 'purakau' lens, developed by Wirihana (2012). Due to limited availability of existing research on beginning teachers' experiences in the Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) context, a number of articles relating to beginning teachers' experiences come from international and /or compulsory-sector contexts. This may reflect a need for further research into this topic in the Aotearoa New Zealand ECE context.